Easiest css for Facebook style "red" notifications

Question

I need a facebook style notification, but getting something that looks nice cross browser seems tricky. For example, different browsers seem to treat paddings differently, resulting in weird looking notifications.

What is the best cross-browser way of ensuring the notifications show up nicely? Not adverse to using javascript, but pure css is of course preferable

Solution 1

The best way to achieve this is by using absolute positioning:

/* Create the blue navigation bar */
.navbar {
  background-color: #3b5998;
  font-size: 22px;
  padding: 5px 10px;
}

/* Define what each icon button should look like */
.button {
  color: white;
  display: inline-block; /* Inline elements with width and height. TL;DR they make the icon buttons stack from left-to-right instead of top-to-bottom */
  position: relative; /* All 'absolute'ly positioned elements are relative to this one */
  padding: 2px 5px; /* Add some padding so it looks nice */
}

/* Make the badge float in the top right corner of the button */
.button__badge {
  background-color: #fa3e3e;
  border-radius: 2px;
  color: white;
 
  padding: 1px 3px;
  font-size: 10px;
  
  position: absolute; /* Position the badge within the relatively positioned button */
  top: 0;
  right: 0;
}

<!-- Font Awesome is a great free icon font. -->
<link href="https://maxcdn.bootstrapcdn.com/font-awesome/4.6.3/css/font-awesome.min.css" rel="stylesheet"/>

<div class="navbar">
  <div class="button">
    <i class="fa fa-globe"></i>
    <span class="button__badge">2</span>
  </div>
  <div class="button">
    <i class="fa fa-comments"></i>
    <span class="button__badge">4</span>
  </div>
</div>

Solution 2

Here's one that includes animation for when the count changes.

http://jsfiddle.net/rahilsondhi/FdmHf/4/

<ul>
<li class="notification-container">
    <i class="icon-globe"></i>
    <span class="notification-counter">1</span>
</li>

    .notification-container {
    position: relative;
    width: 16px;
    height: 16px;
    top: 15px;
    left: 15px;

    i {
        color: #fff;
    }
}

.notification-counter {   
    position: absolute;
    top: -2px;
    left: 12px;

    background-color: rgba(212, 19, 13, 1);
    color: #fff;
    border-radius: 3px;
    padding: 1px 3px;
    font: 8px Verdana;
}




$counter
.css({opacity: 0})
.text(val)
.css({top: '-10px'})
.transition({top: '-2px', opacity: 1})

Animation with jQuery:

$('button').click(function()
{
    var $counter = $('.notification-counter')
    var val = parseInt $counter.text();
    val++;
    $counter.css({opacity: 0}).text(val).css({top:'-10px'}).animate({top: '-1px', opacity: 1}, 500);
});

It uses Font Awesome for the globe icon and jQuery Transit for the animation.

Solution 3

Probably absolute positioning:

<div id="globe" style="height: 30px; width: 30px; position: relative;">
 <img src="/globe.gif" />
 <div id="notification" style="position: absolute; top: 0; right;0;">1</div>
</div>

Something like that. Obviously you would want to change the specifics and probably use background images. The point is to emphasis the absolute positioning which it really consistent across browsers, at least in my experiences.

Solution 4

Markup:

<div id="ContainerDiv">
    <div id="MainImageDiv"> //Add the image here or whatever you want </div>
    <div id="NotificationDiv"> </div>
</div>

Css:

#NotificationDiv {
    position: absolute;
    left: -10 //use negative values to push it above the #MainImageDiv
    top: -4 
    ...
}

Solution 5

I am sure that the answers about absolute positioning are correct. For the sake of experiment, I tried to make an SVG-only solution. The result is far from ideal, maybe someone knows a more elegant solution to a similar svg puzzle? :)

http://jsfiddle.net/gLdsco5p/3/

<svg width="64" height="64" viewBox="0 0 91 91">
    <rect id="Artboard1" x="0" y="0" width="90.326" height="90.326" style="fill:none;"/>
    <g id="Artboard11" serif:id="Artboard1">
        <g id="user-circle-o" transform="matrix(2.69327,0,0,2.69327,7.45723,7.45723)">
            <path d="M14,0C21.734,0 28,6.266 28,14C28,21.688 21.766,28 14,28C6.25,28 0,21.703 0,14C0,6.266 6.266,0 14,0ZM23.672,21.109C25.125,19.109 26,16.656 26,14C26,7.391 20.609,2 14,2C7.391,2 2,7.391 2,14C2,16.656 2.875,19.109 4.328,21.109C4.89,18.312 6.25,16 9.109,16C10.375,17.234 12.093,18 14,18C15.907,18 17.625,17.234 18.891,16C21.75,16 23.11,18.312 23.672,21.109ZM20,11C20,7.687 17.312,5 14,5C10.688,5 8,7.688 8,11C8,14.312 10.688,17 14,17C17.312,17 20,14.312 20,11Z" style="fill:rgb(190,190,190);fill-rule:nonzero;"/>
        </g>
        <g transform="matrix(1,0,0,1,1.36156,0)">
            <circle cx="63.708" cy="18.994" r="9.549" style="fill:rgb(255,0,0);"/>
        </g>
        <g transform="matrix(1.66713,0,0,1.66713,-51.5278,-2.33264)">
            <text  id="counter" x="68.034px" y="15.637px" style="font-family:'ArialMT', 'Arial', sans-serif;font-size:7.915px;fill:white;">1</text>
        </g>
    </g>
</svg>

View more solutions

Comments

[Vackup]

Change <div id="notif_Container"> to <div id="noti_Container"> to make it work

[Benjamin Crouzier]

Thumbs up for ie7, 8 and 9 support. Ie6 kinda works aswell, but I don't care anymore :)

[Marcel Djaman]

@AmbiguousTk it served by a transition plugin jquery.transit.min.js Or instead you can use : code$counter.css({opacity: 0}) .text(val) .css({top: '-10px'}).animate({top: '-1px', opacity: 1}, 500);code

[Adrian P.]

Thanks a lot! Saves my time.

[sweaty]

This is awesome, I had to put it in the <li> section of a Jquery tab to make it work, but works great.

[Web_Developer]

It works even I used in multiple times in a page by just replacing the id of the container.

[Inigo]

This answer doesn't work anymore, or at least as it is shown in jsfiddle.

[Inigo]

The absolute positioning part of this answer is right. But there is also getting size, shape and look right, and doing it in an elegant and responsive way. The badge should look like it's floating above and partly outside. This answer puts it inside the element, but luckily the icons are small and round so it looks ok IN THIS CASE. You have to do a lot of tweaking of px values to fit other cases, and even then it isn't responsive. I wrote a new answer with a live demo to compare.