How to create Responsive Top Navigation using HTML, CSS and JavaScript?

In this tutorial you will learn about “How to create Responsive Top Navigation using HTML, CSS and JavaScript?”.

To create responsive top navigation follow below example.

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>

<head>
    <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1">

    <style>
        body {
            margin: 0;
            font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;
        }

/* Add a black background color to the top navigation */
        .top-nav {
            overflow: hidden;
            background-color: #333;
        }

/* Style the links inside the navigation bar */
        .top-nav a {
            float: left;
            display: block;
            color: #f2f2f2;
            text-align: center;
            padding: 14px 16px;
            text-decoration: none;
            font-size: 17px;
        }

/* Change the color of links on hover */
        .top-nav a:hover {
            background-color: #ddd;
            color: black;
        }

/* Add an active class to highlight the current page */
        .top-nav a.active {
            background-color: #04AA6D;
            color: white;
        }

/* Hide the link that should open and close the top-nav on small screens */
        .top-nav .icon {
            display: none;
        }

/* When the screen is less than 600 pixels wide, hide all links, except for the first one ("Home"). Show the link that contains should open and close the top-nav (.icon) */

        @media screen and (max-width: 600px) {
            .top-nav a:not(:first-child) {
                display: none;
            }

            .top-nav a.icon {
                float: right;
                display: block;
            }
        }

/* The "responsive" class is added to the top-nav with JavaScript when the user clicks on the icon. This class makes the top-nav look good on small screens (display the links vertically instead of horizontally) */
        @media screen and (max-width: 600px) {
            .top-nav.responsive {
                position: relative;
            }

            .top-nav.responsive .icon {
                position: absolute;
                right: 0;
                top: 0;
            }

            .top-nav.responsive a {
                float: none;
                display: block;
                text-align: left;
            }
        }
    </style>
</head>

<body>

    <div class="top-nav" id="top-nav-container">
        <a href="#home" class="active">Home</a>
        <a href="#news">News</a>
        <a href="#contact">Contact</a>
        <a href="#about">About</a>
        <a href="javascript:void(0);" class="icon" onclick="myFunction()">
            &#9776;
        </a>
    </div>

    <div style="padding-left:16px">
        <h2>Responsive top-nav Example</h2>
        <p>Resize the browser window to see how it works.</p>
    </div>

    <script>

/* Toggle between adding and removing the "responsive" class to top-nav when the user clicks on the icon */
        function myFunction() {
            var x = document.getElementById("top-nav-container");
            if (x.className === "top-nav") {
                x.className += " responsive";
            } else {
                x.className = "top-nav";
            }
        }
    </script>

</body>

</html>

Output

Before resize
After resize

Explanation

First put all menu links inside “div”.

Note that &#9776; is an HTML entity that displays the ☰ (hamburger icon.)

When the screen is less than 600 pixels wide, hide all links, except for the first one (“Home”).

The “responsive” class is added to the top-nav with JavaScript when the user clicks on the icon. This class makes the top-nav look good on small screens (display the links vertically instead of horizontally).

To toggle between adding and removing the “responsive” class to top-nav when the user clicks on the icon we used JavaScript.