Join us for our biggest AI launch event on 10/31

Announcing Visual Copilot - Figma to production in half the time

Builder.io logo
Contact Sales
Platform
Developers
Contact Sales

Blog

Home

Resources

Blog

Forum

Github

Login

Signup

×

Visual CMS

Drag-and-drop visual editor and headless CMS for any tech stack

Theme Studio for Shopify

Build and optimize your Shopify-hosted storefront, no coding required

Resources

Blog

Get StartedLogin

‹ Back to blog

Web Development

Active Navlink Transitions with HTML, CSS and JavaScript

January 9, 2024

Written By Vishwas Gopinath

In this blog post, we'll explore how to create an active navlink transition using HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, a feature that can add a nice touch to your portfolio or landing page.

Generating markup from your design

To begin, we'll use Visual Copilot, an AI powered Figma to Code plugin, to accelerate the process. This tool can convert Figma designs into HTML and CSS code, saving us valuable time. Here are the steps:

1. Start with a mockup in Figma, which you can find here.

2. Run Builder.io's Figma plugin, select your design, and click the Generate code button. This action generates the initial HTML and CSS.

3. Copy and paste the generated code into a playground of your choice like Codepen, for example.

Here's the HTML code generated by Visual Copilot in Quality mode:

<header class="main-container">
  <img loading="lazy" src="https://cdn.builder.io/api/v1/image/assets/TEMP/558f6608975e84484d23cfcb4c3fad695afc65e777d464cc97f49e49f86ff227?apiKey=7e8b177c7c374d8abaf3aebf27f1c17d&" class="img" />
  <nav class="nav-container">
    <a href="#" class="link">HOME</a>
    <a href="#" class="link">BLOG</a>
    <a href="#" class="link">COURSES</a>
    <a href="#" class="link">SNIPPETS</a>
  </nav>
  <button class="subscribe-button">SUBSCRIBE</button>
</header>

And here’s the generated CSS:

.main-container {
  justify-content: space-between;
  align-items: start;
  border-radius: var(--rounded-box, 0px);
  background-color: #1f1f1f;
  display: flex;
  gap: 20px;
  padding: 30px 60px;
}

.img {
  aspect-ratio: 1.06;
  object-fit: contain;
  object-position: center;
  width: 50px;
  overflow: hidden;
  max-width: 100%;
}

.nav-container {
  justify-content: space-between;
  border-radius: 36px;
  border: var(--rounded-box, 1px) solid #004957;
  background-color: #2a3843;
  align-self: stretch;
  display: flex;
  gap: 20px;
  padding: 16px 32px;
}

.link {
  color: #fff;
  text-align: center;
  letter-spacing: 0.32px;
  font: 600 16px Poppins, sans-serif;
}

.subscribe-button {
  color: #fff;
  text-align: center;
  letter-spacing: 0.32px;
  white-space: nowrap;
  justify-content: center;
  border-radius: 12px;
  border: 1px solid #02d6fe;
  background-color: #1f1f1f;
  align-self: stretch;
  padding: 16px 8px;
  font: 600 16px Poppins, sans-serif;
}

In the HTML, add a div tag with the underline class right after the 4 links to create the visual underline effect:

<header class="main-container">
  <img loading="lazy" src="https://cdn.builder.io/api/v1/image/assets/TEMP/558f6608975e84484d23cfcb4c3fad695afc65e777d464cc97f49e49f86ff227?apiKey=7e8b177c7c374d8abaf3aebf27f1c17d&" class="img" />
  <nav class="nav-container">
    <a href="#" class="link">HOME</a>
    <a href="#" class="link">BLOG</a>
    <a href="#" class="link">COURSES</a>
    <a href="#" class="link">SNIPPETS</a>
    <div class="underline"></div>  <!-- Add line -->
  </nav>
  <button class="subscribe-button">SUBSCRIBE</button>
</header>

In the CSS styles, make the following changes to customize the navlink appearance:

  • Remove the underline from all the navlinks using text-decoration: none; to prepare for the custom underline effect.
  • Set the nav container to a relative position.
  • Add styles for the underline class to create the underline effect.
.link {
  color: #fff;
  text-align: center;
  letter-spacing: 0.32px;
  font: 600 16px Poppins, sans-serif;
  text-decoration: none;  /* Add line */
}

.nav-container {
  justify-content: space-between;
  border-radius: 36px;
  border: var(--rounded-box, 1px) solid #004957;
  background-color: #2a3843;
  align-self: stretch;
  display: flex;
  gap: 20px;
  padding: 16px 32px;
  position: relative;  /* Add line */
}

/* Styling the underline class */
.underline {
  position: absolute;
  bottom: 0;
  height: 2px;
  width: 0; /* Initially no width */
  background-color: cyan;
  transition: width 0.3s ease, left 0.3s ease; /* Smooth transitions */
}

For the JavaScript logic, find all the link elements and attach a click event handler. Within the handler, update the width and left properties of the underline element to match the clicked link’s offsetWidth and offsetLeft properties:

document.querySelectorAll('.link').forEach(item => {
    item.addEventListener('click', () => {
        const underline = document.querySelector('.underline');
        underline.style.width = item.offsetWidth + 'px';
        underline.style.left = item.offsetLeft + 'px';
    });
});

The active navlink underline should now transition smoothly when a link is clicked.

You can find the full source code on my Codepen

Share

Twitter
LinkedIn
Facebook
Hand written text that says "A drag and drop headless CMS?"

Coming soon: add interactivity and data to your designs

Reserve Your Spot
Newsletter

Like our content?

Join Our Newsletter

Continue Reading
Visual Editing7 MIN
Visual editing is bridging the gap between developers and designers
October 11, 2024
SEO10 MIN
A helpful approach to navigating the SEO AI shift
October 3, 2024
Personalization12 MIN
High-Performance Personalization For Modern Frontends
September 26, 2024