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Responsive Navigation

Works with CSS only - jQuery plugin available too!

Functional CSS-only navigation

This project is an attempt to create a navigation system that provides basic functionality even without javascript, with CSS only. This gives us a decent fallback if our jQuery plugin is not available for some reason.

The first goal was to see how far we could go with CSS alone. Every site should be usable without javascript (and also without CSS for that matter). We tried to make it as "advanced" as we possibly could, but we are however limited by the CSS selectors. Drop down effects with CSS provide basic functionality, but it's not ideal.

jQuery for some awesomeness

Our jQuery plugin adds some sugar to the navigation, making it more user friendly and a bit more awesome... :)

With our jQuery plugin you can traverse the sub menu's by touch or clicking and optionally by moving your mouse over it. If you're a keyboard fan, then you can spam your tab key to the menu and hit enter to open or close a sub menu (or open a link of course).

Should work on...

  • IE 8 (needs extra effort)
  • IE 9 and above
  • Firefox
  • Chrome
  • Android 4.3 and above
  • ...

Website Setup

Add .nav-no-js Class to <html>

This class will let CSS handle the :hover effects for opening and closing the menu. If our jQuery plugin is loaded, it will remove this class and take over for some nicer effects!

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en" class="nav-no-js">

Add Meta Tags

<meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="IE=edge">
<meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1">

Include CSS and Scripts

It is highly recommended that you include normalize.css!

Defaults

Include some defaults in your CSS (or use our defaults.css). This will allow mobiles to load the correct media queries on your website and fix box-sizing issues with padding and borders. The html font-size is the "root" font-size. Any rem unit will always be relative to this. With 62.5%, 1.6rem = 16px. Our CSS uses rem units, so you'll need this!

@viewport { width: device-width; }
@-ms-viewport { width: device-width; }

* {
  -webkit-box-sizing: border-box;
  -moz-box-sizing: border-box;
  box-sizing: border-box;
}

html {
  font-size: 62.5%;
}

body {
  font-size: 1.4rem;
  line-height: 2.4rem;
}

REM Unit for Old Browsers

Because we use REM units in CSS, you should include the REM unit polyfill for some older browsers. Or you can edit the CSS and use another unit.

IE 8 Fixes

Because IE 8 doesn't support HTML5, you should include html5shiv.

IE 8 doesn't support media queries, so you should also inlude our ie8.css after the normal stylesheet. (it contains all "desktop" styles without media queries. IE 8 won't jump to the mobile menu on resize.

CSS and Scripts: All Together

Ideally you would concatenate all CSS files into one file, but for clarity I'll add them separately. You could easily replace/modify the *-layout.css files with your custom styles.

<link rel="stylesheet" href="css/normalize.min.css">
<link rel="stylesheet" href="css/defaults.min.css">
<link rel="stylesheet" href="css/nav-core.min.css">
<link rel="stylesheet" href="css/nav-layout.min.css">

<!--[if lt IE 9]>
<link rel="stylesheet" href="css/ie8-core.min.css">
<link rel="stylesheet" href="css/ie8-layout.min.css">
<script src="js/html5shiv.min.js"></script>
<![endif]-->

<script src="js/rem.min.js"></script>

In the public/css folder, you will find *-core.css, *-layout.css and *-full.css files. The latter combines the first two, so you can choose what files you want to use. A minified version is also included. The original SASS files are in the assets/sass folder.

Enable jQuery Plugin

To enable our jQuery plugin, you will need to include jQuery and our plugin script and then run .nav() on your <nav>. Too increase page loading speed you might want to add this right before your closing </body> tag.

<script src="https://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.11.2/jquery.min.js"></script>
<script src="js/nav.jquery.min.js"></script>
<script>
    $('.nav').nav();
</script>

You can set some options when calling .nav():

$('.nav').nav({
    // Mobile menu button selector
    navButton: '.nav-button',
    // Sub menu selector (<li>)
    subMenu: '.nav-submenu',
    // Open sub menu's on mouse over
    // when not in mobile mode
    mouseOver: true,
    // When clicking/touching a sub menu link, it will open the sub menu...
    // Not disabling the links will make sub menu's unreachable on touch devices!
    // A link with [href="#"] will always be disabled, regardless of this setting.
    // Disable the actual link in a particular mode:
    //   always|never|mobile|desktop
    disableSubMenuLink: 'always',
    // How fast should a sub menu open/close? (ms)
    slideSpeed: 500
});

Navigation Usage & Restrictions

Basic HTML Structure

For CSS-only functionality, it is important to place .nav-button link right before <nav> and .nav-close right after <nav>. These need to be links, because that works better for mobile touch. The links can be positioned anywhere using absolute positioning. The .nav-close button will only show up if our jQuery plugin is not available.

The <nav> tag should also have a .nav class, as there might be other nav areas that shouldn't be styled.

<a href="#" class="nav-button">Menu</a>

<nav class="nav">
  <ul>
    <li><a href="/link/to/page">Link</a></li>
  </ul>
</nav>

<a href="#" class="nav-close">Close Menu</a>

IMPORTANT: We experienced issues where some smartphones (Samsung S4) "think" we want to touch links rather than a <span> etc. Because of this, every "touchable" item (including sub menu's) should be an <a> tag with href attribute.

TIP: You could create an extra .nav-button anywhere in the DOM that would only be shown if our jQuery plugin is loaded. The original one can then be hidden. Just add your own classes and write the CSS to show/hide when appropriate.

Sub Menu's

Each "link" should be wrapped in an <a> tag. If you don't want an actual link (sub menu), just write a # in the href attribute. It is recommended to use a # for sub menu's to allow for touch navigation! Dont forget to add the .nav-submenu class to the <li> containing the sub menu.

<nav class="nav">
  <ul>
    <li><a href="/link/to/page">Link</a></li>
    <li class="nav-submenu"><a href="#">Sub Menu</a>
      <ul>
        <li><a href="/link/to/sub/page">Link</a></li>
      </ul>
    </li>
  </ul>
</nav>

Why sub menu's are not collapsed on mobiles without JS...

There was one more issue when not using javascript on mobiles (at least on the Samsung S4). If you would open a sub menu in the top level and then touch the next sub menu in the top level, that sub menu would open and the previous one would close. (Duh!)

Unfortunately, there is some kind of delay. When the previous menu closes, the one you touched moves upwards. However, the phone seems to remember the touch position on the screen and actually activates the link that ends up under your finger.

So we decided not to collapse the sub menu's on mobiles if you don't use our jQuery plugin.

Nav Wrappers?

The navigation is tested when placed in the body, but you should be able to wrap other div's around it if needed. As long as you don't experience issues with the fixed placement of <nav> on mobiles.

Header

The <header> used in the example is not needed for the navigation to work. But most sites will probably have some sort of header, so I just included it to show how it can blend in with the navigation.

Customizing SASS

The SCSS files are split to make editting them a bit easier:

  • _config.scss : Some vars for colors, line-heights etc.
  • _core-*.scss : Essential CSS to make the navigation work
  • _layout-*.scss : Change colors, paddings etc. in these files

Icon Font

The included web font is generated by a Gulp plugin with the included Gulpfile, and contains the .svg icons in assets/icon-font. You can also use another icon font. Just remove the references in the nav-*.scss files and edit/remove the icon styles in the _layout-*.scss files.

Example icons downloaded from Flaticon.

Known Issues

No keyboard navigation without javascript

Regretably there is no CSS way to enable navigating through the drop down menu's with the tab key. The tab key triggers the :focus selector on the links, but not :hover on the parent <li>. So there is no way to keep the parent menu's open when tabbing into a sub menu... This does work when you use our jQuery plugin.

Close button not always showing on <= Android 4.3 (no-js)

  • Android 4.3 browser and lower

This issue is only relevant when using no javascript. (CSS navigation only)

Android 4.3 browser and lower have issues when combining pseudo classes with adjacent or general sibling selectors. Therefor the "close menu" button is not shown when you press the menu button. It does show when you use the menu.

Fixed header width glitch on <= Android 4.3

  • Android 4.3

When you zoom in, the header scales to fit in the browser window, but when you zoom out again, it doesn't seem to "resize" to full width immediately.

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