[javascript] Bootstrap navbar Active State not working

I have bootstrap v3.

I use the class="active" on mynavbar and it does not switch when I press menu items. I know how to do this with jQuery and build a click function but I'm thinking this functionality should be included in bootstrap? So maybe it is a JavaScript issue?

Here is my header with my js/css/bootstrap files I have included:

<!-- Bootstrap CSS -->
<link rel="stylesheet" href= "/bootstrap/css/bootstrap.css" />
<link rel="stylesheet" href="//ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jqueryui/1.10.4/themes/smoothness/jquery-ui.css" />
<link rel="stylesheet" href= "/stylesheets/styles.css" />

<!--jQuery -->
<script src="//ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.11.1/jquery.min.js">
<script src="//ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jqueryui/1.10.4/jquery-ui.min.js"></script>

<!-- Bootstrap JS -->
<script src="/bootstrap/js/bootstrap.min.js"></script>
<script src="/bootstrap/js/bootstrap-collapse.js"></script>
<script src="/bootstrap/js/bootstrap-transition.js"></script>

Here is my navbar code:

<nav class="navbar navbar-default navbar-fixed-top" role="navigation">
        <div class="container-fluid">
            <div class="navbar-header">
                <button type="button" class="navbar-toggle" data-toggle="collapse" data-target=".navbarCollapse">
                    <span class="icon-bar"></span>
                    <span class="icon-bar"></span>
                    <span class="icon-bar"></span>
                </button>

                <a class="navbar-brand" href="/index.php">MyBrand</a>
            </div>

            <div class="collapse navbar-collapse navbarCollapse">
                <ul class="nav navbar-nav navbar-right">
                    <li class="active">
                        <a href="/index.php">Home</a>
                    </li>

                    <li>
                        <a href="/index2.php"> Links</a>
                    </li>

                    <li>
                        <a href="/history.php">About</a>
                    </li>
                    <li>
                        <a href="/contact.php">Contact</a>
                    </li>

                    <li>
                        <a href="/login.php">Login</a>
                    </li>
                </ul>
            </div>
        </div>
    </nav>

Am I setting this up right?

(On an unrelated note, but possible related? When the menu goes mobile, I click the menu button and it collapses. Pushing it again does not un-collapse it though. So this issue,. with the other, both signify wrong JavaScript setup perhaps?)

I've been looking for a solution that i can use on bootstrap 4 navbars and other groups of links.

For one reason or another most solutions didn't work especially the ones that try to add 'active' to links onclick because of course once the link is clicked if it takes you to another page then the 'active' you added won't be there because the DOM has changed. Many of the other solutions didn't work either because they often did not match the link or they matched more than one.

This elegant solution is fine for links that are different ie: about.php, index.php, etc...

$(function() {
   $('nav a[href^="' + location.pathname.split("/")[2] + '"]').addClass('active');
});

However when it came to the same links with different query strings such as index.php?tag=a, index.php?tag=b, index.php?tag=c it would set all of them to active whichever was clicked as it's matching the pathname not the query as well.

So i tried this code which matched the pathname and the query string and it worked on all the links with query strings but when a link like index.php was clicked it would set the similar query string links active as well. This is because my function is returning an empty string if there is no query string in the link, again just matching the pathname.

$(function() {
   $('nav a[href^="' + location.pathname.split("/")[2] + returnQueryString(location.href.split("?")[1]) + '"]').addClass('active');
});
/** returns a query string if there, else an empty string */
function returnQueryString (element) {
   if (element === undefined)
      return "";
   else
      return '?' + element;
}

So in the end i abandoned this route and kept it simple and wrote this.

$('.navbar a').each(function(index, element) {
    //console.log(index+'-'+element.href);
    //console.log(location.href);
    /** look at each href in the navbar
      * if it matches the location.href then set active*/
    if (element.href === location.href){
        //console.log("---------MATCH ON "+index+" --------");
        $(element).addClass('active');
    }
});

It works on all links with or without query strings because element.href and location.href both return the full path. For other menus etc you can simply change the parent class selector (navbar) for another ie:

$('.footer a').each(function(index, element)...

One last thing which also seems important and that is the js & css library's you are using however that's another post perhaps. I hope this helps and contributes.

I tried about first 5 solutions and different variations of them, but they didn't work for me.

Finally I got it working with these two functions.

$(document).on('click', '.nav-link', function () {
    $(".nav-item").find(".active").removeClass("active");
})

$(document).ready(function() {
    $('a[href="' + location.pathname + '"]').closest('.nav-item').addClass('active'); 
});

All you need to do is simply add data-toggle="tab" to your link inside bootstrap navbar like this:

<ul class="nav navbar-nav">
  <li class="active"><a data-toggle="tab" href="#">Home</a></li>
  <li><a data-toggle="tab" href="#">Test</a></li>
  <li><a data-toggle="tab" href="#">Test2</a></li>
</ul>

For AngularJS, you can use ng-class with a function like this:

HTML ->

<nav class="navbar navbar-default" ng-controller="NavCtrl as vm">
  <div class="container">
    <div class="collapse navbar-collapse" id="bs-example-navbar-collapse-1">
      <ul class="nav navbar-nav" >
        <li ng-class="vm.Helper.UpdateTabActive('Home')"><a href="#" ng-click>Home</a></li>
        <li ng-class="vm.Helper.UpdateTabActive('About')"><a href="#about">About</a></li>
        <li ng-class="vm.Helper.UpdateTabActive('Contact')"><a href="#contact">Contact</a></li>        
      </ul>
    </div>
</nav>

And controller

app.controller('NavCtrl', ['$scope', function($scope) {
    var vm = this;
    vm.Helper = {
        UpdateTabActive: function(sTab){
            return window.location.hash && window.location.hash.toLowerCase() == ("#/" + sTab).toLowerCase() ? 'active' : '';
        }
    }    
}]);

If you are using $location, then there won't be hash. So you can extract the required string from URL using $location

Following will not work in all cases -->

Using a scope variable like following will work only when clicked, but if the transition is done using $state.transitionTo or window.location or manually updating the URL, the Tab value will not be updated

<ul class="nav navbar-nav" ng-init="Tab='Home'">
   <li ng-class="Tab == 'Home' ? 'active' : ''"><a href="#" ng-click="Tab = 'Home'">Home</a></li>
   <li ng-class="Tab == 'About' ? 'active' : ''"><a href="#" ng-click="Tab = 'About'">About</a></li>
</ul>

If you don't use anchor links, you can use something like this:

$(document).ready(function () {
    $.each($('#navbar').find('li'), function() {
        $(this).toggleClass('active',
            '/' + $(this).find('a').attr('href') == window.location.pathname);
    });
});

Bootstrap 4: navbar Active State working, just use .navbar-nav .nav-link classes

 $(function () {
  // this will get the full URL at the address bar
  var url = window.location.href;
  // passes on every "a" tag
  $(".navbar-nav .nav-link").each(function () {
    // checks if its the same on the address bar
    if (url == (this.href)) {
      $(this).closest("li").addClass("active");
      //for making parent of submenu active
      $(this).closest("li").parent().parent().addClass("active");
    }
  });
});

<script src="https://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/jquery/3.2.1/jquery.min.js"></script>
<link rel="stylesheet" href="https://maxcdn.bootstrapcdn.com/bootstrap/4.0.0/css/bootstrap.min.css" integrity="sha384-Gn5384xqQ1aoWXA+058RXPxPg6fy4IWvTNh0E263XmFcJlSAwiGgFAW/dAiS6JXm" crossorigin="anonymous">

<script src="https://code.jquery.com/jquery-3.2.1.slim.min.js" integrity="sha384-KJ3o2DKtIkvYIK3UENzmM7KCkRr/rE9/Qpg6aAZGJwFDMVNA/GpGFF93hXpG5KkN" crossorigin="anonymous"></script>
<script src="https://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/popper.js/1.12.9/umd/popper.min.js" integrity="sha384-ApNbgh9B+Y1QKtv3Rn7W3mgPxhU9K/ScQsAP7hUibX39j7fakFPskvXusvfa0b4Q" crossorigin="anonymous"></script>
<script src="https://maxcdn.bootstrapcdn.com/bootstrap/4.0.0/js/bootstrap.min.js" integrity="sha384-JZR6Spejh4U02d8jOt6vLEHfe/JQGiRRSQQxSfFWpi1MquVdAyjUar5+76PVCmYl" crossorigin="anonymous"></script>

<nav class="navbar navbar-expand-lg navbar-light bg-light">
  <a class="navbar-brand" href="#">Navbar</a>
  <button class="navbar-toggler" type="button" data-toggle="collapse" data-target="#navbarSupportedContent" aria-controls="navbarSupportedContent" aria-expanded="false" aria-label="Toggle navigation">
    <span class="navbar-toggler-icon"></span>
  </button>

  <div class="collapse navbar-collapse" id="navbarSupportedContent">
    <ul class="navbar-nav mr-auto">
      <li class="nav-item">
        <a class="nav-link" href="#">Home</a>
      </li>
      <li class="nav-item">
        <a class="nav-link" href="#">Link</a>
      </li>
      <li class="nav-item dropdown">
        <a class="nav-link dropdown-toggle" href="#" id="navbarDropdown" role="button" data-toggle="dropdown" aria-haspopup="true" aria-expanded="false">
          Dropdown
        </a>
        <div class="dropdown-menu" aria-labelledby="navbarDropdown">
          <a class="dropdown-item" href="#">Action</a>
          <a class="dropdown-item" href="#">Another action</a>
          <div class="dropdown-divider"></div>
          <a class="dropdown-item" href="#">Something else here</a>
        </div>
      </li>
      <li class="nav-item">


        <a class="nav-link" href="#">Other</a>
      </li>
    </ul>
    <form class="form-inline my-2 my-lg-0">
      <input class="form-control mr-sm-2" type="search" placeholder="Search" aria-label="Search">
      <button class="btn btn-outline-success my-2 my-sm-0" type="submit">Search</button>
    </form>
  </div>
</nav>

Here was my solution for switching active pages

$(document).ready(function() {
  $('li.active').removeClass('active');
  $('a[href="' + location.pathname + '"]').closest('li').addClass('active'); 
});

This worked perfectly for me, because "window.location.pathname" also contains data before the real page name, e.g. directory/page.php. So the actual navbar link will only be set to active if the url contains this link.

$(document).ready(function() {
    $.each($('#navbar').find('li'), function() {
        $(this).toggleClass('active', 
            window.location.pathname.indexOf($(this).find('a').attr('href')) > -1);
    }); 
});

I m using bootstrap bare theme, here is the sample navbar code. Note the class name of the element -> .nav - as this is referred in java script.

/ Collect the nav links, forms, and other content for toggling
    #bs-example-navbar-collapse-1.collapse.navbar-collapse
      %ul.nav.navbar-nav
        %li
          %a{:href => "/demo/one"} Page One
        %li
          %a{:href => "/demo/two"} Page Two
        %li
          %a{:href => "/demo/three"} Page Three

in the view page (or partial) add this :javascript, this needs to be executed every time page loads.

haml view snippet ->

- content_for :javascript do
  :javascript
      $(function () {
          $.each($('.nav').find('li'), function() {
              $(this).toggleClass('active',
                  $(this).find('a').attr('href') == window.location.pathname);
          });
      });

In the javascript debugger make sure you have value of 'href' attribute matches with window.location.pathname. This is slightly different than the solution by @Zitrax which helped me fixing my issue.

I had to go a step forward because my file names were not the same as my nav bar titles. i.e. my first nav bar link was HOME but the file name is index..

So just grab the pathname and match it.

Obviously this is a crude example and could be more efficient but it is highly custom need.

var loc_path = location.pathname;
$('li.active').removeClass('active');



if(loc_path.includes('index')){
    $('li :eq(0)').addClass('active');
}else if(loc_path.includes('blog')){
    $('li :eq(2)').addClass('active');
}else if(loc_path.includes('news')){
    $('li :eq(3)').addClass('active');
}else if(loc_path.includes('house')){
    $('li :eq(4)').addClass('active');
}

when use header.php for every page for the navbar code, the jquery does not work, the active is applied and then removed, a simple solution, is as follows

on every page set variable <?php $pageName = "index"; ?> on Index page and similarly <?php $pageName = "contact"; ?> on Contact us page

then call the header.php (ie the nav code is in header.php) <?php include('header.php'); >

in the header.php ensure that each nav-link is as follows

<a class="nav-link <?php if ($page_name == 'index') {echo "active";} ?> href="index.php">Home</a>

<a class="nav-link <?php if ($page_name == 'contact') {echo "active";} ?> href="contact.php">Contact Us</a>

hope this helps cause i have spent days to get the jquery to work but failed,

if someone would kindly explain what exactly is the issue when the header.php is included and then page loads... why the jquery fails to add the active class to the nav-link..??

$(document).ready(function() {
            
   var url = window.location.href;
            
   $('a[href*="'+url+'"]').addClass("active");
            
});

With version 3.3.4 of bootstrap, on long html pages you can refer to sections of the pg. by class or id to manage the active navbar link with spy-scroll with the body element:

  <body data-spy="scroll" data-target="spy-scroll-id">

The data-target will be a div with the id="spy-scroll-id"

    <div id="spy-scroll-id" class="collapse navbar-collapse">
      <ul class="nav navbar-nav">
        <li class="active"><a href="#topContainer">Home</a></li>
        <li><a href="#details">About</a></li>
        <li><a href="#carousel-container">SlideShow</a></li>
      </ul>
    </div>

This should activate links by clicking without any javascript functions needed and will also automatically activate each link as you scroll through the corresponding linked sections of the page which a js onclick() will not.

I'm hope this will help to solve this problem.

      var navlnks = document.querySelectorAll(".nav a");
        Array.prototype.map.call(navlnks, function(item) {

            item.addEventListener("click", function(e) {

                var navlnks = document.querySelectorAll(".nav a"); 

                Array.prototype.map.call(navlnks, function(item) {

                    if (item.parentNode.className == "active" || item.parentNode.className == "active open" ) {

                        item.parentNode.className = "";

                    } 

                }); 

                e.currentTarget.parentNode.className = "active";
            });
        });

Class "active" is not managed out of the box with bootstrap. In your case since you're using PHP you can see:

How add class='active' to html menu with php

to assist you with a method of mostly automating it.

Bootstrap 4 solution that worked for me:

$(document).ready(function() {
//You can name this function anything you like
function activePage(){
//When user lands on your website location.pathname is equal to "/" and in 
//that case it will add "active" class to all links
//Therefore we are going to remove first character "/" from the pathname
  var currentPage = location.pathname;
  var slicedCurrentPage = currentPage.slice(1);
//This will add active class to link for current page
  $('.nav-link').removeClass('active');
  $('a[href*="' + location.pathname + '"]').closest('li').addClass('active');
//This will add active class to link for index page when user lands on your website
     if (location.pathname == "/") {
         $('a[href*="index"]').closest('li').addClass('active');
    }
}
//Invoke function
activePage();
});

This will only work if href contains location.pathname!

If you are testing your site on your own pc (using wamp, xampp, lamp, etc...) and your site is located in some subfolder then your path is actually "/somefolder/something.php", so don't get confused.

I would suggest if you are unsure to use following code so you can make sure what is the correct location.pathname:

$(document).ready(function() {
  alert(location.pathname);
});

As someone who doesn't know javascript, here's a PHP method that works for me and is easy to understand. My whole navbar is in a PHP function that is in a file of common components I include from my pages. So for example in my 'index.php' page I have... `

<?php
   $calling_file = basename(__FILE__);
   include 'my_common_includes.php';    // Going to use my navbar function "my_navbar"
   my_navbar($calling_file);    // Call the navbar function
 ?>

Then in the 'my_common_includes.php' I have...

<?php
   function my_navbar($calling_file)
   {
      // All your usual nabvbar code here up to the menu items
      if ($calling_file=="index.php")   {   echo '<li class="nav-item active">';    } else {    echo '<li class="nav-item">';   }
    echo '<a class="nav-link" href="index.php">Home</a>
</li>';
      if ($calling_file=="about.php")   {   echo '<li class="nav-item active">';    } else {    echo '<li class="nav-item">';   }
    echo '<a class="nav-link" href="about.php">About</a>
</li>';
      if ($calling_file=="galleries.php")   {   echo '<li class="nav-item active">';    } else {    echo '<li class="nav-item">';   }
    echo '<a class="nav-link" href="galleries.php">Galleries</a>
</li>';
       // etc for the rest of the menu items and closing out the navbar
     }
  ?>

Add this JavaScript on your main js file.

$(".navbar a").on("click", function(){
      $(".navbar").find(".active").removeClass("active");
      $(this).parent().addClass("active");
    });

I've been struggling with this today, data-togle only worked if I'm on a single page application.

I'm not using ajax to load the content i'm actually making post request for other pages so the first js script was useless too. I solve it with this lines:

var active = window.location.pathname;
$(".nav a[href|='" + active + "']").parent().addClass("active");

the next answer is for those who have a multi-level menu:

var url = window.location.href;

var els = document.querySelectorAll(".dropdown-menu a");
for (var i = 0, l = els.length; i < l; i++) {
    var el = els[i];
    if (el.href === url) {
       el.classList.add("active");
       var parent = el.closest(".main-nav"); // add this class for the top level "li" to get easy the parent
       parent.classList.add("active");
    }
}

Bootstrap 4 requires you to target the li item for active classes. In order to do that you have to find the parent of the a. The 'hitbox' of the a is as big as the li but due to bubbeling of event in JS it will give you back the a event. So you have to manually add it to its parent.

  //set active navigation after click
  $(".nav-link").on("click", (event) => {
    $(".navbar-nav").find(".active").removeClass('active');
    $(event.target).parent().addClass('active');
  });

With Bootstrap 4 you can use this:

$(document).ready(function() {
    $(document).on('click', '.nav-item a', function (e) {
        $(this).parent().addClass('active').siblings().removeClass('active');
    });
});

For bootstrap mobile menu un-collapse after clicking a item you can use this

$("ul.nav.navbar-nav li a").click(function() {    

    $(".navbar-collapse").removeClass("in");
});

This elegant solution did the trick for me. Any new ideas/suggestions are welcome.

$( document ).on( 'click', '.nav-list li', function ( e ) {
    $( this ).addClass( 'active' ).siblings().removeClass( 'active' );
} );

You can use jQuery's "siblings()" method to keep only the accessed item active and its siblings inactive.

I use this. It's short, elegand and easy to understand.

$(document).ready(function() {
    $('a[href$="' + location.pathname + '"]').addClass('active');
});

I had some pain with this, using a dynamically generated list items - WordPress Stack.

Added this and it worked:

$(document).ready(function () {
    $(".current-menu-item").addClass("active");
});

Will do it on the fly.