Focus Slide Menu

Steve Chipman Jul 18, 2008

General

Mousing over a list item will cause the bluish green DIV to slide over to that list item. Interesting menu effect. Easily customizable. Degrades very nicely for those with JavaScript turned off.

Notes

Created by: Steve Chipman
Web Site: http://slayeroffice.com/
Posted: July 18, 2008

Source Code

Paste this source code into the designated areas.

External file

Paste this code into an external JavaScript file named: focusSlide.js

/* This script and many more are available free online at
The JavaScript Source!! http://www.javascriptsource.com */

/******************************************************
	Focus Slide
	version 1.0
	last revision: 12.17.2004
	steve@slayeroffice.com

	Should you improve upon or
	modify this code, please let me know
	so that I can update the version hosted
	at slayeroffice.

	PLEASE LEAVE THIS NOTICE INTACT!

******************************************************/

var d=document;		// shortcut reference to the document object
var activeLI = 0;		// the currently "active" list element - value represents its index in the liObj array
var zInterval = null;	// interval variable

var SLIDE_STEP = 8;	// how many pixels to move the sliding div at a time
var SLIDER_WIDTH = 74;	// the width of the sliding div. used to calculate
                        // its left based on the width and left of the active LI element


function init() {
	// bail out if this is an older browser or Opera which gets the offsets wrong
	// the opera issue is fixable by subtracting the container UL's width from the
  // offsetLefts...but I don't care enough to do it
	// this does NOT break opera, it just wont get the sliding thing

	if(!document.getElementById || window.opera)return;

	// create references to the LI's
	mObj = d.getElementById("mContainer");
	liObj = mObj.getElementsByTagName("li");

	// set up the mouse over events
	for(i=0;i<liObj.length;i++) {
		liObj[i].xid = i;
		liObj[i].onmouseover = function() { initSlide(this.xid); }
	}

	// create the slider object
	slideObj = mObj.appendChild(d.createElement("div"));
	slideObj.id = "slider";

	// position the slider over the first LI
	x = liObj[activeLI].offsetLeft + (liObj[activeLI].offsetWidth/3 - SLIDER_WIDTH/3)-5;
	y = liObj[activeLI].offsetTop-3;
	slideObj.style.top = y + "px";
	slideObj.style.left = x + "px";
}


function initSlide(objIndex) {
	// return if the user is mousing over the currently active LI
	if(objIndex == activeLI)return;
	// clear the interval so we can start it over in a few lines to avoid doubling up on intervals
	clearInterval(zInterval);

	// set the active list item to the object index argument
	activeLI = objIndex;
	// figure out the destination for the sliding div element
	destinationX = Math.floor(liObj[activeLI].offsetLeft + (liObj[activeLI].offsetWidth/3 - SLIDER_WIDTH/3))-5;
	// start the interval
	intervalMethod = function() { doSlide(destinationX); }
	zInterval = setInterval(intervalMethod,10);
}

function doSlide(dX) {
	// get the current left of the sliding div
	x = slideObj.offsetLeft;
	if(x+SLIDE_STEP<dX) {
		// div is less than its destination, move it to the right
		x+=SLIDE_STEP;
		slideObj.style.left = x + "px";
	} else if (x-SLIDE_STEP>dX) {
		// div is more than its destination, move to the left
		x-=SLIDE_STEP;
		slideObj.style.left = x + "px";
	} else  {
		// div is within the boundaries of its destination. put it where its supposed to be
		// and clear the interval
		slideObj.style.left = dX + "px";
		clearInterval(zInterval);
		zInterval = null;
	}
}

// Multiple onload function created by: Simon Willison
// http://simonwillison.net/2004/May/26/addLoadEvent/
function addLoadEvent(func) {
  var oldonload = window.onload;
  if (typeof window.onload != 'function') {
    window.onload = func;
  } else {
    window.onload = function() {
      if (oldonload) {
        oldonload();
      }
      func();
    }
  }
}

addLoadEvent(function() {
  init();
});

CSS

Paste this code into your external CSS file or in the <style> section within the HEAD section of your HTML document.

#mContainer {
	position:relative;
	margin:0 auto;
	width:404px;
	height:25px;
	border-top:1px solid #638DA1;
	border-bottom:1px solid #638DA1;
	background-color:#F2F5F6;
	padding:5px 0 0 0;
	z-index:0;
}

#mContainer li {
	position:relative;
	display:inline;
	margin:0 10px 0 12px;
	font:0.8em arial,verdana;
	padding:0;
	z-index:20;
}

#mContainer li a {
	text-decoration:none;
	color:#638DA1;
}

#slider {
	position:absolute;
	background-color:	#98B4C1;
	border:1px solid #78919B;
	width:74px;
	height:20px;
	padding:0;
	z-index:1;
}

Head

Paste this code into the HEAD section of your HTML document.


<script type="text/javascript" src="focusSlide.js"></script>

Body

Paste this code into the BODY section of your HTML document


<!-- this list is the actionable markup -->
<ul id="mContainer">
	<li><a href="#" title="Item One">Item One</a></li>
	<li><a href="#" title="Item Two">Item Two</a></li>

	<li><a href="#" title="Item Three">Item Three</a></li>
	<li><a href="#" title="Item Four">Item Four</a></li>
	<li><a href="#" title="Item Five">Item Five</a></li>
</ul>

Leave a Response

(5 comments)

Your question is beyond the scope of these comments. You will need to post it over on [a href="http://www.webdeveloper.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=3"]the JavaScript forum[/a]. Thanks!

Lee Nov 6, 2008

Your question is beyond the scope of these comments. You will need to post it over on [a href="http://www.webdeveloper.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=3"]the JavaScript forum[/a]. Thanks!

Lee Oct 31, 2008

How did you get this to work in FireFox? I can only get it to work in IE.

Cody Oct 8, 2008

hi, your script looks cool, but when I used it, it doesn't works. the menu can display correctly but there is not slide action from jvscript. I tried put alert( 'test ')in that js file and test pop up.This mean the js file is invoked but does not perform the slide action

john Jul 19, 2008

nice effect, but it seems to 'degrades nicely' in Opera 9.5.

Bill Ferguson Jul 19, 2008

Alphabetical Listing

Tutorials

Ajax Tutorials

Ajax

Buttons

Cookies

CSS

Forms

Games

Generators

Image Effects

Math Related

Miscellaneous

Multimedia

Navigation

Page Details

Password

Snippets

Text Effects

Time & Date

User Details