Simple navigation with CSS3 and jQuery

A simple navigation menu built with CSS3 and the jQuery UI.

The css with some custom fonts via Google font API

@import url(http://fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=Lobster);
body {margin:0; padding:0; background:#ddd;}
#nav{position:relative; margin:40px; background:#eee; padding:0; font-family:'Lobster', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size:21px; -moz-border-radius:5px; -khtml-border-radius:5px; -webkit-border-radius:5px; border-radius:5px; -moz-box-shadow:2px 2px 3px #ccc; -webkit-box-shadow:2px 2px 3px #ccc; box-shadow:2px 2px 3px #ccc;}
#nav .clear{clear:both;}
#nav ul{padding:0 0 0 5px; margin:0; list-style:none;}
#nav li{float:left; margin:5px 10px 5px 0; background:#eee; -moz-border-radius:5px; -khtml-border-radius:5px; -webkit-border-radius:5px; border-radius:5px;}
#nav li a{text-decoration:none; color:#9e0039; display:block; padding:10px 15px;}

Load the jquery library and UI straight from Google

<script src="http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.4/jquery.min.js" type="text/javascript"></script>
<script src="http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jqueryui/1.8/jquery-ui.min.js" type="text/javascript"></script>

The jQuery code

<script>
$(document).ready(function(){
    $nav_li=$("#nav li");
    $nav_li_a=$nav_li.children("a");
    var animSpeed=450; //fade speed
    var hoverTextColor="#fff"; //text color on mouse over
    var hoverBackgroundColor="#9e0039"; //background color on mouse over
    var textColor=$nav_li_a.css("color");
    var backgroundColor=$nav_li.css("background-color");
    $nav_li_a.hover(function() {
        var $this=$(this);
        $this.stop().animate({ color: hoverTextColor }, animSpeed).parent().stop().animate({ backgroundColor: hoverBackgroundColor }, animSpeed);
    },function() {
        var $this=$(this);
        $this.stop().animate({ color: textColor }, animSpeed).parent().stop().animate({ backgroundColor: backgroundColor }, animSpeed);
    });
});
</script>

Optional jQuery code that features a selected state when an option is clicked

<script>
$(document).ready(function(){
    $nav_li=$("#nav li");
    $nav_li_selected=$("#nav li.selected");
    $nav_li_a=$nav_li.children("a");
    var animSpeed=450; //fade speed
    var hoverTextColor="#fff"; //text color on mouse over
    var hoverBackgroundColor="#9e0039"; //background color on mouse over
    var textColor=$nav_li_a.css("color");
    var backgroundColor=$nav_li.css("background-color");
    //init selected
    $nav_li_selected.css("background-color",hoverBackgroundColor).children().css("color",hoverTextColor);
    $nav_li_a.hover(function() {
        var $this=$(this);
        $this.stop().animate({ color: hoverTextColor }, animSpeed).parent().stop().animate({ backgroundColor: hoverBackgroundColor }, animSpeed);
    },function() {
        var $this=$(this);
        if(!$this.parent().is(".selected")){
            $this.stop().animate({ color: textColor }, animSpeed).parent().stop().animate({ backgroundColor: backgroundColor }, animSpeed);
        }
    });
    //selected state
    $nav_li_a.click(function(){
        var $this=$(this);
        $this.stop().animate({ color: hoverTextColor }, animSpeed).parent().stop().animate({ backgroundColor: hoverBackgroundColor }, animSpeed).addClass("selected").siblings(".selected").removeClass("selected").stop().animate({ backgroundColor: backgroundColor }, animSpeed).children().stop().animate({ color: textColor }, animSpeed);
    });
});
</script>

The html markup

<div id="nav">
    <ul>
      <li><a href="#about">About</a></li>
        <li><a href="#portfolio">Portfolio</a></li>
        <li><a href="#recent">Recent projects</a></li>
        <li><a href="#experiments">Experiments / miscellaneous</a></li>
        <li><a href="#contact">Contact me</a></li>
    </ul>
    <div class="clear"></div>
</div>

Optionally, if you need to have a menu option selected on page load, add the class-name selected on it. For example:

<li class="selected"><a href="#about">About</a></li>

To add support for rounded corners in IE8 we can use DD_roundies script by Drew Diller. Add the following code inside the head tags:

<script src="DD_roundies_0.0.2a-min.js"></script>
<script>
     DD_roundies.addRule("#nav", "5px");
     DD_roundies.addRule("#nav li", "5px");
</script>

That’s it. Feel free to modify it as you like 🙂