Css-only Lavalamp-like Fancy Menu Effect

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This time let’s get inspired by the sliding menu effect, also known as the Lavalamp effect (ex. here). We’ll recreate it with pure css – using css3 transitions and the general sibling combinator selector. Below we’ll discuss three simple examples (make sure to see the demo first).

Step 1 – Prerequisites

We use a Unica One google web font. In the “heart & arrow” example we use three images combined into a sprite image as below :

Step 2 – HTML

For each of the three examples the html is the same. We’ll just switch the ph-line-nav class name to ph-dot-nav and ph-heart-nav.

<div class="nav ph-line-nav">
  <a href="#">Home</a>
  <a href="#">About</a>
  <a href="#">Gallery</a>
  <a href="#">Contact</a>
  <div class="effect"></div>
</div>

The general sibling selector uses a tilde character combinator (E ~ F) and matches elements that are siblings of a given element. The elements don’t have to be adjacent siblings but the first element (E) has to occur before the second (F) one. They also have to share the same parent. 

Step 3 – CSS – all examples

Let’s start with the styles that are common for all three examples. The parent element div.nav is positioned relatively. The <a> elements are adjacent floats.
(Note that we omit the vendor prefixes for the sake of simplicity).

.nav {
  overflow: hidden;
  position: relative;
  width: 480px; }
  .nav a {
    display: block;
    position: relative;
    float: left;
    padding: 1em 0 2em;
    width: 25%;
    text-decoration: none;
    color: #393939;
    transition: .7s; }
    .nav a:hover {
      color: #c6342e; }

The crucial part of the lavalamp-like effect happens here :

When the mouse is over one of the < a > elements, the div.effect moves smoothly toward its middle.
Don’t hesitate to experiment with the transition-timing-function (ex. here). Here we use the “ease-in-out” function so that the transition starts and end slow.

Step 4 – Into the details (1)

Let’s start with the easiest example, the one with a floating line.
You just have to define the dimensions and colors of the line and position it vertically.

.ph-line-nav .effect {
  width: 90px;
  height: 2px;
  bottom: 36px;
  background: #c6342e;
  box-shadow: 0 1px 0 white; 
  margin-left:-45px;
}

In each case we will set the margin-left equal to the half the length of the element so that it is always centered with the hovered link, see the image below :

Step 5 – Into the details (2)

Now, let’s discuss the effect with the dot. We add a horizontal 1px height line to the div.nav. To do so we make use of the :after pseudo-element. We also add little dots, positioned on the line below each menu item, again we use :after pesudo-elements. The div.effect is now a 10px circle and its properties are analogous to those from the previous example.

.ph-dot-nav:after {
  content: "";
  display: block;
  position: absolute;
  width: 100%;
  height: 1px;
  background: #c6342e;
  bottom: 40px; }
.ph-dot-nav a:after {
  content: "";
  position: absolute;
  width: 4px;
  height: 4px;
  bottom: 38px;
  left: 50%;
  margin-left: -2px; 
  background: #c6342e;
  border-radius: 100%; }
.ph-dot-nav .effect {
  width: 10px;
  height: 10px;
  bottom: 36px; 
  margin-left: -5px;
  background: #c6342e;
  border-radius: 100%; }

Step 6 – Into the details (3)

Finally, let’s have a look at the heart-and-arrow example. The heart is composed of two elements, added as :before (the left half of the heart) and :after (the right one) pseudo-elements. The a:after has z-index set to 1 so that it is positioned above the arrow – that makes the trick works :)

.ph-heart-nav .effect, .ph-heart-nav a:after, .ph-heart-nav a:before {
  background: url('../images/heart.png') no-repeat; }

.ph-heart-nav .effect {
  position: absolute;
  bottom: 26px;
  background-position: 0 0;
  height: 8px;
  width: 62px; 
  margin-left:-31px; }

.ph-heart-nav a:before, .ph-heart-nav a:after {
  content: "";
  display: block;
  position: absolute;
  left: 50%;
  bottom: 20px;
  background-position: -62px 0;
  height: 20px;
  width: 11px;
  margin-left: -11px; }

.ph-heart-nav a:after {
  z-index: 1;
  background-position: -73px 0; }

Thats all – I hope you enjoyed this tutorial and got inspired. Looking forward to your comments. Thanks.

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You may use the effects demonstrated in tutorials in your own work, both commercial or non-commercial without any attribution. You may not reproduce entire nor large parts of our tutorials. The outcome of our tutorials may not be re-saled nor redistributed.