How to make jQuery UI nav menu horizontal?

Question

I love the jQuery UI stuff!

I like the navigation menu, but I can\'t seem to get it horizontal. I\'ve got to be missing something that\'s a cinch.

Anyone kno

Answer 1

I'm new to stackoverflow, so please be nice :) however turning to the problem of horizontal jQuery ui menu, the only way I could manage to resolve the problem (refering to this) was to set:

#nav li {width: auto; clear: none; float: left}
#nav ul li {width: auto; clear: none; float:none}

Answer 2

I just been for 3 days looking for a jquery UI and CSS solution, I merge some code I saw, fix a little, and finally (along the other codes) I could make it work!

http://jsfiddle.net/Moatilliatta/97m6ty1a/

<ul id="nav" class="testnav">
    <li><a class="clk" href="#">Item 1</a></li>
    <li><a class="clk" href="#">Item 2</a></li>
    <li><a class="clk" href="#">Item 3</a>
        <ul class="sub-menu">
            <li><a href="#">Item 3-1</a>
                <ul class="sub-menu">
                    <li><a href="#">Item 3-11</a></li>
                    <li><a href="#">Item 3-12</a>
                        <ul>
                            <li><a href="#">Item 3-111</a></li>                         
                            <li><a href="#">Item 3-112</a>
                                <ul>
                                    <li><a href="#">Item 3-1111</a></li>                            
                                    <li><a href="#">Item 3-1112</a></li>                            
                                    <li><a href="#">Item 3-1113</a>
                                        <ul>
                                            <li><a href="#">Item 3-11131</a></li>                           
                                            <li><a href="#">Item 3-11132</a></li>                           
                                        </ul>
                                    </li>                           
                                </ul>
                            </li>
                            <li><a href="#">Item 3-113</a></li>
                        </ul>
                    </li>
                    <li><a href="#">Item 3-13</a></li>
                </ul>
            </li>
            <li><a href="#">Item 3-2</a>
                <ul>
                    <li><a href="#."> Item 3-21 </a></li>
                    <li><a href="#."> Item 3-22 </a></li>
                    <li><a href="#."> Item 3-23 </a></li>
                </ul>   
            </li>
            <li><a href="#">Item 3-3</a></li>
            <li><a href="#">Item 3-4</a></li>
            <li><a href="#">Item 3-5</a></li>
        </ul>
    </li>
    <li><a class="clk" href="#">Item 4</a>
        <ul class="sub-menu">
            <li><a href="#">Item 4-1</a>
                <ul class="sub-menu">
                    <li><a href="#."> Item 4-11 </a></li>
                    <li><a href="#."> Item 4-12 </a></li>
                    <li><a href="#."> Item 4-13 </a>
                        <ul>
                            <li><a href="#."> Item 4-131 </a></li>
                            <li><a href="#."> Item 4-132 </a></li>
                            <li><a href="#."> Item 4-133 </a></li>
                        </ul>
                    </li>
                </ul>
            </li>
            <li><a href="#">Item 4-2</a></li>
            <li><a href="#">Item 4-3</a></li>
        </ul>
    </li>
    <li><a class="clk" href="#">Item 5</a></li>
</ul>

javascript

$(document).ready(function(){

var menu = "#nav";
var position = {my: "left top", at: "left bottom"};

$(menu).menu({

    position: position,
    blur: function() {
        $(this).menu("option", "position", position);
        },
    focus: function(e, ui) {

        if ($(menu).get(0) !== $(ui).get(0).item.parent().get(0)) {
            $(this).menu("option", "position", {my: "left top", at: "right top"});
            }
    }
});     });

CSS

.ui-menu {width: auto;}.ui-menu:after {content: ".";display: block;clear: both;visibility: hidden;line-height: 0;height: 0;}.ui-menu .ui-menu-item {display: inline-block;margin: 0;padding: 0;width: auto;}#nav{text-align: center;font-size: 12px;}#nav li {display: inline-block;}#nav li a span.ui-icon-carat-1-e {float:right;position:static;margin-top:2px;width:16px;height:16px;background:url(https://www.drupal.org/files/issues/ui-icons-222222-256x240.png) no-repeat -64px -16px;}#nav li ul li {width: 120px;border-bottom: 1px solid #ccc;}#nav li ul {width: 120px; }.ui-menu .ui-menu-item li a span.ui-icon-carat-1-e {background:url(https://www.drupal.org/files/issues/ui-icons-222222-256x240.png) no-repeat -32px -16px !important;

Answer 3

The best option I found is a plugin called jMenu.

Main: http://www.myjqueryplugins.com/jquery-plugin/jmenu
Demo: http://demos.myjqueryplugins.com/jmenu/
GitHub: https://github.com/alpixel/jMenu

Screenshot:

Answer 4

Just think about the jquery-ui menu as being the verticle dropdown when you hover over a topic on your main horizonal menu. That way, you have a separate jquery ui menu for each topic on your main menu. The horizonal main menu is just a collection of float:left divs wrapped in a mainmenu div. You then use the hover in and hover out to pop up each menu.

$('.mainmenuitem').hover(
    function(){ 
        $(this).addClass('ui-state-focus');
        $(this).addClass('ui-corner-all');
        $(this).addClass('ui-state-hover');
        $(this).addClass('ui-state-active');
        $(this).addClass('mainmenuhighlighted');
        // trigger submenu
        var position=$(this).offset();
        posleft=position.left;
        postop=position.top;
        submenu=$(this).attr('submenu');
        showSubmenu(posleft,postop,submenu);    
    },
    function(){ 
        $(this).removeClass('ui-state-focus');
        $(this).removeClass('ui-corner-all');
        $(this).removeClass('ui-state-hover');
        $(this).removeClass('ui-state-active');
        $(this).removeClass('mainmenuhighlighted');
        // remove submenu
        $('.submenu').hide();
    }
    );

The showSubmenu function is simple - it just positions the submenu and shows it.

function showSubmenu(left,top,submenu){
    var tPosX=left;
    var tPosY=top+28;
    $('#'+submenu).css({left:tPosX, top:tPosY,position:'absolute'});
    $('#'+submenu).show();
}

You then need to make sure the submenu is visible while your cursor is on it and disappears when you leave (this should be in your document.ready function.

$('.submenu').hover(
            function(){ 
                $(this).show();
            },
            function(){ 
                $(this).hide();
            }
            );

Also don't forget to hide your submenus to start with - in the document.ready function

$(".submenu" ).hide();

See the full code here

http://jsfiddle.net/R4nyn/

Answer 5

changing:

.ui-menu .ui-menu-item { 
    margin: 0; 
    padding: 0; 
    zoom: 1; 
    width: 100%; 
}

to:

.ui-menu .ui-menu-item { 
    margin: 0; 
    padding: 0; 
    zoom: 1; 
    width: auto; 
    float:left; 
 }

should start you off.

Answer 6

I admire all these efforts to convert a menu to a menubar because I detest trying to hack CSS. It just feels like I'm meddling with powers I can't possibly ever understand! I think it's much easier to add the menubar files available at the menubar branch of jquery ui.

I downloaded the full jquery ui css bundled file from the jquery ui download site

In the head of my document I put the jquery ui css file that contains everything (I'm on version 1.9.x at the moment) followed by the specific CSS file for the menubar widget downloaded from the menubar branch of jquery ui

<link type="text/css" href="css/jquery-ui.css" rel="stylesheet" />
<link type="text/css" href="css/jquery.ui.menubar.css" rel="stylesheet" />

Don't forget the images folder with all the little icons used by jQuery UI needs to be in the same folder as the jquery-ui.css file.

Then at the end the body I have:

<script type="text/javascript" src="js/jquery-1.8.2.min.js"></script>
<script type="text/javascript" src="js/jquery-ui-1.9.0.custom.min.js"></script>
<script type="text/javascript" src="js/menubar/jquery.ui.menubar.js"></script>

That's a copy of an up-to-date version of jQuery, followed by a copy of the jQuery UI file, then the menubar module downloaded from the menubar branch of jquery ui

The menubar CSS file is refreshingly short:

.ui-menubar { list-style: none; margin: 0; padding-left: 0; }
.ui-menubar-item { float: left; }
.ui-menubar .ui-button { float: left; font-weight: normal; border-top-width: 0 !important; border-bottom-width: 0 !important; margin: 0; outline: none; }
.ui-menubar .ui-menubar-link { border-right: 1px dashed transparent; border-left: 1px dashed transparent; }
.ui-menubar .ui-menu { width: 200px; position: absolute; z-index: 9999; font-weight: normal; }

but the menubar JavaScript file is 328 lines - too long to quote here. With it, you can simply call menubar() like this example:

$("#menu").menubar({
    autoExpand: true,
    menuIcon: true,
    buttons: true,
    select: select
});

As I said, I admire all the attempts to hack the menu object to turn it into a horizontal bar, but I found all of them lacked some standard feature of a horizontal menu bar. I'm not sure why this widget is not bundled with jQuery UI yet, but presumably there are still some bugs to iron out. For instance, I tried it in IE 7 Quirks Mode and the positioning was strange, but it looks great in Firefox, Safari and IE 8+.