Twitter Bootstrap mobile nav: hide menu after clicking menu link

Question

I'm looking for a way to make the Twitter Bootstrap mobile/tablet nav automatically hide/collapse after clicking a menu link. I have a lot of menu items and so when users expand the menu in iPhone, they only see the menu and not the page underneath. This confuses the user when they click a menu link, making it seem like nothing has happened after click.

A huge thank you and hug to anyone who can point me in the right direction with this!

Answer 1

If you are using BS3.x you can collapse the mobile nav with markup like this - notice the “data-toggle” and “data-target” in the markup for the home link:

  <nav class="collapse navbar-collapse" role="navigation">
    <ul class="nav navbar-nav">
      <li class="active">
        <a data-toggle="collapse" data-target=".navbar-collapse" href="#home">Home</a>
      </li>
      <li>

You can also collapse the mobile Nav via script like this:

    <script>
      $('.navbar-collapse a').click(function (e) {
        $('.navbar-collapse').collapse('toggle');
      });
    </script>

This approach requires absolutely no extra markup. Each time a link is clicked in the nav it will toggle the navbar.

Cheers.

Answer 2

The easiest way I have found is to use the data attributes on any navbar links where collapsing of the mobile navbar is desired. Use data-target=".navbar-collapse.in" so that the navbar is only toggle in it's open state, and not every time the link is clicked.

<a href="#link" data-toggle="collapse" data-target=".navbar-collapse.in">Link</a>

http://codeply.com/go/bp/lbIb5ZaHbq

Answer 3

The navigation should be closed any time a user clicks anywhere on the body - not just navigation elements. Say menu is open, but user clicks in the page body. User expects to see menu close.

You also have to make sure toggle button is visible, otherwise a jump is seen in menu.

$(document).ready(function() { 

$("body").click(function(event) {
        // only do this if navigation is visible, otherwise you see jump in navigation while collapse() is called 
         if ($(".navbar-collapse").is(":visible") && $(".navbar-toggle").is(":visible") ) {
            $('.navbar-collapse').collapse('toggle');
        }
  });

});

Answer 4

Example markup like from the Bootstrap documentation:

<!-- Collect the nav links, forms, and other content for toggling -->
<div class="collapse navbar-collapse" id="example-auto-collapse">

Close on menu item click

Add to your Javascript accordingly:

$('#example-auto-collapse').on('click', 'a:not(.dropdown-toggle)', function(e) {
    $('#example-auto-collapse.in').collapse('hide');
}

Alternative: Close with any click

Like Charlie Dalsass suggested it might be preferable to also close the menu when clicking on the page. For that you can replace the Javascript above with the following:

$('body').click(function(e) {
    // don't close when opening a sub-menu in our menu
    if(!$(e.target).filter('#example-auto-collapse .dropdown-toggle').length > 0) {
        $('#example-auto-collapse.in').collapse('hide');
    }
}

Even cleaner imo would be to bind and unbind this handler when the menu opens/closes and avoid running the handler in vain on every single click the user makes. It's very unlikely to have any noticeable impact though.

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I created a stack exchange account just to upvote the answer by Skelly for it's simplicity. Then I found out how one can't upvote without reputation. Then I found out how that solution breaks ScrollSpy. Now this is the solution that works best for me without unwanted side effects.

Answer 5

In case anyone else is interested, I found a solution elsewhere. It's beautifully simple.

Add this id to your markup:

<nav class="nav-main nav-collapse collapse" id="hideonclick" role="navigation">

And add this to your JS:

$('#hideonclick a').click(function (e) {
                e.preventDefault();
                $(this).tab('show');
                if ($('.btn').is(":visible"))
                    $('.btn').click();
            });

Answer 6

If you are using sub menu, you have to modify @user2562923's code as follow :

        $('.navbar-collapse a').click(function (e) {
            if( $(e.target).is('a') && $(e.target).attr('class') != 'dropdown-toggle' ) {
                $('.navbar-collapse').collapse('toggle');
            }
        });