JavaScript sliding panel tutorial

What I'm sharing with you today is a simple JavaScript sliding panel tutorial whereas the sliding drawer looks like and has the same animation effect just like the Android navigation drawer.

We were able to achieve the animation effects with the help of jQuery UI. So in our code, we will see the inclusion of jQuery UI and its CSS URL.

On the webpage, there's a trigger located on the upper left corner, that can show or hide the navigation drawer. You can absolutely customize this to look more like an Android action bar but in our example, I'll use a very simple UI just to get you started.

jquery sliding drawer navigation tutorial
jquery sliding drawer navigation when it is closed or hidden

When you click "Show" it will show the navigation drawer panel with animation from left to right, it will reduce the opacity of content and will change the text from "Show" to "Hide".

jQuery Sliding Drawer Navigation Tutorial Step by Step

Prepare your basic HTML code in index.html

<!doctype html>
<html>
    <head>
        <title>jQuery Simple Dropdown Menu</title>
    </head>
<body>
  
</body>
</html>

Add the action-bar div inside the body tag.

<div id='action-bar'>
    <div id='show-drawer'>Show</div>
    <div id='hide-drawer'>Hide</div>
</div>

Put the main-contents div under the action-bar div.

Inside the main-contents div is the navigation-drawer div which will be hidden via CSS, and the 'text-content' div which contains your page content.

The navigation-drawer div may contain anything you want such as list or another divs with the style you want.

<div id='main-contents'>
 
    <div id='navigation-drawer'>
        Drawer contents here.
    </div>
     
    <div id='text-content'>
     
        Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Vestibulum lacinia non neque et ornare. Interdum et malesuada fames ac ante ipsum primis in faucibus. Curabitur blandit sapien nec iaculis consequat. Nam semper, eros eu tempor bibendum, metus velit scelerisque lorem, non venenatis sem justo non nunc. Cras nec purus eget eros elementum aliquet quis lacinia tortor. Nunc dignissim, purus in gravida tincidunt, quam arcu sodales nisl, nec sollicitudin eros purus vel dui. Etiam erat nunc, faucibus eu pellentesque sed, congue suscipit enim.
        <br /><br />
        Cras sit amet nibh et ante pellentesque malesuada accumsan at turpis. Aliquam ac tellus auctor, sagittis purus eget, venenatis risus. Aenean eget nisl facilisis, tristique est in, fringilla tortor. Pellentesque faucibus aliquam risus. Vestibulum quis vestibulum lectus, sed laoreet nulla. In feugiat, augue at faucibus cursus, metus ligula gravida metus, a condimentum dolor odio vel libero. Curabitur ut viverra orci, eget molestie sem. Aliquam erat volutpat.
        <br /><br />
        Praesent eu viverra sem. Morbi mollis consectetur elit eget pulvinar. Nam nunc nulla, tempus quis sapien id, mattis venenatis purus. Curabitur tortor nulla, vulputate non felis at, vulputate fermentum augue. Sed condimentum egestas metus, non luctus odio consectetur in. Quisque dignissim metus neque, non consequat ligula faucibus id. Class aptent taciti sociosqu ad litora torquent per conubia nostra, per inceptos himenaeos. Nullam varius lacus mi, vel facilisis eros adipiscing ac. Aenean vulputate eros ut sollicitudin lobortis. Vestibulum euismod sollicitudin felis, a ultrices nisi euismod at.
        <br /><br />
        Aliquam hendrerit erat nulla, ut ornare lacus pretium eget. Donec cursus, lectus sed posuere accumsan, metus augue rutrum ligula, a accumsan ipsum turpis suscipit nisl. Morbi id enim sed nisl ornare porttitor. Donec facilisis, nibh eget rhoncus molestie, metus justo rutrum mauris, at mattis quam neque vitae odio. Praesent in nunc ipsum. Cras vulputate lacus sit amet augue cursus viverra. Integer tempor scelerisque lacus, et luctus nunc mollis eget.
        <br /><br />
        Aliquam enim diam, suscipit a metus quis, imperdiet vehicula velit. Pellentesque orci augue, elementum eget eros ut, egestas dictum nunc. Proin vehicula tincidunt velit, eu consequat nunc euismod in. Mauris sit amet ullamcorper sem. Ut et turpis fringilla, volutpat metus quis, rutrum nunc. Ut nisi augue, sagittis eu accumsan adipiscing, blandit at nibh. Vivamus cursus a diam sed pharetra. Nam sed ante iaculis, dictum ipsum id, vulputate purus.
 
    </div>
</div>

Wrap the action-bar and main-contents div inside a page-container div.

<div id='page-container'>
<!-- action-bar and main-contents here -->
</div>

Step 5: Style the page using CSS

We can put the following CSS inside the head tag of our HTML page. Notice that we also added the jQuery UI CSS here.

<!-- jquery ui -->
<link rel="stylesheet" href="http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jqueryui/1.10.3/themes/smoothness/jquery-ui.min.css" />
 
<style>
body{
    padding:0;
    margin:0;
    font-family: verdana;
}
 
#action-bar{
    padding:1em;
    border-bottom:0.2em solid #999;
}
 
#main-contents{
    padding:1em;
    position:relative;
}
 
#navigation-drawer{
    border:thin solid #000;
    color:#fff;
    padding:1em;
    position:absolute;
    top:0;
    left:0;
    height:100%;
    background-color:#000;
    display:none;
    z-index:999;
}
 
#hide-drawer{
    display:none;
    cursor:pointer;
}
 
#show-drawer{
    cursor:pointer;
}
</style>

Step 6: Add the jQuery UI and jQuery libraries.

Put them before the end body tag.

<!-- jquery -->
<script src="https://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.7.1/jquery.min.js"></script>
 
<!-- jquery ui -->
<script src="//ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jqueryui/1.10.3/jquery-ui.min.js"></script>

Add the simple jQuery script that will do the trick

The following code will change the main-contents div height to the current page height so that our navigation-drawer will cover up to the page foot.

The showing or hiding navigation drawer were also done on click event, see the code below.

<script>
$(document).ready(function(){
     
    // so our #navigation-drawer will cover up to the page foot
    $('#main-contents').height($(document).height());
     
    // show the navigation drawer
    $('#show-drawer').click(function(){
 
        $('#text-content').fadeTo('slow', 0.33 );
        $('#navigation-drawer').show('slide', { direction: 'left' }, 300);
         
        $(this).hide();
        $('#hide-drawer').show();
             
    });
     
    // hide the navigation drawer
    $('#hide-drawer').click(function(){
 
        $('#text-content').fadeTo('slow', 1 );
        $('#navigation-drawer').hide('slide', { direction: 'left' }, 300);
         
        $(this).hide();
        $('#show-drawer').show();
             
    });
     
});
</script>

Complete jQuery Sliding Drawer Navigation code

<!doctype html>
<html>
    <head>
        <title>jQuery navigation drawer</title>
         
        <!-- jquery ui -->
        <link rel="stylesheet" href="http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jqueryui/1.10.3/themes/smoothness/jquery-ui.min.css" />
 
        <style>
        body{
            padding:0;
            margin:0;
            font-family: verdana;
        }
         
        #action-bar{
            padding:1em;
            border-bottom:0.2em solid #999;
        }
         
        #main-contents{
            padding:1em;
            position:relative;
        }
         
        #navigation-drawer{
            border:thin solid #000;
            color:#fff;
            padding:1em;
            position:absolute;
            top:0;
            left:0;
            height:100%;
            background-color:#000;
            display:none;
            z-index:999;
        }
         
        #hide-drawer{
            display:none;
            cursor:pointer;
        }
         
        #show-drawer{
            cursor:pointer;
        }
        </style>
         
         
    </head>
<body>
 
<div id='page-container'>
 
    <div id='action-bar'>
        <div id='show-drawer'>Show</div>
        <div id='hide-drawer'>Hide</div>
    </div>
 
    <div id='main-contents'>
     
        <div id='navigation-drawer'>
            Drawer contents here.
        </div>
         
        <div id='text-content'>
            Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Vestibulum lacinia non neque et ornare. Interdum et malesuada fames ac ante ipsum primis in faucibus. Curabitur blandit sapien nec iaculis consequat. Nam semper, eros eu tempor bibendum, metus velit scelerisque lorem, non venenatis sem justo non nunc. Cras nec purus eget eros elementum aliquet quis lacinia tortor. Nunc dignissim, purus in gravida tincidunt, quam arcu sodales nisl, nec sollicitudin eros purus vel dui. Etiam erat nunc, faucibus eu pellentesque sed, congue suscipit enim.
            <br /><br />
            Cras sit amet nibh et ante pellentesque malesuada accumsan at turpis. Aliquam ac tellus auctor, sagittis purus eget, venenatis risus. Aenean eget nisl facilisis, tristique est in, fringilla tortor. Pellentesque faucibus aliquam risus. Vestibulum quis vestibulum lectus, sed laoreet nulla. In feugiat, augue at faucibus cursus, metus ligula gravida metus, a condimentum dolor odio vel libero. Curabitur ut viverra orci, eget molestie sem. Aliquam erat volutpat.
            <br /><br />
            Praesent eu viverra sem. Morbi mollis consectetur elit eget pulvinar. Nam nunc nulla, tempus quis sapien id, mattis venenatis purus. Curabitur tortor nulla, vulputate non felis at, vulputate fermentum augue. Sed condimentum egestas metus, non luctus odio consectetur in. Quisque dignissim metus neque, non consequat ligula faucibus id. Class aptent taciti sociosqu ad litora torquent per conubia nostra, per inceptos himenaeos. Nullam varius lacus mi, vel facilisis eros adipiscing ac. Aenean vulputate eros ut sollicitudin lobortis. Vestibulum euismod sollicitudin felis, a ultrices nisi euismod at.
            <br /><br />
            Aliquam hendrerit erat nulla, ut ornare lacus pretium eget. Donec cursus, lectus sed posuere accumsan, metus augue rutrum ligula, a accumsan ipsum turpis suscipit nisl. Morbi id enim sed nisl ornare porttitor. Donec facilisis, nibh eget rhoncus molestie, metus justo rutrum mauris, at mattis quam neque vitae odio. Praesent in nunc ipsum. Cras vulputate lacus sit amet augue cursus viverra. Integer tempor scelerisque lacus, et luctus nunc mollis eget.
            <br /><br />
            Aliquam enim diam, suscipit a metus quis, imperdiet vehicula velit. Pellentesque orci augue, elementum eget eros ut, egestas dictum nunc. Proin vehicula tincidunt velit, eu consequat nunc euismod in. Mauris sit amet ullamcorper sem. Ut et turpis fringilla, volutpat metus quis, rutrum nunc. Ut nisi augue, sagittis eu accumsan adipiscing, blandit at nibh. Vivamus cursus a diam sed pharetra. Nam sed ante iaculis, dictum ipsum id, vulputate purus.
        </div>
         
    </div>
     
</div>
 
<!-- jquery -->
<script src="https://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.7.1/jquery.min.js"></script>
 
<!-- jquery ui -->
<script src="//ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jqueryui/1.10.3/jquery-ui.min.js"></script>
 
<script>
$(document).ready(function(){
     
    // so our #navigation-drawer will cover up to the page foot
    $('#main-contents').height($(document).height());
     
    // show the navigation drawer
    $('#show-drawer').click(function(){
 
        $('#text-content').fadeTo('slow', 0.33 );
        $('#navigation-drawer').show('slide', { direction: 'left' }, 300);
         
        $(this).hide();
        $('#hide-drawer').show();
             
    });
     
    // hide the navigation drawer
    $('#hide-drawer').click(function(){
 
        $('#text-content').fadeTo('slow', 1 );
        $('#navigation-drawer').hide('slide', { direction: 'left' }, 300);
         
        $(this).hide();
        $('#show-drawer').show();
             
    });
     
});
</script>
 
</body>
</html>

I know it doesn't exactly look like the Android navigation drawer but this code will definitely get you started in doing it. Just play with the HTML and CSS! Hope this jQuery sliding drawer navigation tutorial helps ya!

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Hi! I'm Mike Dalisay, the co-founder of codeofaninja.com, a site that helps you build web applications with PHP and JavaScript. Need support? Comment below or contact [email protected]

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