jQuery Tabbed Interface / Tabbed Structure Menu Tutorial

Written by Kevin Liew on 19 Mar 2009
719,720 Views • Tutorials

Introduction

Nowadays, a lot of websites are using tab based content as a way to save spaces in a webpage. I have seen a lot of wordpress websites using a tabbed interface for its category, posts, comments and random posts content. It's a good "space-saver" and if used it correctly, it can boost your website usability as well. Right, first of all, we need to have the ideas and the design structure for this tabbed interface.

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My ideas:
  • Buttons on the top, content reside in different DIV elements,
  • Click on one of the buttons, it shows the relevant content;
  • Click on other buttons, it hides the existing and display the correct one.

The Design structure:

tab menu structure diagram

* Thanks to WeFunction.com for the amazing icons

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2. HTML

In case the image above doesnt load, allow me to explain the design structure again. The UL#tabMenu is the buttons on the top a.k.a. Tabs. This is where you click, and it will trigger the jQuery to loads the content.

Inside the boxBody, you need to specify 5 DIVs, the number of DIV will depend on how many items you defined in #tabMenu, in this case, we have 5, therefre, you need 5 DIV elements defined in .boxBody.

The javascript loads the content based on the DIV's index in .boxBody. For example, if you clicked o the first button (the star or index 0), it will load the first DIV in the .boxBody (DIV index 0).

Therefore, arrangement of DIV in .boxBody must match with the arrangement of button in #tabMenu.

<div class="box">

  <ul id="tabMenu">
    <li class="posts selected"></li> <!-- default button-->
    <li class="comments"></li>
    <li class="category"></li>
    <li class="famous"></li>
    <li class="random"></li>
  </ul>

  <div class="boxTop"></div>

  <div class="boxBody">
  	<!-- default page-->
    <div id="posts" class="show parent">
      <ul>
        <li>Post 1</li>
        <li>Post 2</li>
        <li class="last">Post 3</li>
      </ul>  
    </div>  
  
    <div id="comments" class="parent">
      <ul>
        <li>Comment 1</li>
        <li>Comment 2</li>
        <li class="last">Comment 3</li>
      </ul>
    </div>
  
 	<div id="category" class="parent">
   	  <ul>
   	    <li>Category 1</li>
   	    <li>Category 2</li>
		<li class="last">Category 3</li>
   	  </ul>  
   	</div>
  
  	<div id="famous" class="parent">
      <ul>
        <li>Famous post 1</li>
    	<li>Famous post 2</li>
    	<li class="last">Famous post 3</li>
	  </ul>  
    </div>
  
	<div id="random" class="parent">
	  <ul>
        <li>Random post 1</li>
	    <li>Random post 2</li>
    	<li class="last">Random post 3</li>
   	  </ul>    
	</div>        

  </div>

  <div class="boxBottom"></div>

</div>

3. CSS

You can always modify it to match your website. I will attach the psd file for this tutorial in the download and edit the css carefully. : ). Any suggestions please comment.

<style>

a {
	color:#ccc;
	text-decoration:none;
}

a:hover {
	color:#ccc;
	text-decoration:none
}

#tabMenu {
	margin:0;
	padding:0 0 0 15px;
	list-style:none;
}

#tabMenu li {
	float:left;
	height:32px;
	width:39px;
	cursor:pointer;
	cursor:hand
}

/* this is the button images */
li.comments {background:url(images/tabComment.gif) no-repeat 0 -32px;}
li.posts {background:url(images/tabStar.gif) no-repeat 0 -32px;}
li.category {background:url(images/tabFolder.gif) no-repeat 0 -32px;}
li.famous {background:url(images/tabHeart.gif) no-repeat 0 -32px;}
li.random {background:url(images/tabRandom.gif) no-repeat 0 -32px;}

li.mouseover {background-position:0 0;}
li.mouseout {background-position:0 -32px;}
li.selected {background-position:0 0;}

.box {
	width:227px
}

.boxTop {
	background:url(images/boxTop.gif)no-repeat;
	height:11px;
	clear:both
}

.boxBody {
	background-color:#282828;
}

.boxBottom {
	background:url(images/boxBottom.gif) no-repeat;
	height:11px;
}

.boxBody div.parent {
	display:none;
}

.boxBody div.show {
	display:block;
}


.boxBody #category a {
	display:block
}

/* styling for the content*/
.boxBody div ul {
	margin:0 10px 0 25px;
	padding:0;
	width:190px;
	list-style-image:url(images/arrow.gif)
}

.boxBody div li {
	border-bottom:1px dotted #8e8e8e; 
	padding:4px 0;
	cursor:hand;
	cursor:pointer
}

.boxBody div ul li.last {
	border-bottom:none
}

.boxBody div li span {
	font-size:8px;
	font-style:italic; 
	color:#888;
}

/* IE Hacks */
*html .boxTop {margin-bottom:-2px;}
*html .boxBody div ul {margin-left:10px;padding-left:15px;}

</style>

 

4. Javascript

Alright, the fun part. It took me a while to read the jQuery documentation to make it works the way I want. And yes, I made it. As usual, I have put comments on each line. I put the animate effect on category page. I have a tutorial about it - Navigation List menu + Jquery Animate Effect Tutorial

$(document).ready(function() {	

  //Get all the LI from the #tabMenu UL
  $('#tabMenu li').click(function(){
    
    //perform the actions when it's not selected
    if (!$(this).hasClass('selected')) {    
           
	    //remove the selected class from all LI    
	    $('#tabMenu li').removeClass('selected');
	    
	    //Reassign the LI
	    $(this).addClass('selected');
	    
	    //Hide all the DIV in .boxBody
	    $('.boxBody div.parent').slideUp('1500');
	    
	    //Look for the right DIV in boxBody according to the Navigation UL index, therefore, the arrangement is very important.
	    $('.boxBody div.parent:eq(' + $('#tabMenu > li').index(this) + ')').slideDown('1500');
	    
	 }
  }).mouseover(function() {

    //Add and remove class, Personally I dont think this is the right way to do it, 
    //if you have better ideas to toggle it, please comment    
    $(this).addClass('mouseover');
    $(this).removeClass('mouseout');   
    
  }).mouseout(function() { 
    
    //Add and remove class
    $(this).addClass('mouseout');
    $(this).removeClass('mouseover');    
    
  });

  
  //Mouseover with animate Effect for Category menu list  :)
  $('.boxBody #category li').mouseover(function() {

    //Change background color and animate the padding
    $(this).css('backgroundColor','#888');
    $(this).children().animate({paddingLeft:"20px"}, {queue:false, duration:300});
  }).mouseout(function() {
    
    //Change background color and animate the padding
    $(this).css('backgroundColor','');
    $(this).children().animate({paddingLeft:"0"}, {queue:false, duration:300});
  });  
	
  //Mouseover effect for Posts, Comments, Famous Posts and Random Posts menu list.
  $('.boxBody li').click(function(){
    window.location = $(this).find("a").attr("href");
  }).mouseover(function() {
    $(this).css('backgroundColor','#888');
  }).mouseout(function() {
    $(this).css('backgroundColor','');
  });  	
	
});

5. Finally

You will get a beautiful jQuery Tabbed Side Menu!

However, in category page, if you were using IE, the LI can't be hightlighted when mouse hover it in (that's why we all hate IE). If you know what's the problem, please advise : )

Last but not least, check out the demo or download the source code to play with it. Any questions. please leave your comment :)

Support me by bookmark this article and share it to your friends : ) Thanks

Update

15-9-2011: Fixed DIV issue.

14-4-2009: Remove click event in the LI, change the display attribute in #category to block.

Demo Download
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183 comments
Justin Leaf-Wright 15 years ago
Sweet...cannot wait to try it out
Reply
RLobo 15 years ago
Great stuff !!!
Can we make it slide left ?

thanks
Reply
kevin Admin 15 years ago
@RLobo: erm, i believe you can do that, but you will need to modify the code. I have not done that before, might be an good idea for my next tutorial :)
Reply
Alex 15 years ago
Hello,
Very nice tabs ! Well I'm a begginer and i'm trying to put a
with some text and images in
but it does'nt work :(
Is it possible to do it or can we just put



on it ?
Reply
kevin Admin 15 years ago
@Alex: hi alex, my comment filtering script filtered your html code, I assumed you want to put some text and images in the content? It definitely can be done.
Reply
Alex 15 years ago
Thx for your answer kevin :)
Yes i want to put text and images in the content. I try to do it with a div but it does not display, it's empty. It works with a table but the scrollbar of the page move up and down when you click on the tabs. (ps : sorry for my english ! )
Reply
Alex 15 years ago
Ooops ! My message is not complete.
Do you have tips to resolve the scrollbar problem or maybe insert div ?
Reply
ZK@Web Marketing Blog 15 years ago
Agree, JQuery is an amazing tool. Once I needed to write a huge web project with AJAX technologies while I knew almost nothing about AJAX then (i.e. I've never made AJAX sites). I found JQuery and it was a great help! Like you write Li, its wrapper-based syntax, principles and documentation were so simple to learn that I write a raw prototype for main site functions literally in a single day. Definitely recommended tool!
Reply
duckz 15 years ago
Great tutorial dude, I am trying to build a drupal module for this feature, but got stuck in the default view when the page is loaded.

As I see in your page , The default view of the menu child should be enclosed in this tag :

li class="posts selected"

and

div id="posts" class="show"

is this correct? because I got it at the same result in the customized module :

li class="header-menu1 selected"

and

div id="header-menu1" class="show"

but the result when the page load is all of the submenu groups is displayed, and when you actually click the header menu the right submenus group is displayed

any clue to solve this?

Thanks
Reply
kevin Admin 15 years ago
@duckz: I think it could be the css issues. Did you set display=none for the submenus group?
Reply
kevin Admin 15 years ago
@brian: Hi brian, I have no times to check the problem at the moment, can you try to use span instead and set the display to block?
Reply
duckz 15 years ago
Great god! how simple the solution is....

Thanks Kevin, I got it working now.
Reply
Brian 15 years ago
I have a trouble when I insert a div inside the content, when I click the next tab the content dissapears, the container is empty :(

Any idea on how to solve this?

Thanks in advance.
Reply