Div Dropdown Menu Issue

Question

I've decided to have a trickier approach to coding a menu. Seems I like to torture myself.

Anyhow, I created a div menu:

<div class="menu-bar">
    <div class="menu-item"><span class="menu-text">HOME</span></div>
    <div class="menu-item"><span class="menu-text">ABOUT US</span>
        <div class="sub-menu-items">
            <div class="sub-menu-item">History</div>
            <div class="sub-menu-item">Mission, vision and values</div>
            <div class="sub-menu-item">B-BBEE</div>
            <div class="sub-menu-item">Team</div>
            <div class="sub-menu-item">Professional Affiliations</div>
        </div>
    </div>
    <div class="menu-item"><span class="menu-text">SECTORS</span></div>
    <div class="menu-item"><span class="menu-text">SERVICES</span></div>
    <div class="menu-item"><span class="menu-text">CSR</span></div>
    <div class="menu-item"><span class="menu-text">PROJECTS</span></div>
    <div class="menu-item"><span class="menu-text">SUSTAINABILITY</span></div>
    <div class="menu-item"><span class="menu-text">CONTACT US</span></div>
</div>

My issue comes in with the sub menu .sub-menu-items . I have no idea how to make it stay open once the mouse moves out of the About us block and into the sub menu.

Here is the current Javascript code I have:

$('.sub-menu-items').hide();
$('.menu-text').hover(function(e) {
// Show highlight
    $(this).toggleClass('menu-text-hover');
    $(this).parent().toggleClass('menu-item-hover');
    if($(this).html().indexOf('ABOUT',0) !== -1)
        $('.sub-menu-items').show('fast');
},function(e) {
// Hide highlight
    $(this).toggleClass('menu-text-hover');
    $(this).parent().toggleClass('menu-item-hover');
    if($(this).html().indexOf('ABOUT',0) !== -1)
        $('.sub-menu-items').hide('fast');
});

And here is my CSS:

.menu-bar           { position:absolute; top:159px; height:54px; width:1024px; background-color:#fafafa; z-index:2; }
.menu-item          { display:table-cell; vertical-align:middle; position:relative; left:79px; height:54px; text-align:center; width:105px; border-right:dotted thin #000; border-bottom:dotted thin #000; background-color:#fafafa; }
.menu-item-hover    { border-bottom:none; }
.menu-text          { display:table-cell; vertical-align:middle; height:52px; width:101px; position:relative; left:2px; top:1px; text-align:center; border-top-right-radius:0px; margin-left:2px; margin-top:2px; margin-right:2px; }
.menu-text-hover    { border-top-right-radius:20px; background-color:#445921; color:#fff; cursor:pointer; }

.sub-menu-items     { position:absolute; display:inline-block; top:55px; width:105px; background: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.8); font-size:12px; z-index:100; }
.sub-menu-item      { background:url(../images/devider-horizontal.png) no-repeat center top; display:block; height:40px; }
.sub-menu-item:last { background-image:none; display:block; height:40px; }

Can anyone assist me in achieving my goal of making the dropdown menu stay visible when the mouse is still over it?

Answer 1

You can rebuild your code a bit:

$('.sub-menu-items').hide();
$('.menu-item').hover(function(e) {
    var el = $(this).children(".menu-text");
    el.toggleClass('menu-text-hover');
    $(this).toggleClass('menu-item-hover');
    if (el.html().indexOf('ABOUT', 0) !== -1)
        $(this).find('.sub-menu-items').show('fast');
}, function(e) {
    var el = $(this).children(".menu-text");
    el.toggleClass('menu-text-hover');
    $(this).toggleClass('menu-item-hover');
    if (el.html().indexOf('ABOUT', 0) !== -1)
        $(this).find('.sub-menu-items').hide('fast');
});​

DEMO: http://jsfiddle.net/vnRV4/

---

The good issue raised @epascarello in the comments. You should better use nested lists instead of div blocks. Moreover, it will be good to replace $('.sub-menu-items').hide() with CSS style .sub-menu-items { display: none; } .sub-menu-items { display: none; } in order to prevent flashing on page load.

Answer 2

you can use setTimeout and a flag check with this.

outside the functions:

var submenuhovered=false;

on hide function:

setTimeout(function(){
    if(submenuhovered==false){
        $(this).siblings(".sub-menu-items").hide();
    }
},200);

on submenu mouseover function

submenuhovered = true;

on submenu mouseout function

submenuhovered = false;

or you can use the menu element's .data() collection instead of the global variable.

$("menu").data("submenuhovered","true");