Sticky (Fixed) SideNav Layout with CSS
Today I would like to go over how to create a fixed sidenav layout for your blog or website.
Having a fixed sidenav comes in handy when dealing with blog style websites where the content is extremely tall and there is a need for good amount of scrolling. The fixed navigation allows the user to cruise through the content without scrolling back up to the top to navigate through the rest of the site.
The Base Wireframe – HTML/CSS
First center align your the main container, then add the two main sections (the sidenav and the content).
HTML
Fixing the sidenav is quite simple, just add a fixed position to your sidenav, then float your main content to the right.
CSS
width: 980px;
margin: 0 auto;
overflow: hidden;
background: url(container_stretch.gif);
font-size: 1.2em;
position: relative;
}
#sidenav {
width: 300px;
position: fixed; /*--Fix the sidenav to stay in one spot--*/
float: left; /*--Keeps sidenav into place when Fixed positioning fails--*/
}
#content {
float: right; /*--Keeps content to the right side--*/
width: 640px;
padding: 0 20px 20px;
}
Unfortunately the fixed position property is not supported in IE6. There is a workaround I stumbled across here that allowed IE6 to behave.
position: absolute;
left: expression( ( 0 ( ignoreMe2 = document.documentElement.scrollLeft ? document.documentElement.scrollLeft : document.body.scrollLeft ) ) 'px' );
top: expression( ( 0 ( ignoreMe = document.documentElement.scrollTop ? document.documentElement.scrollTop : document.body.scrollTop ) ) 'px' );
}
For those who are not very familiar with how fixed positioning works, do check out the resources below.
- w3schools – CSS Positioning
- Absolute, Relative, Fixed Positioning: How Do They Differ?
- Stopping the CSS positioning panic
Building the SideNav – HTML/CSS
Place the logo first, followed by a level 2 heading, then the navigation as an unordered list.
HTML
You will notice that the level 2 headings are replaced with a background image. Take a look at the CSS below.
text-indent: -99999px; /*--Push the text off of the page--*/
height: 41px;
padding: 0; margin: 15px 0 5px;
background-position: 20px top; /*--Set position of each heading background--*/
}
h2.categories {background: url(h2_categories.gif) no-repeat ;} /*--Background image for "category" heading--*/
h2.sites {background: url(h2_othersites.gif) no-repeat ;} /*--Background image for "other sites" heading--*/
#sidenav ul {
margin: 0; padding: 0 20px 30px 20px;
list-style: none;
background: url(sidenav_hr.gif) no-repeat right bottom; /*--thin break line underneath the navigation--*/
}
#sidenav ul li{
margin: 0; padding: 0;
display: inline; /*--Fixes IE6 bug of double margin--*/
}
#sidenav ul li a{
display: block;
margin: 0; padding: 5px 0 5px 15px;
background: url(sidenav_arrow.gif) no-repeat left center;
text-decoration: none;
color: #333;
}
#sidenav ul li a:hover {
color: #999;
}
Building the Main Content – HTML/CSS
This part is pretty simple and self explanatory. To replace the level 1 heading, use the same text replacement technique as the sidenav level 2 heading.
HTML
<h2>Opto tego, distineo luptatum</h2>
<p>Commoveo wisi nulla pala illum melior quis. Et luptatum validus wisi ingenium humo quidne, eros lucidus dolore ea vel amet. Capto, praemitto singularis tation duis consequat. Jus vulputate ingenium mauris ut, vero. Enim suscipit exerci eligo dolus decet elit transverbero.</p>
</div>
CSS
background: url(h1_home.gif) no-repeat center top; /*--Background image of heading--*/
text-indent: -9999px; /*--Push text off of page--*/
height: 145px;
margin: 0 0 0 -20px; /*--Since the #content has a padding of 20px, we will push this to the left -20px so it can align--*/
padding: 0;
}
#content h2 {
color: #7f0708;
margin: 10px 0; padding: 10px 0;
font-size: 2em;
font-weight: normal;
}
#content p {
line-height: 1.8em;
padding: 7px 0;
margin: 7px 0;
}
Potential Accessibility Work Around
One potential accessibility issue of having a fixed sidenav is when the sidenav is taller than the user’s viewport. As you can see in this example, the fixed positioning allows the sidenav to go past the viewport, not allowing the user to view the entire navigation. We will be using a few lines of jQuery to move around this issue.
Do keep in mind, that if you plan on having a meaty sidenav, it may be wise to re-think using this fixed sidenav method. From my experience I feel the best fit scenario is usually a sidenav that is short and simple (Not recommended for a giant sidenav).
jQuery Fix
For those who are not familiar with jQuery, do check out their site first and get an overview of how it works. I’ve shared a few tricks that I have picked up along the way, you can check those out as well.
Initial Step – Call the jQuery file
You can choose to download the file from the jQuery site, or you can use this one hosted on Google.
The following script contains comments explaining which jQuery actions are being performed.
function staticNav() {
var sidenavHeight = $("#sidenav").height(); //Get height of sidenav
var winHeight = $(window).height(); //Get height of viewport
var browserIE6 = (navigator.userAgent.indexOf("MSIE 6")>=0) ? true : false; //Check for IE6
if (browserIE6) { //if IE6...
$("#sidenav").css({'position' : 'absolute'}); //reset the sidenav to be absolute
} else { //if not IE6...
$("#sidenav").css({'position' : 'fixed'}); //reset the sidenav to be fixed
}
if (sidenavHeight > winHeight) { //If sidenav is taller than viewport...
$("#sidenav").css({'position' : 'static'}); //switch the fixed positioning to static. Say good bye to sticky nav!
}
}
staticNav(); //Execute function on load
$(window).resize(function () { //Each time the viewport is adjusted/resized, execute the function
staticNav();
});
});
Conclusion
Nice and simple! If you have any questions, concerns, or suggestions, please do not hesitate to let me know.
About the Author:
Soh Tanaka is a Los Angeles based Web Designer and blogger, who recently launched a CSS Web Gallery called Design Bombs. For more front-end web development tutorials, check out his web design blog or you can follow him on twitter @SohTanaka
61 Responses from Readers
Very nice tutorial Soh, I like the demo!
Great tutorial. Good demo and explanation.
Gah! Expressions, UA sniffing! Please if you need to target IE utilise conditional comments.
I think we are safely at a stage where awful hacks to make it work in IE6 are not really needed, progressive enhancement. Let’s leave IE6 in the dust where it belongs.
really great effort. thanks
Waho… Great tutorial !
Your demo page is very nice !
Thanks for sharing
It appears that the Firefox 3.5.2 update that came through tonight broke the demo. I saw it work earlier, though, and I was very impressed. Hopefully the fix is a simple one.
wow! very nice. thanks for the tut
It’s really great article. Love the demo and explanation. And very helpfull for us.
pretty sample. but the IE6 fix suck
Really Nice Technique!
This will also be really useful in web application interfaces.
Thanks
this looks very neat
Very interesting, great tutorial.
Nice idea, well done article, except for the use of the expressions. Expressions have a very nasty habit if chewing up a pc’s resources in record time until there’s nothing left as the browser continuously executes those expressions.
I agree that conditional comments should be used to target IE6. I’d love to leave it in the dust, but I can’t. I work for one of those companies that won’t upgrade IE due to legacy programs that were written to only work with THAT browser – and many in the corporate world are similarly stuck.
coolio….. appreciate your effort.
I have seen this on a number of website recently and have been wondering what would be the best way to recreate it, thanks for helping me out.
Thank you all for the feedback!
If anyone has questions feel free to just let me know~
Great tutorial – many thanks for sharing!
basically IE expression should never be used, is sake of performances.
I’ve wrote a jQuery plugin for dealing with floating
menues and such, its cross-platform and
also highly flexable with project demands.
check it out:
http://plugins.jquery.com/project/stickyfloat
demo:
http://plugins.jquery.com/files/stickyfloat_0.htm
@vsync – I did something similar on my site: http://www.getnorthern.co.uk – but haven’t constrained the navas it’s not necessary.
My contact details and Twitter posts also flow with the page however, and I’ve notice that, on longer posts in IE, they can sometimes ‘break out’ of the container. I’ll be having a look at your solution to see if it could help, so thanks.
Great article by the way!
@John Goodwin – its not just on IE, but your right side breaks on Firefox also.. when I scroll all the way down.
you have a well-known bug.
try to scroll all the way down, then resize your window height to a smaller one, and then scroll down even more.
it gets into infinite scroll-down.
my plugin is built for high performance, and should solve your problems.
Would have been nicer to keep that top red bar position:fixed too?
Thank you very much! Good tutorial.
Best Regards
I’m going to add this to me site, as i feel the scrolling will become rather large on my blog section.
Don’t need the jQuery script though, as my navigation is at the top.
Great work.
wow great tutorial
helped me a lot
You can’t scroll to the bottom of the left hand nav if your screen/browser window is shorter than the length of the nav. Annoying. In FF3.5.2 anyway.
Hi,
I tried to incorporate the menu into one of my websites but it didn”t work in IE7. Some time ago I faced a similar problem when I followed another tutorial on how to code a sticky footer.
Whatever the reason may be…. YOUR demo page AND MY website both don’t work.
Can anyone help please?
Is there a possibility to get a “head” fixed?
Zimtgruen,
Yes, it’s possible. Here is one example – http://davidwalsh.name/
nice and very useful in general – EXCEPT:
in your demo the spacing of the list item in the navigation is so generous that on my screen resolution “Folio Focus” is cut off – the items below I can only see once I press F11 for full screen view (which average user knows about that function?).
That won’t do! Why? Because with this “nice layout” I cannot scroll down to the last navigation links. [Stupid - ain't it]
I’m using an ASUS notebook from 2007, set to its maximum resolution; it would be cut off even more on my netbook’s screen.
this is really helpful,you gave me something to play with ,thnx
Great post but why does the menu have a h2 at the begining, for semantic reasons shouldnt headings etc be exclusively for the content panel. also for SEO reasons its best to not use heirarchy for side content (it usually messes us the h1 -> h5 flow of headings as theres always some joker who has a h2 or less higher in the code which again doesnt make semantic sense.
If you resize your browser window, the sidebar doesn’t stick anymore, even if you put it back to full size. Am I the only one experiencing that?
FF 3.5.8
Opera 10.10 on linux
ekly,
It stays sticky for me when the browser (Firefox) is re-sized and after it’s back to the original size.
The CSS expressions are not really good. Use JS and the onscroll/onresize Events if you really need it in IE6 (though it would not hurt not to show this trick in IE6).
If you have full control over the HTML, you could use layered divs, one of them with overflow: auto, though the sizes are a bit tricky.
Greetings, LX
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