Easy to Style jQuery Drop Down Menu Tutorial

Introduction

Alright, this time, we are going to make a drop down menu. The main objective is to make it as simple as possible, with some little jQuery effect and easy to customize/ apply different style on it.

To style it into your own design, you just have to modify the a tag CSS style. You can put background images, hover effect and also change the submenu popup animation.

Before we start, I have had made quite a few of tutorials about menu, the following is the list, I guess you might be interested with some of these :)

• Create a Good Looking Floating Menu with jQuery Easing
• Clean and Attractive jQuery Vertical Menu Tutorial
• jQuery Flipping Menu Tutorial using backgroundPosition Plugin
• jQuery Horizontal Tooltips Menu Tutorials
• Simple Lava Lamp Menu Tutorial with jQuery
• Create an Attractive jQuery Menu with Fadein and Fadeout Effect
• Navigation List menu + jQuery Animate Effect Tutorial

As usual, we will start with HTML, CSS and finally Javascript.

1. HTML

This would be the most common way to structure a list menu. It would make sense even if the CSS is disabled.

<ul id="nav">
	<li><a href="#">Parent 01</a></li>
	<li><a href="#" class="selected">Parent 02</a>
		<ul>
			<li><a href="#">Item 01</a></li>
			<li><a href="#" class="selected">Item 02</a></li>
			<li><a href="#">Item 03</a></li>
		</ul>
		<div class="clear"></div>
	</li>
	<li><a href="#">Parent 03</a>
	<ul>
		<li><a href="#">Item 04</a></li>
		<li><a href="#">Item 05</a></li>
		<li><a href="#">Item 06</a></li>
		<li><a href="#">Item 07</a></li>
	</ul>			
		<div class="clear"></div>
	</li>
	<li><a href="#">Parent 04</a></li>
</ul>

<div class="clear"></div>

2. CSS

CSS is quite simple, we have to style two UL List - parent menu and submenu. We put float left for the parent menu so that all the list item would display inline. For the submenu, it's hidden by default, and will only display on mouse over event.

body {font-family:arial; font-size:11px;}
.clear {clear:both}	
/* remove the list style */
#nav {
	margin:0; 
	padding:0; 
	list-style:none;
}	
	
	/* make the LI display inline */
	/* it's position relative so that position absolute */
	/* can be used in submenu */
	#nav li {
		float:left; 
		display:block; 
		width:100px; 
		background:#ccc; 
		position:relative;
		z-index:500; 
		margin:0 1px;
	}
		
	/* this is the parent menu */
	#nav li a {
		display:block; 
		padding:8px 5px 0 5px; 
		font-weight:700;  
		height:23px; 
		text-decoration:none; 
		color:#fff; 
		text-align:center; 
		color:#333;
	}

	#nav li a:hover {
		color:#fff;
	}
	
	/* you can make a different style for default selected value */
	#nav a.selected {
		color:#f00;
	}
	
		/* submenu, it's hidden by default */
		#nav ul {
			position:absolute; 
			left:0; 
			display:none; 
			margin:0 0 0 -1px; 
			padding:0; 
			list-style:none;
		}
		
		#nav ul li {
			width:100px; 
			float:left; 
			border-top:1px solid #fff;
		}
		
		/* display block will make the link fill the whole area of LI */
		#nav ul a {
			display:block;  
			height:15px;
			padding: 8px 5px; 
			color:#666;
		}
		
		#nav ul a:hover {
			text-decoration:underline;	
		}

/* fix ie6 small issue */
/* we should always avoid using hack like this */
/* should put it into separate file : ) */
*html #nav ul {
	margin:0 0 0 -2px;
}

3. Javascript

This could be one of the most simplest jQuery scripts. We are using hover mouse event and just the most basic jQuery animation slideUp and slideDown. :) I love jQuery

$(document).ready(function () {	
	
	$('#nav li').hover(
		function () {
			//show its submenu
			$('ul', this).stop().slideDown(100);

		}, 
		function () {
			//hide its submenu
			$('ul', this).stop().slideUp(100);			
		}
	);
	
});

Conclusion

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