Bootstrap 4 navbar active class

Question

I have started learning web programming as a project and I've been having a hard time with getting my links to show as active on the navbar. I did start by looking for similar questions asked in the past but none of the answers seemed to fix my problem.

Here is my code

<div>
<hr>
    <nav class="container-fluid navbar navbar-expand-sm bg-dark navbar-dark" style="padding-left: 75px; margin-top: -16px;">
        <ul class="navbar-nav">
            <li class="active nav-item">
                <a class="nav-link active" style = "padding-left: 0px; color: white;" href="#">Most Popular</a>
            </li>
            <li class="nav-item">
                <a class="nav-link" href="#" style="color: white">News</a>
            </li>
            <li class="nav-item">
                <a class="nav-link" href="#" style="color: white">Sports</a>
            </li>
            <li class="nav-item">
                <a class="nav-link" href="#" style="color: white">Science</a>
            </li>
            <li class="nav-item">
                <a class="nav-link" href="#" style="color: white">Politics</a>
            </li>
            <li class="nav-item">
                <a class="nav-link" href="#" style="color: white">Economics</a>
            </li>
            <li class="nav-item">
                <a class="nav-link" href="#" style="color: white">Random</a> 
            </li>
            <li class="nav-item">
                <a class="nav-link " style="padding-left: 480px; color: white; " href="#">Log in</a>
            </li>
        </ul>
    </nav>
</div>

and I tried using this javascript I found but it hasn't worked so far

$('.nav li').click(function(){
$('.nav li').removeClass('active');
$(this).addClass('active');
})

Hopefully, my code isn't too funky since I am just getting started. Any help would be tremendously appreciated thank you very much!

Tourane

Answer 1

There are multiple issues...

1. The selector $('.nav li') does nothing because you have no .nav class used anywhere in the markup. It should be $('.navbar-nav .nav-link').
2. You have style="color:white" on the links which will override any changes you make with the active class.
3. You have no CSS for the active class, and by default Bootstrap active class on navbar-dark is going to be white. What color are you trying to set?
4. Set active in the nav-link instead of the li,

---

.navbar-dark .nav-item > .nav-link.active  {
    color:white;
}

$('.navbar-nav .nav-link').click(function(){
    $('.navbar-nav .nav-link').removeClass('active');
    $(this).addClass('active');
})

Demo: https://www.codeply.com/go/I3EjDb74My

Patriciapatrician

Thank you so much, I will go ahead and try those changes, I wish I could upvote you more – Tourane

will do for sure, the script is still not working but other than that its perfect – Tourane

Sadly that link is now 404 – Karyosome

Works for me. Also the relevant code is in the question – Patriciapatrician

I am wondering how would you handle selection on a nav-item which is a dropdown menu, would you select both the parent wrapper and the individual dropdown-item? – Frivol

There are two potential problems with this: 1) the documentation shows the active class applied to the li (nav-item) not a (nav-link) and 2) if the link actually navigates to a new page the navbar will of course immediately reset to its default state. – Livable

Answer 2

If you have relative links (e.g. "/projects") in your navbar,

// remove any current navbar active classes
$(".navbar .nav-item.active").removeClass('active');
// add active class to proper navbar item that matches window.location
$('.navbar .nav-item a[href="' + location.pathname + '"]').closest('li').addClass('active');

Eldoneldora

Thanks , the only solution which is working for me but it has kind of glitch in it. whenever i am moving to other page ,- It is highlight the the home page first and then moving thr highlight to other the clicked page. – Klemm

Answer 3

Absolutely! Here's the code with the fix for highlighting the active navbar link, along with explanations

$(document).ready(function() {
  $('.nav-link').click(function() {
    // Remove 'active' class from all links
    $('.nav-link').removeClass('active');
    // Add 'active' class to the clicked link
    $(this).addClass('active');
  });
});

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
  <meta charset="UTF-8">
  <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0">
  <title>Active Navbar Link</title>
  <link rel="stylesheet" href="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/[email protected]/dist/css/bootstrap.min.css">
</head>
<body>
  <div>
    <hr>
    <nav class="container-fluid navbar navbar-expand-sm bg-dark navbar-dark" style="padding-left: 75px; margin-top: -16px;">
      <ul class="navbar-nav">
        <li class="nav-item active">  <a class="nav-link" href="#">Most Popular</a>
        </li>
        <li class="nav-item">
          <a class="nav-link" href="#">News</a>
        </li>
        <li class="nav-item">
          <a class="nav-link" href="#">Sports</a>
        </li>
        <li class="nav-item">
          <a class="nav-link" href="#">Science</a>
        </li>
        <li class="nav-item">
          <a class="nav-link" href="#">Politics</a>
        </li>
        <li class="nav-item">
          <a class="nav-link" href="#">Economics</a>
        </li>
        <li class="nav-item">
          <a class="nav-link" href="#">Random</a>
        </li>
        <li class="nav-item">
          <a class="nav-link" style="padding-left: 480px;" href="#">Log in</a>
        </li>
      </ul>
    </nav>
  </div>

  <script src="https://code.jquery.com/jquery-3.6.0.min.js"></script>
  <script src="script.js"></script> </body>
</html>

Doubleedged

Answer 4

// active nav

// get current url
var location = window.location.href;

// remove active class from all
$(".navbar .nav-item").removeClass('active');

// add active class to div that matches active url
$(".nav-item a[href='"+location+"']").addClass('active');

Elgar

This script causes my website to constantly reload. Definitely not what I expected. – Ludeman

Ditto, this caused my site to constantly reload, crashing most browsers. – Centrobaric