Bootstrap 4 - Nav - Hiding extra menu items

Question

I have a Bootstrap 4 layout similar to this: https://www.codeply.com/go/yLO99L66MD

When there are too many nav items, I want them to be hidden, so I added this: nav {overflow:hidden}. This does the job, but the problem is that it also hides my dropdown menu. How can I hide extra menu items but still allow dropdowns to show up for visible items?

<nav class="navbar navbar-expand-md navbar-dark bg-dark">
    <a class="navbar-brand" href="#">Navbar</a>
    <button class="navbar-toggler" type="button" data-toggle="collapse" data-target="#navbarsExampleDefault" aria-controls="navbarsExampleDefault" aria-expanded="false" aria-label="Toggle navigation">
        <span class="navbar-toggler-icon"></span>
    </button>

    <div class="collapse navbar-collapse" id="navbarsExampleDefault">
        <ul class="navbar-nav mr-auto">
            <li class="nav-item active">
                <a class="nav-link" href="#">Home <span class="sr-only">(current)</span></a>
            </li>
            <li class="nav-item">
                <a class="nav-link" href="#">Link</a>
            </li>
            <li class="nav-item">
                <a class="nav-link disabled" href="#">Disabled</a>
            </li>
            <li class="nav-item dropdown">
                <a class="nav-link dropdown-toggle" href="http://example.com" id="dropdown01" data-toggle="dropdown" aria-haspopup="true" aria-expanded="false">Dropdown</a>
                <div class="dropdown-menu" aria-labelledby="dropdown01">
                    <a class="dropdown-item" href="#">Action</a>
                    <a class="dropdown-item" href="#">Another action</a>
                    <a class="dropdown-item" href="#">Something else here</a>
                </div>
            </li>

            <li class="nav-item">
                <a class="nav-link" href="#">aaaaaaaa aaaaa </a>
            </li>

            <li class="nav-item">
                <a class="nav-link" href="#">bbbbbb bbbbb</a>
            </li>

            <li class="nav-item">
                <a class="nav-link" href="#">cccccccc cccccccc </a>
            </li>

            <li class="nav-item">
                <a class="nav-link" href="#">dddd ddddddddd </a>
            </li>
            <li class="nav-item">
                <a class="nav-link" href="#">eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee cv kbc vxckjvhkxcv </a>
            </li>


        </ul>

    </div>
</nav>

<div class="container">

    <div class="starter-template">
        <h1>Bootstrap starter template</h1>
        <p class="lead">Use this document as a way to quickly start any new project.
            <br> All you get is this text and a mostly barebones HTML document.</p>
    </div>

</div>
<!-- /.container -->

Solution 1

You can use the navbar as this given example.

When you resize the browser the nav items will be moved inside to the drop-down if it not have an enough space.

Demo

[1]: http://jsfiddle.net/swasatz/3fn4d5oq/

---

Snippet Demo

Open the snippet in full page mode and resize the browser to see the changes.

$(document).ready(function () {
    var menu = $("#nav-bar-filter"),
        subMenu = $(".subfilter"),
        more = $("#more-nav"),
        parent = $(".filter-wrapper"),
        ww = $(window).width(),
        smw = more.outerWidth();

    menu.children("li").each(function () {
        var w = $(this).outerWidth();
        if (w > smw) smw = w + 20;
        return smw
    });
    more.css('width', smw);

    function contract() {
        var w = 0,
            outerWidth = parent.width() - smw - 50;
        for (i = 0; i < menu.children("li").size(); i++) {
            w += menu.children("li").eq(i).outerWidth();
            if (w > outerWidth) {
                menu.children("li").eq(i - 1).nextAll()
                    .detach()
                    .css('opacity', 0)
                    .prependTo(".subfilter")
                    .stop().animate({
                    'opacity': 1
                }, 300);
                break;
            }
        }
    }

    function expand() {
        var w = 0,
            outerWidth = parent.width() - smw - 20;
        menu.children("li").each(function () {
            w += $(this).outerWidth();
            return w;
        });
        for (i = 0; i < subMenu.children("li").size(); i++) {
            w += subMenu.children("li").eq(i).outerWidth();
            if (w > outerWidth) {
                var a = 0;
                while (a < i) {
                    subMenu.children("li").eq(a)
                        .css('opacity', 0)
                        .detach()
                        .appendTo("#nav-bar-filter")
                        .stop().animate({
                        'opacity': 1
                    }, 300);
                    a++;
                }
                break;
            }
        }
    }
    contract();

    $(window).on("resize", function (e) {
        ($(window).width() > ww) ? expand() : contract();
        ww = $(window).width();
    });

});

body {
    font-family: verdana;
    min-width: 250px;
}
ul#more-nav, ul#nav-bar-filter {
    display: inline-block;
    vertical-align: top;
}
ul {
    list-style-type: none;
    padding: 0;
    margin: 0;
}
li {
    padding: 4px 8px 4px 8px;
    margin: 0;
}
#nav-bar-filter li {
    display: inline-block;
    font-weight: bold;
}
a {
    text-decoration: none;
    color: #666;
    font-size: 13px;
}
.filter-wrapper {
    width: 100%;
    background: #eee;
    padding: 5px 10px 5px 10px;
}
#more-nav {
    float: right;
}
.subfilter{
    padding-top: 10px;
}
.subfilter li {
    margin: 0 0 0 20px;
    padding: 5px 0 0 0;
}

<script src="https://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/2.1.1/jquery.min.js"></script>
<div class="twelve columns filter-wrapper">
    <ul class="nav-bar-filter" id="nav-bar-filter">
        <li><a href="#">All</a> 
        </li>
        <li><a href="#">Small</a>

        </li>
        <li><a href="#">Medium</a>

        </li>
        <li><a href="#">Extra large</a>

        </li>
        <li><a href="#">Text</a>

        </li>
        <li><a href="#">Small-1</a>

        </li>
        <li><a href="#">Medium-1</a>

        </li>
        <li><a href="#">Extra large text</a>

        </li>
        <li><a href="#">Large text</a>

        </li>
        <li><a href="#">Another text</a>

        </li>
        <li><a href="#">text</a>

        </li>
    </ul>
    <ul id="more-nav">
        <li><b><a href="#">More &gt;</a></b>

            <ul class="subfilter"></ul>
        </li>
    </ul>
</div>

Solution 2

For the menu-items that you would like to view as hidden on mobile devices, wrap a span around the list-item(s) that you want hidden and add the bootstrap 4 beta hidden values, like this.

<span class="d-none d-xs-block">
  <li class="nav-item">
    <a class="nav-link" href="#">aaaaaaaa 1234 </a>
  </li>
</span>

You can also apply the class to an <a> tag to hide that specific link within the drop-down menu. Furthermore, tinker with the d-xs-block class to meet your specifications.

I would like to provide you with a couple of sources to help guide you with regards to hiding elements at specific breakpoints.

• SO missing-visible-and-hidden-in-bootstrap-v4
• Example on codeply

Solution 3

Here is another option for Bootstrap 4 that will collapse the extra Navbar items into a dropdown menu on the right side. Use some logic (this is using jQuery) to control the placement of items in the menu...

function (menu,maxHeight) {

    var nav = $(menu);

    // check height of menu
    var navHeight = nav.innerHeight();

    // when the height is taller the navbar has wrapped onto 2 lines
    if (navHeight >= maxHeight) {
        $(menu + ' .dropdown').removeClass('d-none');
        $(".navbar-nav").removeClass('w-auto').addClass("w-100");
        while (navHeight > maxHeight) {
            //  add child to dropdown
            var children = nav.children(menu + ' li:not(:last-child)');
            var count = children.length;
            $(children[count - 1]).prependTo(menu + ' .dropdown-menu');
            navHeight = nav.innerHeight();
        }
        $(".navbar-nav").addClass("w-auto").removeClass('w-100');
    }
    else {
        var collapsed = $(menu + ' .dropdown-menu').children(menu + ' li');

        if (collapsed.length===0) {
          $(menu + ' .dropdown').addClass('d-none');
        }

        while (navHeight < maxHeight && (nav.children(menu + ' li').length > 0) && collapsed.length > 0) {
            //  remove child from dropdown
            collapsed = $(menu + ' .dropdown-menu').children('li');
            $(collapsed[0]).insertBefore(nav.children(menu + ' li:last-child'));
            navHeight = nav.innerHeight();
        }

        if (navHeight > maxHeight) { 
            autocollapse(menu,maxHeight);
        }
    }
}

https://www.codeply.com/go/IETSah3bFG

Comments

[janeh]

That would not be ideal, I can't count on 4 items fitting in the menu - what if somebody creates 2 or 3 items with very very long names? The 3rd one would stick outside of menu bounds. That's the tricky part is that menus are dynamically generated from user settings.

[Taufik Nur Rahmanda]

@janehouse I've updated my answer with corrected fiddle too, please check :-)

[janeh]

Thanks, tho, <span> inside <ul> is not a valid html

[Mister Moody]

I had failed to realize that.

[horbor]

I faced the similar problem and there is no need to use any extra JS or other tricks, please take a look at my answer stackoverflow.com/questions/46477802/…

[Satheesh Kumar]

@horbor, Here the issue is not showing/hiding the nav items with appropriate to screen size. The actual scenario is the user has a number of nav items which doesn't have enough space to show. For that, I have come up with the solution to move the extra nav items into dropdown by using jquery. Hope you got a clear idea now. Thanks :)