How to Make a Dropdown Menu in CSS

Creating a dropdown menu in CSS is a straightforward process that can be accomplished using a combination of HTML and CSS.

In this CSS tutorial, we will walk through the steps of building a simple dropdown menu and explain the code used to create it.

Step 1: Create the HTML Structure

The first step in creating a dropdown menu is to create the HTML structure.

A basic dropdown menu consists of a parent element, such as a button or a link, and a child element, which is the menu itself.

In this example, we will use a button element as the parent and an unordered list as the child.

<button>Menu</button>
<ul class="dropdown-menu">
  <li><a href="#">Option 1</a></li>
  <li><a href="#">Option 2</a></li>
  <li><a href="#">Option 3</a></li>
</ul>

Step 2: Add CSS Styles

The next step is to add CSS styles to the HTML structure to create the visual appearance of the dropdown menu.

We will use CSS to hide the menu by default and display it only when the button is clicked.

/* Hide the dropdown menu by default */
.dropdown-menu {
  display: none;
}

To make the menu visible when the button is clicked, we will use the :hover pseudo-class to change the display property of the menu to “block”.

/* Show the dropdown menu when the button is hovered over */
button:hover .dropdown-menu {
display: block;
}

Step 3: Add Interactivity

Finally, we will add interactivity to the dropdown menu by using JavaScript to toggle the visibility of the menu when the button is clicked.

var button = document.querySelector('button');
var menu = document.querySelector('.dropdown-menu');

button.addEventListener('click', function() {
menu.classList.toggle('show');
});

Conclusion

In this post, we have shown you how to create a simple dropdown menu using HTML, CSS and JavaScript.

The key to creating a successful dropdown menu is to understand the basic HTML and CSS concepts and to use them in combination with JavaScript to add interactivity.

With a little practice, you’ll be able to create your own custom dropdown menus in no time.