jquery-bootstrap-scrolling-tabs

jQuery plugin for making Bootstrap 3 Tabs scroll horizontally rather than wrap.

Here's what they look like:

And here are plunks showing them working with:

• HTML-defined Tabs
• Data-driven Tabs

Use Cases

• Use Case #1: Wrap HTML-defined Tabs
• Use Case #2: Create Data-driven Tabs

Optional Features

There are also optional features available:

• Force Scroll to Tab Edge
• Disable Scroll Arrows on Fully Scrolled

Usage

1. Download it or install it using bower: bower install jquery-bootstrap-scrolling-tabs or npm: npm install jquery-bootstrap-scrolling-tabs
2. Include jquery.scrolling-tabs.min.css (or jquery.scrolling-tabs.css) on your page after Bootstrap's CSS
3. Include jquery.scrolling-tabs.min.js (or jquery.scrolling-tabs.js) on your page (make sure that jQuery is included before it, of course)

Overview

If you're using Bootstrap Tabs (nav-tabs) and you don't want them to wrap if the page is too narrow to accommodate them all in one row, you can use this plugin to keep them in a row that scrolls horizontally without a scrollbar.

It adjusts itself on window resize (debounced to prevent resize event wackiness), so if the window is widened enough to accommodate all tabs, scrolling will deactivate and the scroll arrows will disappear. (And, of course, vice versa if the window is narrowed.)

Use Cases

Use Case #1: HTML-defined Tabs

If your nav-tabs markup looks like this:

<!-- Nav tabs -->
<ul class="nav nav-tabs" role="tablist">
  <li role="presentation" class="active"><a href="#tab1" role="tab" data-toggle="tab">Tab Number 1</a></li>
  <li role="presentation"><a href="#tab2" role="tab" data-toggle="tab">Tab Number 2</a></li>
  <li role="presentation"><a href="#tab3" role="tab" data-toggle="tab">Tab Number 3</a></li>
  <li role="presentation"><a href="#tab4" role="tab" data-toggle="tab">Tab Number 4</a></li>
  <li role="presentation"><a href="#tab5" role="tab" data-toggle="tab">Tab Number 5</a></li>
</ul>

<!-- Tab panes -->
<div class="tab-content">
  <div role="tabpanel" class="tab-pane active" id="tab1">Tab 1 content...</div>
  <div role="tabpanel" class="tab-pane" id="tab2">Tab 2 content...</div>
  <div role="tabpanel" class="tab-pane" id="tab3">Tab 3 content...</div>
  <div role="tabpanel" class="tab-pane" id="tab4">Tab 4 content...</div>
  <div role="tabpanel" class="tab-pane" id="tab5">Tab 5 content...</div>
</div>

you can wrap the tabs in the scroller like this:

$('.nav-tabs').scrollingTabs();

scrollToTabEdge Option

You can also pass in the scrollToTabEdge option:

$('.nav-tabs').scrollingTabs({
  scrollToTabEdge: true  
});

This will force the scrolling to always end with a tab edge aligned with the left scroll arrow. More details here.

disableScrollArrowsOnFullyScrolled Option

You can also pass in the disableScrollArrowsOnFullyScrolled option:

$('.nav-tabs').scrollingTabs({
  disableScrollArrowsOnFullyScrolled: true  
});

This will cause the left scroll arrow to disable when the tabs are scrolled fully left, and the right scroll arrow to disable when the tabs are scrolled fully right.

Preventing Flash of Unwrapped Tabs

To prevent a flash of the tabs on page load/refresh before they get wrapped inside the scroller, you can hide your .nav-tabs and .tab-content with some CSS (display: none).

The plugin will automatically unhide the .nav-tabs when they're ready, and you can hook into the ready.scrtabs event (which gets fired when the tabs are ready) to unhide your .tab-content:

$('.nav-tabs')
  .scrollingTabs()
  .on('ready.scrtabs', function() {
    $('.tab-content').show();
  });

Forcing a Refresh

The scrolling container should automatically refresh itself on window resize, but to manually force a refresh you can call the plugin's refresh method:

$('.nav-tabs').scrollingTabs('refresh');

Forcing a Scroll to the Active Tab

On window resize, the scrolling container should automatically scroll to the active tab if it's offscreen, but you can also programmatically force a scroll to the active tab any time (if, for example, you're programmatically setting the active tab) by calling the plugin's scrollToActiveTab method:

$('.nav-tabs').scrollingTabs('scrollToActiveTab');

Use Case #2: Data-driven Tabs

If your tabs are data-driven rather than defined in your markup, you just need to pass your tabs array to the plugin and it will generate the tab elements for you.

So your tabs data should look something like this (note that the tab titles can contain HTML):

var myTabs = [
  { paneId: 'tab01', title: 'Tab <em>1</em> of 12', content: 'Tab Number 1 Content', active: true, disabled: false },
  { paneId: 'tab02', title: 'Tab 2 of 12', content: 'Tab Number 2 Content', active: false, disabled: false },
  { paneId: 'tab03', title: 'Tab 3 of 12', content: 'Tab Number 3 Content', active: false, disabled: false },
  { paneId: 'tab04', title: 'Tab 4 of 12', content: 'Tab Number 4 Content', active: false, disabled: false },
  { paneId: 'tab05', title: 'Tab 5 of 12', content: 'Tab Number 5 Content', active: false, disabled: false }
];

You would then need a target element to append the tabs and panes to, like this:

<!-- build .nav-tabs and .tab-content in here -->
<div id="tabs-inside-here"></div>

Then just call the plugin on that element, passing a settings object with a tabs property pointing to your tabs array:

$('#tabs-inside-here').scrollingTabs({
  tabs: myTabs
});

Required Tab Data Properties

Each tab object in the array must have a property for

• the tab title (text or HTML)
• the ID of its target pane (text)
• its active state (bool)

Optionally, it can also have a boolean for its disabled state.

'Content' Property for Tab Panes

If you want the plugin to generate the tab panes also, include a content property on the tab objects.

If your tab objects have a content property but you don't want the plugin to generate the panes, pass in plugin option ignoreTabPanes: true when calling the plugin.

$('#tabs-inside-here').scrollingTabs({
  tabs: myTabs,
  ignoreTabPanes: true
});

Custom Tab Data Property Names

By default, the plugin assumes those properties will be named title, paneId, active, disabled, and content, but if you want to use different property names, you can pass your property names in as properties on the settings object:

$('#tabs-inside-here').scrollingTabs({
  tabs: myTabs, // required,
  propTitle: 'myTitle', // required if not 'title'
  propPaneId: 'myPaneId', // required if not 'paneId'
  propActive: 'myActive', // required if not 'active'
  propDisabled: 'myDisabled', // required if not 'disabled'
  propContent: 'myContent' // required if not 'content'
});
```javascript



So, for example, if your tab objects used the property name `label` for their titles instead of `title`, you would need to pass property `propTitle: 'label'` in your settings object.

```javascript
$('#tabs-inside-here').scrollingTabs({
  tabs: myTabs,
  propTitle: 'label'
});

scrollToTabEdge Option

And just like in Use Case #1, you can also pass in the scrollToTabEdge option if you want to force the scrolling to always end with a tab edge aligned with the left scroll arrow:

$('#tabs-inside-here').scrollingTabs({
  tabs: myTabs,
  scrollToTabEdge: true  
});

You can also pass in the disableScrollArrowsOnFullyScrolled option if you want the scroll arrow to disable when the tabs are fully scrolled in that direction:

$('#tabs-inside-here').scrollingTabs({
  tabs: myTabs,
  disableScrollArrowsOnFullyScrolled: true  
});

Refreshing after Tab Data Change

On tabs data change, just call the plugin's refresh method to refresh the tabs on the page:

$('#tabs-inside-here').scrollingTabs('refresh');

forceActiveTab Option

On tabs data change, if you want the active tab to be set based on the updated tabs data (i.e., you want to override the current active tab setting selected by the user), for example, if you added a new tab and you want it to be the active tab, pass the forceActiveTab flag on refresh:

$('#tabs-inside-here').scrollingTabs('refresh', {
  forceActiveTab: true
});

Force Scroll to Tab Edge

If you want to ensure the scrolling always ends with a tab edge aligned with the left scroll arrow so there won't be a partially hidden tab, pass in option scrollToTabEdge: true:

$('#tabs-inside-here').scrollingTabs({
  tabs: myTabs,
  scrollToTabEdge: true  
});

There's no way to guarantee the left and right edges will be full tabs because that's dependent on the the width of the tabs and the window. So this just makes sure the left side will be a full tab.

Disable Scroll Arrows on Fully Scrolled

If you want the left scroll arrow to disable when the tabs are scrolled fully left, and the right scroll arrow to disable when the tabs are scrolled fully right, pass in option disableScrollArrowsOnFullyScrolled: true:

$('#tabs-inside-here').scrollingTabs({
  tabs: myTabs,
  disableScrollArrowsOnFullyScrolled: true  
});

Setting Defaults

Any options that can be passed into the plugin can also be set on the plugin's defaults object:

$.fn.scrollingTabs.defaults.tabs = myTabs;
$.fn.scrollingTabs.defaults.forceActiveTab = true;
$.fn.scrollingTabs.defaults.scrollToTabEdge = true;
$.fn.scrollingTabs.defaults.disableScrollArrowsOnFullyScrolled = true;

Events

The plugin triggers event ready.scrtabs when the tabs have been wrapped in the scroller and are ready for viewing:

$('.nav-tabs')
  .scrollingTabs()
  .on('ready.scrtabs', function() {
    // tabs ready, do my other stuff...
  });

$('#tabs-inside-here')
  .scrollingTabs({ tabs: tabs })
  .on('ready.scrtabs', function() {
    // tabs ready, do my other stuff...
  });

Destroying the Plugin

To destroy the plugin, call its destroy method:

$('#tabs-inside-here').scrollingTabs('destroy');

If you were wrapping markup, the markup will be restored; if your tabs were data-driven, the tabs will be destroyed along with the plugin.

License

MIT License.