jQuery UI accordion that keeps multiple sections open?

Question

I may be an idiot, but how do you keep multiple sections in jQuery UI's accordion open? The demos all have only one open at a time... I'm looking for a collapseable menu type system.

Answer 1

Pretty simple:

<script type="text/javascript">
    (function($) {
        $(function() {
            $("#accordion > div").accordion({ header: "h3", collapsible: true });
        })
    })(jQuery);
</script>

<div id="accordion">
    <div>
        <h3><a href="#">First</a></h3>
        <div>Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet.</div>
    </div>
    <div>
        <h3><a href="#">Second</a></h3>
        <div>Phasellus mattis tincidunt nibh.</div>
    </div>
    <div>
        <h3><a href="#">Third</a></h3>
        <div>Nam dui erat, auctor a, dignissim quis.</div>
    </div>
</div>

Answer 2

This was originally discussed in the jQuery UI documentation for Accordion:

NOTE: If you want multiple sections open at once, don't use an accordion

An accordion doesn't allow more than one content panel to be open at the same time, and it takes a lot of effort to do that. If you are looking for a widget that allows more than one content panel to be open, don't use this. Usually it can be written with a few lines of jQuery instead, something like this:

jQuery(document).ready(function(){
  $('.accordion .head').click(function() {
      $(this).next().toggle();
      return false;
  }).next().hide();
});

Or animated:

jQuery(document).ready(function(){
  $('.accordion .head').click(function() {
      $(this).next().toggle('slow');
      return false;
  }).next().hide();
});

"I may be an idiot" - You're not an idiot if you don't read the documentation, but if you're having problems, it usually speeds up finding a solution.

Answer 3

Posted this in a similar thread, but thought it might be relevant here as well.

Achieving this with a single instance of jQuery-UI Accordion

As others have noted, the Accordion widget does not have an API option to do this directly. However, if for some reason you must use the widget (e.g. you're maintaining an existing system), it is possible to achieve this by using the beforeActivate event handler option to subvert and emulate the default behavior of the widget.

For example:

$('#accordion').accordion({
    collapsible:true,

    beforeActivate: function(event, ui) {
         // The accordion believes a panel is being opened
        if (ui.newHeader[0]) {
            var currHeader  = ui.newHeader;
            var currContent = currHeader.next('.ui-accordion-content');
         // The accordion believes a panel is being closed
        } else {
            var currHeader  = ui.oldHeader;
            var currContent = currHeader.next('.ui-accordion-content');
        }
         // Since we've changed the default behavior, this detects the actual status
        var isPanelSelected = currHeader.attr('aria-selected') == 'true';

         // Toggle the panel's header
        currHeader.toggleClass('ui-corner-all',isPanelSelected).toggleClass('accordion-header-active ui-state-active ui-corner-top',!isPanelSelected).attr('aria-selected',((!isPanelSelected).toString()));

        // Toggle the panel's icon
        currHeader.children('.ui-icon').toggleClass('ui-icon-triangle-1-e',isPanelSelected).toggleClass('ui-icon-triangle-1-s',!isPanelSelected);

         // Toggle the panel's content
        currContent.toggleClass('accordion-content-active',!isPanelSelected)    
        if (isPanelSelected) { currContent.slideUp(); }  else { currContent.slideDown(); }

        return false; // Cancels the default action
    }
});

See a jsFiddle demo