For a recent project I was asked to replace a Flash site with a CSS/HTML version which was to match the existing look as closely as possible. This was essentially straight forward apart from the menu that was needed. The menu had a ‘wrapped ribbon’ affect on the currently visited item.
What I’m going to do here is run you through how I replicated this in CSS/HTML on a WordPress powered site. The finshed menu should look like the following;
The approach I took was to use the built in wp_nav_menu hook in WordPress to display the menu (which gives a lot of control) but to pass in an extra parameter to the call to define an extra div with a class defined which would be output before the link text.
wp_nav_menu( array( 'container_class' => 'menu-header','theme_location' => 'primary','link_before' => '<div class="ribbon"></div>') );
With some fairly standard CSS (all source can be found below) I now had a menu which looked like the following;
The trick now was create the actual wrapped ribbon affect… and to do this I gave the selected item negative left margin
margin-left: -20px;
The next step was to creat an image to make it look like the ribbon wrapped back around the menu. This is simply a triangle image with a radial gradient along it’s angled edge to give a feel of depth. For my menu the image I used was this one.
I then assigned this image as a background to the div element we added earlier in our wp_nav_menu call for the selected menu item.
#access ul li.current_page_item .ribbon {
float:left;
background:url(../images/ribbon_triangle_02.png) no-repeat;
position:relative;
top: 38px;
left: -11px;
width: 20px;
height: 20px;
}
And there you have it… our finished article
#access .menu-header,
div.menu {
font-size: 13px;
margin-left: 0px;
width: 100%;
}
#access .menu-header ul,
div.menu ul {
margin: 0;
}
#access a {
color: #fff;
background: #333;
background-image: -moz-linear-gradient(-65deg, rgba(51, 51, 51, 1), rgba(51, 51, 51, 0.6)20%, rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.8) );
background-image: -webkit-gradient(linear, left top, right bottom, from(rgba(51, 51, 51, 1)), to(rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.8)), color-stop(20%, rgba(51, 51, 51, 0.6)));
display: block;
line-height: 38px;
padding: 0 10px;
text-decoration: none;
border-bottom: 1px solid #000;
}
#access li:hover > a,
#access ul ul :hover > a {
background: #ccc;
background-image: -moz-linear-gradient(-65deg, rgba(0, 0, 0, 0), rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.4)30%, rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.6) );
background-image: -webkit-gradient(linear, left top, right bottom, from(rgba(0,0,0,0)), to(rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.6)), color-stop(30%, rgba(0,0,0,0.4)));
color: #000;
border-bottom: 1px solid #000;
}
#access ul li.current_page_item .ribbon {
float:left;
background:url(../images/ribbon_triangle_02.png) no-repeat;
position:relative;
top: 38px;
left: -11px;
width: 20px;
height: 20px;
}
#access ul li.current_page_item > a,
#access ul li.current-menu-ancestor > a,
#access ul li.current-menu-item > a,
#access ul li.current-menu-parent > a {
color: #444;
background: #15c692;
background-image: -moz-linear-gradient(-65deg, rgba(0, 0, 0, 0), rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.2)50%, rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.3) );
background-image: -webkit-gradient(linear, left top, right bottom, from(rgba(0,0,0,0)), to(rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.3)), color-stop(50%, rgba(0,0,0,0.2)));
border-bottom: 1px solid #000;
margin-left: -20px;
}
* html #access ul li.current_page_item a,
* html #access ul li.current-menu-ancestor a,
* html #access ul li.current-menu-item a,
* html #access ul li.current-menu-parent a,
* html #access ul li a:hover {
color: #444;
border-bottom: 1px solid #000;
background: #15c692;
background-image: -moz-linear-gradient(-65deg, rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.6), rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.3)30%, rgba(19, 185, 136, 1) );
}