How to create a menu using navbar-inverse in Bootstrap ?
Last Updated :
10 Oct, 2021
In this article, we will learn how to create a menu using the navbar-inverse in Bootstrap & will also understand its implementation through the example. The menu bar is a very important part while making a navigation bar for the website. We can create a menu bar along with inverse the color of the menu bar using the Bootstrap navbar-inverse class.
The navbar in Bootstrap contains many classes such as:
- .navbar-brand class: This class is used for your company, product, or project name, or any brand name.
- .navbar-nav class: This class is used for full-height and lightweight navigation (including support for dropdowns).
- .navbar-toggler class: This class is used for the collapse plugin and other navigation toggling behaviors.
- .navbar-text class: This class is used for adding vertically centered strings of text.
- .collapse.navbar-collapse class: This class is used for grouping and hiding navbar contents by a parent breakpoint.
- The flex and spacing utility classes are used for any form controls and actions.
We will understand the above classes & their usage through the example. Let’s see how to implement navbar using Bootstrap.
Step 1: Import the Bootstrap CDN links inside our HTML file.
<!– Bootstrap compiled and minified CSS –>
<link rel=”stylesheet” href=”https://stackpath.bootstrapcdn.com/bootstrap/3.4.1/css/bootstrap.min.css” integrity=”sha384-HSMxcRTRxnN+Bdg0JdbxYKrThecOKuH5zCYotlSAcp1+c8xmyTe9GYg1l9a69psu” crossorigin=”anonymous”/>
<!– Bootstrap compiled and minified JavaScript –>
<script src=”https://stackpath.bootstrapcdn.com/bootstrap/3.4.1/js/bootstrap.min.js” integrity=”sha384-aJ21OjlMXNL5UyIl/XNwTMqvzeRMZH2w8c5cRVpzpU8Y5bApTppSuUkhZXN0VxHd” crossorigin=”anonymous”></script>
Step 2: Add the <nav> tag inside your <body> with the navbar and navbar-default classes inside in it.
<nav class="navbar navbar-default ">
<!-- content -->
</nav>
Step 3: Create a <nav> tag with a class name as navbar navbar-default, & inside of <nav> tag, we will create a <div> with class name as “container-fluid”. Now, in order to use the brand logo or name, we will add a class as navbar-brand, and inside it, create a <ul> tag with a class name as “nav navbar-nav”, followed by the list of the item using the<li> tag.
<nav class="navbar navbar-default">
<div class="container-fluid">
<a class="navbar-brand" href="#">GeekforGeeks</a>
<ul class="nav navbar-nav">
<li class="active"><a href="#">Web Technology </a></li>
<li><a href="#">Data Structure</a></li>
<li><a href="#">Algorithm</a></li>
<li><a href="#">Competitive Programming</a></li>
<li><a href="#">Programming Languages</a></li>
</ul>
</div>
</nav>
At this stage, we have created a basic navigation bar using Bootstrap. The below code example illustrates the basic navbar in Bootstrap.
Complete Code:
HTML
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8" />
<meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible"
content="IE=edge" />
<meta
name="viewport"
content="width=device-width,
initial-scale=1.0" />
<link rel="stylesheet"
href=
integrity=
"sha384-HSMxcRTRxnN+Bdg0JdbxYKrThecOKuH5zCYotlSAcp1+c8xmyTe9GYg1l9a69psu"
crossorigin="anonymous" />
<title>GeeksforGeeks Bootstrap Tutorial</title>
</head>
<body>
<nav class="navbar navbar-default">
<div class="container-fluid">
<a class="navbar-brand" href="#">GeekforGeeks</a>
<ul class="nav navbar-nav">
<li class="active"><a href="#">Web Technology </a></li>
<li><a href="#">Data Structure</a></li>
<li><a href="#">Algorithm</a></li>
<li><a href="#">Competitive Programming</a></li>
<li><a href="#">Programming Languages</a></li>
</ul>
</div>
</nav>
</body>
</html>
|
Output:
Simple Navigation Bar in Bootstrap
From the above output, we can see that the menu-bar is having a white background and if we need to change the background to black and other text content to white, we can simply add the ‘.navbar-inverse’ class in the <nav> tag as shown below.
<nav class="navbar navbar-default navbar-inverse">
<!-- Content -->
</nav>
Example: This example illustrates the use of the .navbar-inverse class for changing the background to black in Bootstrap.
HTML
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8" />
<meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible"
content="IE=edge" />
<meta
name="viewport"
content="width=device-width,
initial-scale=1.0" />
<link rel="stylesheet"
href=
integrity=
"sha384-HSMxcRTRxnN+Bdg0JdbxYKrThecOKuH5zCYotlSAcp1+c8xmyTe9GYg1l9a69psu"
crossorigin="anonymous" />
<title>GeeksforGeeks Bootstrap Tutorial</title>
</head>
<body>
<nav class="navbar navbar-default navbar-inverse">
<div class="container-fluid">
<a class="navbar-brand" href="#">GeekforGeeks</a>
<ul class="nav navbar-nav">
<li class="active"><a href="#">Web Technology </a></li>
<li><a href="#">Data Structure</a></li>
<li><a href="#">Algorithm</a></li>
<li><a href="#">Competitive Programming</a></li>
<li><a href="#">Programming Languages</a></li>
</ul>
</div>
</nav>
</body>
</html>
|
Output:
After adding navbar-inverse, the navbar turns black
As you can clearly see from the above output, the color is changed to black and fonts become white. Thus, we have successfully created a basic navigation bar using Bootstrap using the “navbar-inverse” class. Now, we can also add several features like dropdowns and search options inside our navigation bar.
In order to make a drop-down menu, we will be using the below code:
<div class="dropdown">
<button
class="btn btn-default dropdown-toggle"
type="button"
id="dropdownMenu1"
data-toggle="dropdown"
aria-haspopup="true"
aria-expanded="true">
Dropdown
<span class="caret"></span>
</button>
<ul class="dropdown-menu" aria-labelledby="dropdownMenu1">
<li><a href="#">Link1</a></li>
<li><a href="#">Link2</a></li>
<li><a href="#">Link3</a></li>
</ul>
</div>
For placing the search option to the right in the navbar, we will use the below code snippet:
<form class="navbar-form navbar-right" role="search">
<div class="form-group">
<input type="text" class="form-control"
placeholder="Search" />
</div>
<button type="submit"
class="btn btn-default">Submit
</button>
</form>
At this point, we have made the updated navbar code after adding more features like drop-down and search bar.
Complete Code:
HTML
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8" />
<meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="IE=edge" />
<meta name="viewport"
content="width=device-width,
initial-scale=1.0" />
<link rel="stylesheet"
href=
integrity=
"sha384-HSMxcRTRxnN+Bdg0JdbxYKrThecOKuH5zCYotlSAcp1+c8xmyTe9GYg1l9a69psu"
crossorigin="anonymous" />
<title>GeeksforGeeks Bootstrap Navbar Tutorial</title>
</head>
<body>
<nav class="navbar navbar-default navbar-inverse">
<div class="container-fluid">
<a class="navbar-brand" href="#">GeeksforGeeks</a>
<ul class="nav navbar-nav">
<li class="active"><a href="#">Data Structure</a></li>
<li><a href="#">Algorithm</a></li>
<li><a href="#">Competitive Programming</a></li>
<li class="dropdown">
<a
href="#"
class="dropdown-toggle"
data-toggle="dropdown"
role="button"
aria-haspopup="true"
aria-expanded="false">
Web Technology<span class="caret"></span>
</a>
<ul class="dropdown-menu">
<li>
<a href="#">HTML</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="#">CSS</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="#">JavaScript</a>
</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
<form class="navbar-form navbar-right">
<div class="form-group">
<input type="text"
class="form-control"
placeholder="Search" />
</div>
<button type="submit"
class="btn btn-default">Submit
</button>
</form>
</div>
</nav>
</body>
</html>
|
Output:
Navbar after adding features like dropdown and search option
NOTE: The class “.navbar-inverse” is now outdated. It is used in bootstrap to make the navbar dark till version 3.3.7. Now, the class “.bg-dark” is used to darken the components in the current version 5.0.0 & the previous version 4.6.1.
Like Article
Suggest improvement
Share your thoughts in the comments
Please Login to comment...