How to Add a Dropdown Menu Inside a Side Navigation

A dropdown menu is a toggleable menu that allows the user to choose one value from a predefined list.

A side navigation bar is a vertical list of links that allows users to quickly navigate to different sections of a website.

In this tutorial, we will show you how to add a dropdown menu inside a side navigation bar using HTML, CSS, and JavaScript.

HTML Code

To create a dropdown menu, we will use the HTML tag.

The tag is used to create a drop-down list. It has several attributes, including the “name” attribute, which is used to identify the dropdown list, and the “id” attribute, which is used to select the dropdown list in CSS and JavaScript.

<select id="dropdown">
  <option value="Option 1">Option 1</option>
  <option value="Option 2">Option 2</option>
  <option value="Option 3">Option 3</option>
</select>

CSS Code

To style the dropdown menu, we will use CSS.

We will use the “id” attribute of the tag to select the dropdown list in CSS. We will then set the width, height, font size, and color of the dropdown list.

#dropdown {
width: 150px;
height: 35px;
font-size: 16px;
color: #333;
}

JavaScript Code

To make the dropdown menu functional, we will use JavaScript.

We will use the “id” attribute of the <select> tag to select the dropdown list in JavaScript.

We will then add an event listener to the dropdown list, which will listen for a change in the selected option. When the selected option changes, we will use the “value” attribute of the selected option to display the selected value in an alert box.

const dropdown = document.getElementById("dropdown");

dropdown.addEventListener("change", function() {
alert("Selected value: " + this.value);
});

To add the dropdown menu to the side navigation, we will use an unordered list (UL) and list items (LI) to create the vertical list of links.

We will then add the dropdown menu inside one of the list items.

<ul>
  <li><a href="#">Home</a></li>
  <li><a href="#">About</a></li>
  <li>
    <select id="dropdown">
      <option value="Option 1">Option 1</option>
      <option value="Option 2">Option 2</option>
      <option value="Option 3">Option 3</option>
    </select>
  </li>
  <li><a href="#">Contact</a></li>
</ul>

Conclusion

In this post, we have shown you how to add a dropdown menu inside a side navigation bar using HTML, CSS, and JavaScript.

By following the steps outlined in this post, you can easily add a dropdown menu to your website’s side navigation bar and provide your users with an easy-to-use interface for choosing from a list of options.