Some general styling to bring in the sexy: That’s essentially the active ingredient of this technique. a decision I'm very happy with. I also Listing 3: Script to Sub Menu/Dropdown Menu. I hold B.Tech. You know that one of the most important parts of website is navigation menu, which is very decorative and interactive section of page. Especially for big menus, this trick would remove a lot of “unnecessary” characters. 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. 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. That’s it. CodePen is a place to experiment, debug, and show off your HTML, CSS, and That’s no good at all. 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! For this example, I used the :before pseudo element off the anchor element to draw the arrows. My div box will contain id of navigation. 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(): Coyier and a team of swell people. Per default you hide the dropdown
s but not the itself. They then have a menu for each item in the Primary Menu (so a Shop menu, My ATT menu, and Support menu). Note: You can also check it out this article and learn how to create a Metro Style Menu. 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. At the time of writing, estimated global support for these selectors, as used, was roughly 87% which is not too bad. The “ul” element has a full width and each hyperlink in the list has a width of 7px. Looking at the previous screenshot, you can see that there is a page named Level 1. Everyone’s complaining about the relative maintainability of one line of css? They have the Primary Menu (Shop, My ATT, Support). The following is a guest post by Ray Messina. Horizontal Menu: Following section contains the description of linear menu (horizontal menu). I applaud this technique. I am Software Developer from India. This is great life-saver if someone has to build a dropdown menu and cannot use JavaScript. CSS3 selectors do offer an amazing amount of control for targeting elements and I find it useful( depending on the situation, as always). I added a link to an item and it replaced current navigation bar with new page. Add this CSS, temporarily, to see where the problem lies and to find the solution: In my opinion this is horrible code. Many designers are satisfied with leaving as that. This means visitors will either waste their time looking and get frustrated for doing so or miss areas of your site all together! in Computer Science & Engineering. I’ve gotta jump on the “why not use a class” bandwagon. Whatever happened to bandwidth conservation? Could you take a screencast of how it “doesn’t work”? Good idea Ray, that’s an interesting technique. Really? Thanks in advance! It must be a small positioning issue, but still, they are failing at this moment I’m typing this. border-left: 1px solid #fff; Move your mouse very slowly from top downwards. 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(). leverage Jetpack for extra functionality and Local 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. CSS-Tricks is hosted by Flywheel, the best WordPress hosting in the We will start menu designing by creating a container using a div box. Making the code easier to understand for other people working on the project is much more beneficial I believe. Does not work in FF 25 Beta, the dropdown vanishes immediately when I move the cursor (not matter what direction). Even just a brief outline without all the details, like whether you think it’s mostly powered by jquery, would be much appreciated! for local development. 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. 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). I wanted to be able to do this automatically, without relying on JavaScript or having to add classes to the markup. -This is not very elegant to look at code wise. Sure, it’s clever and awesome CSS, but realistically, a lot of future maintainers won’t fully understand it. 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’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. Its working working on IE 8 , any work around..? Where the “li” elements will be displayed as inline elements, this forces the list to be in one line. If you have important information to share, please, retrofit a website with responsive design, https://www.att.com/olam/passthroughAction.myworld?actionType=Manage. This section will explain the drop down menu or submenu in horizontal Menu. .nav > li li:hover > ul { I’ve heard another person complain about this as well but haven’t been able to replicate it. It’s good usability because it reduces the number of clicks the user has to perform to navigate to different sections. Figure 2: Above figure is a simple menu item in horizontal way. -This does not work in the latest Chrome. I’m wondering if anyone has adapted this to use as a WordPress menu? These menus are hidden with CSS. You’re trading off clean markup for messy CSS. I’m sorry it doesn’t live up to your elegance standards. 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. I was incorrect about the latest Chrome bit, turns out my Chrome updater is actually faulty :( 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. 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. Select pages that you want to use as sub menu item and add them to the menu area. 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. 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. A navigation menu always requires Standard HTML as a basic tool for menu designing. In my experience, understanding ideas like this is useful in day to day CSS-foo. We will be adding a few sub menu items to it. Mailchimp: Grow sales with Customer Journey Smarts. 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. The markup is just your standard nested UL, but note that I have only used one class in the HTML, on the root . In modern interactive web designing, drop down menus appear very frequently. Dropdowns are a common component of modern (and not so modern) web design. Then you can use :afteror :before to add something on it or to customize in different mannor. This tutorial will deal with menu designing in CSS. or "Tricks". The SUBWAY® menu offers a wide range of sub sandwiches, salads and breakfast ideas for every taste. 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. Ray will explain. I’ll let Ryan elaborate on the Chrome issues he was experiencing. It’s hard to read for future maintainers, and it’s not very performant. 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 ><. Another way, assuming that upper level items are not coded as links, is to use that difference in tags as leverage. I’ve seen much crazier things go completely unchallenged here. The sub-menu of the item in Resume pops up, but disappears when you try to hover over it. At the end of this tutorial you will be able to create interactive navigation menu. You must be logged to download. They then use jQuery to add a class to whichever menu should be visible. The pseudo element is not necessary to the technique. Go through the examples given with this tutorial and let us know your queries at mrbool site. Very neat and clean. It can still happen though, as demonstrated here. /* margin-left:1px; replace this rule with the follwing */ The key is having an expected child count (HTML element planned parenthood?). More and more I find that I prefer to keep my CSS clean by using a few extra elements/classes in my markup. I just wanted it to work as if the item just knew it had a sub menu or not. In this example we can remove bullets and the margins and padding from the list. But if you know a little something about the HTML structure, you can use a combination of positional selectors to mimic it. JavaScript creations. I wanted to be able to do this automatically, without relying on JavaScript or having to add classes to the markup. Thanks ! Uh, guys… “Targeting” is spelled with only 2 “T’s.”. By extension, drop down menus are merely nested s. There is sadly no such selector in CSS yet. 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. On the aesthetic side of this particular demo, this addresses the ‘dead area’ issue: 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. How can i open a link under the same navigation bar? *May or may not contain any actual "CSS" ShopTalk is a podcast all about front-end web design and development. This is a really clever hack, but adding a class really isn’t that tedious in a situation like this. Here is a quick example. Remove the offending margin(s) and you shouldn’t have an issue. 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. That is a very fair point. 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, too, have seen much wilder code be accepted by the general design community without so much as an objection. 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. I’ve re-installed Chrome and this works fine. CSS-Tricks* is created, written by, and maintained by Chris Note that for me in Firefox 24.0 the dropdowns fail 3 out of 5 tries to hover over them. Following section contains the description of linear menu (horizontal menu). We have seen three kinds of menus including submenus. I really like the way the arrows rotate 180 degrees when we navigate to the child menus. 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. Listed script will compile the idea of dropdown menu in horizontal way. These days I find making websites a balancing act between keeping my markup clean and keeping my CSS clean. It’s a trick. 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. I’m specifically trying to duplicate the way the horizontal subnav functions. This is handy if your drop-down is simple and you can structure it specifically that way. I suppose I was being ‘old school. I am having 2+ years experience of developing Web applications and Websites using HTML, JavaScript, CSS, C#.NET etc.. 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. In this example we will add Level 2a, 2b, and Level 3a, 3b pages. We will answer as soon as possible. That's a good thing! }. I haven’t personally tested in Chrome, but in Firefox, it disappears at a certain point. As you probably know, menus are lists of links and, as such, it is standard practice to mark them up as s. 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. Now we can proceed to create sub menu items. This comment thread is closed. 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. Then when you hover over ‘myAT&T,’ it displays the items Overview, Bill & Payments, etc. Simple, graceful and totally automatic; the way it ought to be. I also run the latest Chrome. 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. Sweet ! The related posts above were algorithmically generated and displayed here without any load on my server at all, thanks to Jetpack. I've used WordPress since day one all the way up to v17, 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. 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. 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. business, with a local development tool to match. In certain ways it would be a good thing – such as in this example – in others it could be a pain if used irresponsibly. $(‘.nav’).find(‘li’).has(‘ul’).addClass(‘parent’); Clever, clever… I think everything would be so much easier with a “parent” selector. Following listed script will display simple vertical menu with sub menu, which compile the basic idea of menu designing. 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
. 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. :-) 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? View the abundant options on the SUBWAY® menu and discover better-for-you meals! Test this out yourself, add any number of nested lists at any level! I got one more method that is to use the following Jquery It will demonstrate the functionality by giving some examples on to play with different types of menus. That is, create faux links…”. I just wanted it to work as if the item just knew it had a sub menu or not. 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. Ok, I’ll just plunge in here. However, I understand that not everyone has this luxury, and then this solution is probably fine. This tutorial covers the basics knowledge of CSS menus. 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. 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. We can can achieve nearly the same thing with li a:first-child:nth-last-child(x) { }. This sort of issue was very irksome during the days of IE6, but rarely happens any more. That class then unhides that menu. Great & Smart work. 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). It’s working with what we have in the tool box. Css loves when does all the trick. Correct, you can not focus non “a” elements – had a big piece of work to do on this recently. Also we have added some colors to make it interactive, Listing 2: Script of Horizontal Menu and Submenu. In this example we can remove bullets and the margins and padding from the list. 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. For instance, when you hover over ‘Shop’ in the orange menu, it opens the subnav with WIreless, Bundles, Digital TV, etc. Another option is to style the
to indicate there is a dropdown present in this element. It’s a clever way to select an element when it’s not alone. 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. 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. 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. 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). Frontend Masters is the best place to get it. The tech stack for this site is fairly boring. 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 :). Finally, just to polish it off, some positioning and arrow styling CSS code. 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. Support for this is almost universal, except for IE, which eats glue and only offers support in IE9+. 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. Think of it as 4 menus. Pretty simple, but also pretty tedious and not particularly graceful. I really like how the arrows switch up/down, very descriptive and visually helpful. In following script we will use a div tag, and - tags and create menu options. Thank you Aaron Gustafson :). This article will cover the creating of a CSS menu using the HTML Div tags. I’ve read a few comments about getting a parent selector – is this something that will happen?