Create the accordion effect using CSS3
Recently I have been playing around with CSS transitions and animations as implemented in webkit based browsers such as Safari and Chrome. They have been submitted to the W3C for consideration in the CSS3 spec so hopefully we should see more browsers support this soon, Firefox 3.5 supports CSS transforms which was developed by the webkit people to work alongside CSS animations & transitions.
To continue my effort to accomplish tasks in CSS that are usually reserved for JavaScript, such as my Futurebox and CSS based iPhone orientation detection. I have developed a CSS based version of the popular “accordion effect” that utilises the webkit CSS transitions. Like the Futurebox demo I’m utilising the CSS3 :target pseudo class to know which item to show based the URI fragment identifier (the # in the url).
It should be noted that this works best in a webkit based browser such as Safari 3+, Chrome or iPhone. Other browsers that support the :target pseudo class will still function on the core level but won’t animate the showing and hiding. The following browsers have been tested and work with this demo.
- Firefox 1.5+
- Opera 9.6+
- Safari 3+
- Chrome 1+
- IE6+ – IE solution
The xhtml
<dl> <dt><a href="#Section1">Section 1</a></dt> <dd id="Section1"> <p> Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet... </p> </dd> <dt><a href="#Section2">Section 2</a></dt> <dd id="Section2"> <p> Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet... </dd> ... </dl>
We setup the accordion using a definition list to create the foundation so we can show and hide the definition data (dd) tag when the user clicks the anchor link inside the definition title (dt) tag.
The CSS
dl { padding: 10px; min-width: 960px; } dl dt { -webkit-border-radius: 5px; -moz-border-radius: 5px; border: 1px solid #cccccc; margin: 0; } dl dt a { color: #ffffff; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; padding: 10px; display: block; } dl dd { margin: 0; height: 0; overflow: hidden; -webkit-transition: height 1s ease; } dl dd p { padding: 10px; margin: 0; } dl dd:target { height: auto; } @media (-webkit-transition) { dl dd:target { height: 6.667em; } }
Pretty simple CSS involved, the dd tag is hidden by setting the height to 0 and the overflow to hidden.
-webkit-transition: height 1s ease;
This property on the dd tag lets webkit browsers know we wish to transition the height value over 1 second period using the ease timing function this transition will only happen when the height of the dd tag is changed. We can also express this in a long hand version.
-webkit-transition-property: height; -webkit-transition-duration: 1s; -webkit-transition-timing-function: ease;
To change the height we use the :target pseudo class to set the height of the dd tag to auto so the right content will show based the URI fragment identifier. For webkit browsers it’s a little different.
Webkit media queries
In webkit browsers there are additional media queries available so we can target browsers that support the extended features such as transitions and not affect other browsers. In this demo I use the @media (transition) media query.
Webkit implements this feature by using their -webkit vendor extension so the media query looks like the following
@media (-webkit-transition) { dl dd:target { height: 6.667em; } }
Unfortunately setting the height of the dd tag to auto will not make it animate although this would be ideal and much more capable of catering for different sized content it’s not possible at the moment. For now we have to set the height to an actual value, to keep the height in line with any text resizing I set the height using em based value so if the user has larger text the height will adjust and won’t cut of any content. The height is 80px we divide by the base font size, which is 12, and we get 6.667em.
What about IE
Unfortunately IE doesn’t support the :target pseudo class and won’t work as describe above, but that didn’t stop me! Take a look at working example that functions in IE6 and up.
This is quite hacky and involves a bit of IE conditional comments.
IE xhtml
<dl> <!--[if IE]> <a href="#Section1" class="ie"><div> <![endif]--> <dt> <!--[if !IE]>--> <a href="#Section1"> <!--<![endif]-->Section 1<!--[if !IE]>--> </a> <!--<![endif]--> </dt> <dd id="Section1"> <p> Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet... </p> </dd> <!--[if IE]> </div></a> <![endif]--> ... </dl>
As you can see there is conditional comments so I can wrap the dt and dd tag in an anchor so we can get it functioning in IE using the following CSS. I also use the conditional comments to hide the anchor that appears in the dt tag only for IE browsers. IE6 was not functioning with just the anchor around the dd & dt so I added a div inside the anchor. In IE6 the first anchor would surround all the items, the div fixes that. Demo, demo files and example code has been updated to reflect that.
IE CSS
dl a.ie { text-decoration: none; } dl a.ie dd { display: none; } /* Fix IE6 hover bug */ dl a.ie:hover { background-color: #606061 !important; } dl a.ie dt { color: #ffffff; font-weight: bold; text-decoration: none; padding: 10px; display: block; } dl a.ie:hover dd, dl a.ie:active dd, dl a.ie:focus dd { height: auto; color: #cccccc !important; display: block; }
Pretty simple stuff, set the text-decoration so the content isn’t underlined. We need to hide the dd tag as it causes issues in IE7 and below when trying to hover over any items below the first section. Next a background-color is applied to the :hover pseudo class of the surrounding anchor to fix an issue in IE6 that won’t trigger a hover unless something like a background-color is applied it. To make it work in IE we utilise the :hover, :focus and :active pseudo classes. That way when the user hovers in IE the content gets revealed, we also simulate a “click” by using the :active pseudo class. The :focus pseudo class allows us to make it work by using keyboard navigation, tabbing to the anchor will reveal the content. All the mark-up is XHTML 1.0 Strict complaint.
I think this is a pretty good attempt and best of all it works in all major browser so it can be potentially be used in a production environment.
Post filed under: css.
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Create the accordion effect using CSS3…
Using the :target CSS3 pseudo selector along with webkit CSS transitions to re-create the “accordion” effect without the need for JavaScript. Works in all major browsers including IE (with some work arounds).
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[...] Create the accordion effect using CSS3 | The CSS Ninja – All things CSS, Javascript & xhtm… Recently I have been playing around with CSS transitions and animations as implemented in webkit based browsers such as Safari and Chrome. They have been submitted to the W3C for consideration in the CSS3 spec so hopefully we should see more browsers support this soon, Firefox 3.5 supports CSS transforms which was developed by the webkit people to work alongside CSS animations & transitions. Tags: css akkordion effect menu Beschreibung Produktbeschreibung [...]
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[...] Create the accordion effect using CSS3 | The CSS Ninja – 05.08.2009 "I have developed a CSS based version of the popular “accordion effect” that utilises the webkit CSS transitions. Like the Futurebox demo I’m utilising the CSS3 :target pseudo class to know which item to show based the URI fragment identifier (the # in the url)." [...]
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Nicely done – especially the keyboard support and IE compatibility.
I think it could be a good idea to note that using :target anywhere except for on the top of a page can make the page jump (since it’s scrolls to the element you’re targeting), and you might not want that behavior.
Teddy Zetterlund, August 6th, 2009Another great CSS3 tutorial, i like it!
mupet, August 6th, 2009Cool tutorial, but I still think that animation and transition should be a javascript thing, CSS should only be use as display
Cedric Dugas, August 6th, 2009@Cedric – I think there is certainly a place for CSS animations and they offer advantages over using javascript. e.g. animating a background-image on a navigation item, UI notifications etc. CSS animations a more reserved for adding visual “niceness” to an element.
The Css Ninja, August 6th, 2009You can have browsers without :target support fall back to height: auto; by using dd:not(:target) instead of just dd.
fantasai, August 6th, 2009Great idea, although it would be useless as all browsers who support :target also support :not and of course IE supports neither. Support for both these properties has been in Firefox since 1.0 and Safari since 1.3, Opera added support in 9.5 so it’s a pretty safe pseudo selector.
The Css Ninja, August 6th, 2009awesome tutorial. Is there a way to nest these controls? I gave it a quick whirl but could not get the interior set to expand properly.
Steve, September 23rd, 2009@Steve – Cheers.
Not really possible to nest these accordion menu’s because of the way the target pseudo class works. As soon as you click a nested item the parent item will lose it’s active styling because the fragment identifier has changed. Unfortunately there is no way to select a parent item using CSS so JavaScript would need to be used to have nested lists work.
The Css Ninja, September 23rd, 2009great tutorial, but I was just wondering if this could be done by using the and
Ramon G, October 7th, 2009Did you mean to post a link or extended on that comment?
The Css Ninja, October 7th, 2009I don’t know why it got cut off.
Ramon, October 14th, 2009You are using dl and dt tags. I was wondering if you could replace it with ol tags and li tags?
Would it still work.
@Ramon – Yeah you’re not restricted to defintion lists you just need an anchor tag that points to the id of the item you wish to show, in your case you could do something like this:
That way your hiding the paragraph and clicking the h3 will append the anchor to the url and trigger the styles for that :target id.
The Css Ninja, October 14th, 2009Note it works also in recent firefox nightlies : just add a -moz-transition, and put “height: 6.667em” for everyone, and that’s it !
JulienW, October 30th, 2009@JulienW thanks for that, I did see that Firefox nightly added support for transitions which is great. We now have 3 major browsers that support it and a plethora of other webkit based browsers.
The Css Ninja, October 30th, 2009Hello,
Thank you, it’s working fine.
Bhossain, January 11th, 2010Love these transitions, but not convinced that the user will be expecting to see previous accordian states when they hit the browsers back button. This could be a usability issue…
Meander365, February 3rd, 2010@Meander365 – That’s one of the drawbacks/features of the :target pseudo-class. But it’s how anchor tags have worked since their inception it’s just that we can now style those interactions and create visual feedback which is new to most users.
The Css Ninja, February 3rd, 2010Thanks for this. It will come in handy in my future web designs.
Is there a way of having a different amount of text in each section and maintaining the ‘ease’ transition?
I have changed the “dl dd:target” to have “height: auto”, so that way, it shows all the text, no matter how long. However, this seems to get rid of the ease effect.
David, February 12th, 2010Is there a way of returning all sections to closed? or when you click on the section header again, that it closes? Thanks.
David, February 13th, 2010@David – You could have another container inside the dl that has the same height and just give it
overflow: autoso if there is more content it will just show a scroll bar.As for closing all of them you’ll need to change the fragment indentifier to something that doesn’t match one on the demo page. Like I do on my futurebox article.
The Css Ninja, February 13th, 2010