10 Tutorials For Jquery Navigation Menu Development

Navigation bars are inevitably a critical element to a webpage mockup, and virtually, it should absolutely appear in all pages across the whole website as much as possible. With navigation bars, users will be easily guided with ‘maps’ that lead them to the desired page or action. Site mapping is also effective, but if you are also talking about design elements that hit the eyes of the visitors, you should consider an efficient navigation bar.

With the introduction of jQuery as a highly versatile Javascript enhancement, developers are guided to a more guided and easier approach to developing interactive and attractive elements without that much complexity as usual. Thanks also to jQuery, designing and configuring modern navigation menus or bars won’t be that tedious and confusing at all.

Below are the top-notch tutorials you might want to consider in improving your navigation menus with the new coding platform.

1. How to Make a Smooth Animated Menu with jQuery

If you are starting from scratch but you want to join the new trend of designs and interactivity offered in the latest websites, then this tutorial should hit your shelf right away. Written by Zach Dunn, the tutorial introduces jQuery but with a twist: you are taught how to make navigating through menus smooth and responsive, all in one term called easing. The tutorial offers comprehensive screenshots, codes with color labels, plus some useful CSS styles to complete the package. Moreover, the tutorial is quick, easy to learn, and is completely guilt-free to share.

2. CSS Sprites2 – It’s JavaScipt Time

A very engaging and interesting post, Dave Shea teaches jQuery as to how to compete with Flash-powered website contents with the employed power of CSS Sprites2. The post comes with a live demo of the final effect, and though the steps aren’t numerically organized and presented, you are at least guided with a picturesque narration of the steps you have to take, and the things you have to observe while recoding your nav-bar. Codes such as the elements necessary are also provided clearly, and you are also presented with several examples to ready you up to real-life demands and applications.

3. Navigation List menu + jQuery Animate Effect Tutorial

Featured by Kevin Liew not as a tutorial but as a representation of his work, this tutorial-like post should help you only if you really know how to read the codes and pick up the lessons from the sheets. As the title suggests, Kevin teaches us a new javascript framework that features an attractive menu plus a very elegant animation effect on mouse-over, mouse-out, etc. Codes provided are very clean and neatly presented, so you can get to the right elements as soon as you grab hold of it.

4. Learning jQuery: Fading Menu – Replacing Content

If you want a subtle effect to your navigation menus like a fading effect, check out this tutorial posted by Chris Coyier. The jQuery offered here features a fading effect, wherein only the selected object (or menu item) stays opaque and the rest fades out of focus. The tutorial is very friendly and easy to read, and the codes are generously laid on the table for easy pick-up. Moreover, an updated content shares a ‘smarter’ way of doing the codes, so you get the most innovative ways to doing the effect without spending too much time.

5. Create a Cool Animated Navigation with CSS and jQuery

Offered to us by Joash Xu of NetTuts+, this tutorial aims at giving your navigation menus a youthful and delightful animation wherein an item ‘jumps and bounces’ when hovered over. The tutorial is properly divided into five sections as follows: rough sketch, creating resources, writing down the HTML, Writing down the CSS, and creating the animation using jQuery. Screenshots are also provided plus color-coded code editors for easy reference and look-up, along with bulleted contents for a step-by-step fashion. Moreover, a live demonstration is also provided with the tutorial, and a downloadable .zip file of the website can also be acquired for reference.

6. Create an Apple-Style Menu and Improve It via jQuery

A great fan of Apple’s navigation bar? Wondered how it was made? We are happy to have this tutorial right on us, along with a lot of extra contents that will surely make your ‘scratching-up’ a lot more worthwhile. This ‘Apple-flavored, Leopard-text-indent’ style is not essentially rooted in jQuery, but is only furnished and refined by it. The tutorial comes in 6 parts from conceptional work to downloading it, and you really get a comprehensive tutorial from crafting the nav-bar in Photoshop and coding it with CSS and HTML.

7. How to Build a Lava-Lamp Style Navigation Menu

By Lava-Lamp style, the effect actually goes like a bloated shape that occurs (animates smoothly) to a menu item when it is hovered. We are thankful to Jeffrey Way for sharing this 6-step tutorial in NetTuts+, and the steps are incredibly easy to follow. The steps, which start from creating the mark-up and ends with Styling the Menu, is pretty intuitive to follow, and if you are tired of the same old game, you can just simply download the source files for free.

8. A Stylish Navigation Menu with jQuery

It would be pretty hard to describe the effect being offered in this tutorial, but the word ‘stylish’ as in the title would be absolutely apt and safe. Posted by Martin Angelov of TutorialZine, the tutorial’s aim is to help you make a stylish CSS + XHTML navigation menu, all with the aid of jQuery. You can directly download the tutorial files, or you may continue with the 3-step tutorial that are just easy to the eyes as you go along. Though the effect achieved is not really competitive, the subtle animation would surely still pump your boring navigation bar up.

9. Animated Menus Using jQuery

This tutorial is available for download as a .psd .file. If you happen to visit Dragon Interactive (dragoninteractive.com) and locate its big navigation menus, you’ll get the idea of what effect this is in this tutorial. The tutorial covers from the top down, i.e., from creating or designing the sprite elements to composing the CSS document down to animation with jQuery. The lay-out of the tutorial may not be really readers-friendly, but if you are keen enough to take note of the details, you can surely make your navigation menus stand out from the rest with this cool, soft animation.

10. Little Boxes Menu with jQuery

Like what was suggested from the name of the tutorial, the Little Boxes effect is a very fancy—yet very limited—way to make your navigation menus real different. The Markup, the CSS, and the jQuery codes are all plainly laid in sight that you can copy on, and if you want more, you can also download the source codes or visit the demo page for a live run of the effects. With lovely tiles that mixes like puzzle pieces when you clicked on an item, this effect will really bring your website navigation into an extraordinary, futuristic level.