Create Simple Jquery Plugin To Add An Arrow On Active Menu

written on Min 10 November 2013 by Habibillah

Sometime I need to put an arrow on active menu visited by website user or visitor on simple way as image below.

Firstly, prepare HTML image for arrow and a list of menus

    <img class="up_arrow" src="images/up_arrow.png" />
        <div class="menu left">
        <a href="#" class="active">About Us</a>
        <a href="#">The Dream</a>
        <a href="#">Events</a>
        <a href="#">Contact Us</a>
        <a href="#">Affiliates</a>
    </div>

set absolute and hide the image on CSS file for first load

.up_arrow {
    position: absolute;
    display: none;
}

add javascript and write it as jquery plugin

(function($) {
    $.fn.putMenuArrow = function() {
        $('.up_arrow').css({
            'display': 'block',
            'position': 'absolute',
            'left': ($(this).offset().left + $(this).outerWidth() / 2) - 17, // 17 is width of arrow image
            'top': $(this).offset().top - 19 //19 is height of arrow image
        });
    }
}(jQuery));

// call putMenuArrow plugin
$(document).ready(function() {
    $('.menu a.active').putMenuArrow();

    $('.menu a').click(function(e) {
        e.preventDefault();
        $('.menu a').removeClass('active');
        $(this).addClass('active');
        $(this).putMenuArrow();
    });
});

The complete demo can be found at:

This entry was tagged on #javascript, #jquery and #jQuery_menu