In this example we can remove bullets and the margins and padding from the list. Great & Smart work. ShopTalk is a podcast all about front-end web design and development. Its working working on IE 8 , any work around..? After entry of CSS higher version, it became possible to create similar effects using standard HTML technologies, a significant number of people who have difficulty with hand control or eye blindness can use a keyboard or other text device for accessing drop down menu. Using JavaScript for dropdowns (not necessarily for menus) is something we all here do all the time, I personally don’t think I’ll be doing a CSS-only dropdown any time soon, but this article is certainly my go to tut if I ever encounter such gnarly situation. A navigation menu always requires Standard HTML as a basic tool for menu designing. Also we have added some colors to make it interactive, Listing 2: Script of Horizontal Menu and Submenu. I’ve read a few comments about getting a parent selector – is this something that will happen? Dropdowns are a common component of modern (and not so modern) web design. For instance, when you hover over ‘Shop’ in the orange menu, it opens the subnav with WIreless, Bundles, Digital TV, etc. or "Tricks". When it (or its parent) is not being hovered, the
has the styling that indicates a dropdown element, when it’s being hovered, the dropdown displays normally. Making the code easier to understand for other people working on the project is much more beneficial I believe. It’s good usability because it reduces the number of clicks the user has to perform to navigate to different sections. for local development. You might be aware of the jQuery .has method, which allows you to select an element if it has any of another selector as a descendant. Ray was interested in sharing this technique as a way to pay forward things he’s learned from this site in the past, which is awesome. It’s hard to read for future maintainers, and it’s not very performant. They have the Primary Menu (Shop, My ATT, Support). Thanks in advance! Test this out yourself, add any number of nested lists at any level! Thank you Aaron Gustafson :). This means visitors will either waste their time looking and get frustrated for doing so or miss areas of your site all together! I’ve re-installed Chrome and this works fine. This is a very interesting way of accomplishing dropdowns (which we know have usability issues), but yet is something we can’t really fully live without, like our pal IE ><. Everyone’s complaining about the relative maintainability of one line of css? Many designers are satisfied with leaving as that. CSS3 selectors do offer an amazing amount of control for targeting elements and I find it useful( depending on the situation, as always). /* margin-left:1px; replace this rule with the follwing */ But if you know a little something about the HTML structure, you can use a combination of positional selectors to mimic it. More and more I find that I prefer to keep my CSS clean by using a few extra elements/classes in my markup. The common way to address this issue, is to simply add a class to the - s that contain
s (sub menus) so that we can style those items differently from those that do not contain sub navigation. Note: You can also check it out this article and learn how to create a Metro Style Menu. We will be adding a few sub menu items to it. Very neat and clean. As you probably know, menus are lists of links and, as such, it is standard practice to mark them up as s. Now we can proceed to create sub menu items. Where the “li” elements will be displayed as inline elements, this forces the list to be in one line. That is a very fair point. It will demonstrate the functionality by giving some examples on to play with different types of menus. We can can achieve nearly the same thing with li a:first-child:nth-last-child(x) { }. Whether adding a class is easier is a valid point but as far as the CSS goes the technique is valid, informative, and instructional, and as far as I know never been used before for this situation. It’s a clever way to select an element when it’s not alone. By extension, drop down menus are merely nested s. The “ul” element has a full width and each hyperlink in the list has a width of 7px. Also, I don’t see an issue in assigning classes to the - ‘s that contain dropdowns, you can add those classes with JavaScript if you want to keep the original markup clean, or if for whatever reason you can’t access the markup. Inside menu created with add_menu_page() If you are attempting to add a submenu page to a menu page created via add_menu_page() the first submenu page will be a duplicate of the parent add_menu_page(). These days I find making websites a balancing act between keeping my markup clean and keeping my CSS clean. border-left: 1px solid #fff; But I have found that :nth-child(x):nth-last-child(x) gives the most flexibility and serves as a built-in fallback (as it allows us to target the element directly, rather than by exclusion), and there is little cross browser support advantage gained by using the other selector/selector combinations. Following listed script will display simple vertical menu with sub menu, which compile the basic idea of menu designing. The key is having an expected child count (HTML element planned parenthood?). As much as I love the first-child & nth-child, I often find I refactor ( if I can ) with actual classes to help with readability. While clever, the CSS calculations can be tricky at times or the method may be entirely impossible to implement depending on what other techniques you have used to lay out your menu and/or position your submenus, or the overall effect you desired to achieve. Select pages that you want to use as sub menu item and add them to the menu area. Looking at the previous screenshot, you can see that there is a page named Level 1. That is, create faux links: style s that’s are direct children of the
- to indicate that there are more links that follow and, by contrast, style anchor tags as not having additional sub items. -This does not work in the latest Chrome. I only use pseudo classes when I am rapid prototyping a layout, or working in an environment when I can’t easily access the HTML. Recently, I was working on a dropdown navigation bar and wanted to differentiate the menu items which contained sub menus from those that didn’t. A better solution would be to alter the markup and add some classes to the various elements and thereby decouple the HTML and CSS from each other. I just wanted it to work as if the item just knew it had a sub menu or not. I’ve gotta jump on the “why not use a class” bandwagon. Figure 1: Above figure is simple menu with submenu created by div tag which contains four main menu and 16 submenu (4 submenu for each main menu) and we have used standard HTML as a baseline. Figure 1: Above figure is simple menu with submenu created by div tag which contains four main menu and 16 submenu (4 submenu for each main menu) and we have used standard HTML as a baseline. Simple, graceful and totally automatic; the way it ought to be. There is sadly no such selector in CSS yet. I have had people come to me with only access to or knowledge of CSS, but not the actual CMS template; in which case this could be a lifesaver, for example. }. The markup is just your standard nested UL, but note that I have only used one class in the HTML, on the root
. We have seen three kinds of menus including submenus. I also run the latest Chrome. Using pure CSS, one can style the upper level of a navigation menu any which way, and hide the sub levels so that they are revealed only when the visitor hovers on the appropriate area. Especially for big menus, this trick would remove a lot of “unnecessary” characters. Even just a brief outline without all the details, like whether you think it’s mostly powered by jquery, would be much appreciated! This article will cover the creating of a CSS menu using the HTML Div tags. How can i open a link under the same navigation bar? The tech stack for this site is fairly boring. Introducing JavaScript 6 - Arrow Functions, Introducing JavaScript 6 - Using the let keyword, Meeting Angular Seed - An application skeleton for AngularJS, Introduction to Kendo UI Web Applications, If you don't have a MrBool registration, click here to register (free). $(‘.nav’).find(‘li’).has(‘ul’).addClass(‘parent’); At the time of writing, estimated global support for these selectors, as used, was roughly 87% which is not too bad. I’m sorry it doesn’t live up to your elegance standards. you could just consider the code to highlight the fact it has children and use another method for the show/hide option of the drop down I guess.. Woops! I've used WordPress since day one all the way up to v17, Sweet ! In this example we will add Level 2a, 2b, and Level 3a, 3b pages. Add this CSS, temporarily, to see where the problem lies and to find the solution: In my opinion this is horrible code. I like how each one is activated upon hover and stays displayed until you hover over another li and the subnav for that appears and stays displayed. Recently, I was working on a dropdown navigation bar and wanted to differentiate the menu items which contained sub menus from those that didn’t. Clever, clever… I think everything would be so much easier with a “parent” selector. I’m specifically trying to duplicate the way the horizontal subnav functions. I’m probably the biggest markup purest out there right now and I’ve been abusing nth-child like a madman for years, but I’m finally starting to turn a corner with it. Then you can use :afteror :before to add something on it or to customize in different mannor. In Firefox at least, this is due to the “margin” values in the CSS, in other words you end up hovering over an empty space that is not part of the menu (:hover is no longer maintained). I could have just as easily changed backgrounds on the anchor itself instead; you can make it do most anything you want once you have targeted the element. The SUBWAY® menu offers a wide range of sub sandwiches, salads and breakfast ideas for every taste. That is, create faux links…”. Correct, you can not focus non “a” elements – had a big piece of work to do on this recently. Remove the offending margin(s) and you shouldn’t have an issue. Does not work in FF 25 Beta, the dropdown vanishes immediately when I move the cursor (not matter what direction). It must be a small positioning issue, but still, they are failing at this moment I’m typing this. This section will explain the drop down menu or submenu in horizontal Menu. I was incorrect about the latest Chrome bit, turns out my Chrome updater is actually faulty :( They then have a menu for each item in the Primary Menu (so a Shop menu, My ATT menu, and Support menu). Sure, it’s clever and awesome CSS, but realistically, a lot of future maintainers won’t fully understand it. Finally, just to polish it off, some positioning and arrow styling CSS code. On the aesthetic side of this particular demo, this addresses the ‘dead area’ issue: I’ll let Ryan elaborate on the Chrome issues he was experiencing. Listing 3: Script to Sub Menu/Dropdown Menu. It’s working with what we have in the tool box. Ok, I’ll just plunge in here. Listed script will compile the idea of dropdown menu in horizontal way. These menus are hidden with CSS. I am having 2+ years experience of developing Web applications and Websites using HTML, JavaScript, CSS, C#.NET etc.. Click here to login, MrBool is totally free and you can help us to help the Developers Community around the world, Yes, I'd like to help the MrBool and the Developers Community before download, No, I'd like to download without make the donation. in Computer Science & Engineering. Then when you hover over ‘myAT&T,’ it displays the items Overview, Bill & Payments, etc. In modern interactive web designing, drop down menus appear very frequently. However, I understand that not everyone has this luxury, and then this solution is probably fine. *May or may not contain any actual "CSS" If you want a submenu page in this scenario, you should first create a duplicate of your add_menu_page() and then add your add_submenu_page(): I’m wondering if anyone has adapted this to use as a WordPress menu? Good idea Ray, that’s an interesting technique. I really like how the arrows switch up/down, very descriptive and visually helpful. leverage Jetpack for extra functionality and Local I suppose I was being ‘old school. That’s it. I also business, with a local development tool to match. You’re trading off clean markup for messy CSS. Coyier and a team of swell people. This is a really clever hack, but adding a class really isn’t that tedious in a situation like this. The sub-menu of the item in Resume pops up, but disappears when you try to hover over it. In Firefox, if you flick your mouse down fast enough, the browser doesn’t have enough time to make it disappear completely and so the :hover state is maintained, and no issues. I am Software Developer from India. Following section contains the description of linear menu (horizontal menu). JavaScript creations. Here is a quick example. I really like the way the arrows rotate 180 degrees when we navigate to the child menus. It’s cleaner in that you don’t have to add “submenu” classes to your markup but, just as before, it still requires that you structure the content of your list manually or that your CMS can foretell which list items will contain other s as sub menus. I often use “opt-in” classes myself, but the idea of the CSS ‘reacting’ to the markup, especially when I have seen things like:, appealed to me. You must be logged to download. The concept is about marking items with additional content w/o altering the HTML; potentially this technique be used in situations other than menus as well. a decision I'm very happy with. Pretty simple, but also pretty tedious and not particularly graceful. This tutorial will deal with menu designing in CSS. Note that for me in Firefox 24.0 the dropdowns fail 3 out of 5 tries to hover over them. I haven’t personally tested in Chrome, but in Firefox, it disappears at a certain point. Another way, assuming that upper level items are not coded as links, is to use that difference in tags as leverage. In certain ways it would be a good thing – such as in this example – in others it could be a pain if used irresponsibly. In following script we will use a div tag, and - tags and create menu options. Regarding the elegance, I understand the CSS trick fine…it just feels like if I passed this on to someone else didn’t understand the trick they might have a hard time figuring out what this CSS is doing, perhaps some CSS comments would suffice :). Another option is to style the
to indicate there is a dropdown present in this element. Css loves when does all the trick. For this example, I used the :before pseudo element off the anchor element to draw the arrows. Horizontal Menu: Following section contains the description of linear menu (horizontal menu). Move your mouse very slowly from top downwards. Really? Ray will explain. Go through the examples given with this tutorial and let us know your queries at mrbool site. .nav > li li:hover > ul { I hold B.Tech. View the abundant options on the SUBWAY® menu and discover better-for-you meals! I’m saying this because a few months ago I had to retrofit a website with responsive design and I wasn’t allowed to use JavaScript for the menu in small screen devices. We will start menu designing by creating a container using a div box. They have courses on all the most important front-end technologies, from React to CSS, from Vue to D3, and beyond with Node.js and Full Stack. I got one more method that is to use the following Jquery This is handy if your drop-down is simple and you can structure it specifically that way. We will answer as soon as possible. I’m trying to duplicate that effect for an app I’m building as a way to reduce repetitive tasks for our users (some on IE8). They then use jQuery to add a class to whichever menu should be visible. That’s no good at all. CSS-Tricks* is created, written by, and maintained by Chris In my experience, understanding ideas like this is useful in day to day CSS-foo. -This is not very elegant to look at code wise. Support for this is almost universal, except for IE, which eats glue and only offers support in IE9+. I’ve done this before thinking that I was doing a good SEO practice that says that ‘s should be used for “real” links since they have very good SEO weight, to later realize I had completely killed the accessibility of the main nav items because visitors using their keyboard now cannot TAB through elements that are not ‘s. Thanks ! The related posts above were algorithmically generated and displayed here without any load on my server at all, thanks to Jetpack. At the end of this tutorial you will be able to create interactive navigation menu. :-) Is there anyone here who’d be willing to give me a brief explanation of how the developers got the nav bar on this page https://www.att.com/olam/passthroughAction.myworld?actionType=Manage to function the way it does, in exchange for a promise of a free beverage or two of their choice some day? I, too, have seen much wilder code be accepted by the general design community without so much as an objection. Classes are abused (vertical divider code), nth-child is abused (above), but we need some nice, legible, middle ground to become the default, and I don’t think it’s ugly-ass OOCSS. CSS-Tricks is hosted by Flywheel, the best WordPress hosting in the Sub of the Day™ Menu - Sub of the Day | SUBWAY.com - Nederland (Nederlands) Subway.com wil graag cookies op uw computer plaatsen zodat wij onze website nóg beter kunnen maken. This tutorial covers the basics knowledge of CSS menus. A clever solution…but again is it over automation…I am willing to bet that most CMS’s could be configured to output a class on a parent nav element that contains sub nav elements…saving a lot complex CSS wizardry…, Also using hover on the “li” element is not as accessible as using it on the “a” element…as you can have a “focus” state on an “a” element that matches the “hover” state…this is helpful for keyboard users who tab around your web site…Someone correct me if I am wrong but you can not focus into an “li” element…, Navigation elements should navigable both with a mouse and a keyboard…also touch has to be considered now as well…, This is exactly what I was thinking when I read: “Another way, assuming that upper level items are not coded as links, is to use that difference in tags as leverage. I applaud this technique. The following is a guest post by Ray Messina. Per default you hide the dropdown - s but not the
itself. I wanted to be able to do this automatically, without relying on JavaScript or having to add classes to the markup. Uh, guys… “Targeting” is spelled with only 2 “T’s.”. Figure 2: Above figure is a simple menu item in horizontal way. I’ve heard another person complain about this as well but haven’t been able to replicate it. This sort of issue was very irksome during the days of IE6, but rarely happens any more. Could you take a screencast of how it “doesn’t work”? If you have important information to share, please, retrofit a website with responsive design, https://www.att.com/olam/passthroughAction.myworld?actionType=Manage. I’ve seen much crazier things go completely unchallenged here. Most likely it will be two elements: the anchor and the , though one can tweak this technique to work for any number or child elements, as long as you have a regular pattern. This is great life-saver if someone has to build a dropdown menu and cannot use JavaScript. Frontend Masters is the best place to get it. It’s a trick. This comment thread is closed. In this example we can remove bullets and the margins and padding from the list. That's a good thing! It can still happen though, as demonstrated here. That class then unhides that menu. You know that one of the most important parts of website is navigation menu, which is very decorative and interactive section of page. Here is the whole thing in action at CodePen: As you probably guessed, you could also use other selector/selector combinations such as :only-child, :first-child:last-child, :first-child:not(:last-child) and the like. Ideally, it would be great if there was a CSS selector that would let us query if an element contained another kind of element as a direct child, something akin to jQuery’s .has() method. I added a link to an item and it replaced current navigation bar with new page. Mailchimp: Grow sales with Customer Journey Smarts. CodePen is a place to experiment, debug, and show off your HTML, CSS, and I just wanted it to work as if the item just knew it had a sub menu or not. Think of it as 4 menus. I had come across other methods of automatically styling list items which contain other lists, but they employed absolute positioning and a pseudo element off the child . Some general styling to bring in the sexy: That’s essentially the active ingredient of this technique. The pseudo element is not necessary to the technique. I wanted to be able to do this automatically, without relying on JavaScript or having to add classes to the markup. My div box will contain id of navigation. However, from a UX/UI point of view, this is lacking as it leaves the user having to explore the entire menu to find which sections contain additional navigation links. Whatever happened to bandwidth conservation?