Pop Out CSS Menu

Written by , Published On 11th July 2007.
Filed in Articles, CSS, Navigation.

For websites with a complex hierarchy of navigation, using a pop out menu can allow you to easily find your way to what you want quickly. Using CSS to create one is a snap, and is easy to update.

Example

View the Pop Out Menu Example

This is a simple menu, coded semantically with XHTML and CSS. It uses a list to show the menu, and generates the layout of the links from the CSS file. You will need to download our style sheet, download the whatever:hover file from Peter Nederlof to get the menu working in Internet Explorer. You add the following HTML to your code, altering it to fit your needs:

HTML Code

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<div id="menu">
<ul>
  <li><h2>Navigation Menu</h2>
    <ul>
      <li><a href="" title="">Option 1</a>
        <ul>
          <li><a href="" title="">Sub Option 1</a></li>
          <li><a href="" title="">Sub Option 2</a></li>
          <li><a href="" title="">Sub Option 3</a></li>
        </ul>
      </li>
    </ul>
    <ul>
      <li><a href="" title="">Option 2</a>
        <ul>
          <li><a href="" title="">Sub Option 1</a></li>
          <li><a href="" title="">Sub Option 2</a></li>
          <li><a href="" title="">Sub Option 3</a></li>
        </ul>
      </li>
    </ul>
    <ul>
      <li><a href="" title="">Option 3</a>
        <ul>
          <li><a href="" title="">Sub Option 1</a></li>
          <li><a href="" title="">Sub Option 2</a></li>
          <li><a href="" title="">Sub Option 3</a></li>
        </ul>
      </li>
    </ul>
  </li>
</ul>				
</div>

CSS Code

You can download a copy of the CSS code for this example, then copy and paste it into the head section of your page. Combine that with the whatever:hover file from above in the same directory, and the detailed HTML code – you’ll have a beautiful popup menu in no time!

Discussion

  1. shruti kalamdani says:
    March 24, 2009 at 10:29 am

    does this work with screen readers??

  2. Elena says:
    November 23, 2009 at 1:51 pm

    I applied this CSS for a dinamic menu from PHP+MySQL.. It works very well … Thanks…

  3. Cheap Printing says:
    December 28, 2010 at 7:03 pm

    Great page and good tips for integrating CSS and PHP +

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