Question 14479 in Wordpress Question posted in
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Making my submenu visible while the parent is focused using tab – WordPress

I’ve been stuck with a problem with my custom WordPress theme for a long time.

As you might know, you need to be able to navigate the menu using keyboard only. This is possible in my case.

However, I can’t see the submenu while I’m moving through it using tab. I know it moves through the menu because when I’ve hit tab for every submenuitem there is, the visual cue for being focused moves to next parent menu item.

Also if I remove some of the styling so that I can see all menu items at all times (which isn’t very practical), it works just fine.

I hide the submenu by default using left: -999em;. then when I hove over its parent menu item, I bring the submenu to view by using left:0;.

This works perfectly using :hover, but not with :focus. Can anyone tell me why? Here is some of my css.

header .navigation li{
    position: relative;
}

header .navigation li .sub-menu {
    position: absolute !important;
    z-index: 999;
    top: 100%;
    left: -999em;
    background-color: lightgray;
    box-shadow: 1px 1px 10px rgba(0,0,0,0.1);
    margin: 0;
    padding: 0;
    list-style-type: none;
    width: 200px;
    border-radius: .5rem;
}

header .navigation li .sub-menu a{
    display: block;
    padding: .25rem;
    text-align: center;
    text-decoration: none; 
}

header .navigation li .sub-menu a:hover,
header .navigation li .sub-menu a:focus
{   
    color: white; /* BOTH WORK*/
}

header .navigation > .menu-item-has-children:hover > .sub-menu,
header .navigation > .menu-item-has-children:focus > .sub-menu
{
    left: 0; /* ONLY THE :HOVER WOKRS */
}

Hope I explained this well enough (my first post here lol).

Testing the minimal working example.

header .navigation {
  list-style: none;
  margin: 0;
  display: flex;
  justify-content: left;
  align-items: center;
  width: 900px;
  word-break: keep-all;
}

header .navigation li a {
  padding: .25rem 1rem;
  color: #000;
  width: 100%;
}

header .navigation li:first-child a {
  padding-left: 0;
}

header .navigation li {
  position: relative;
}

header .navigation li .sub-menu {
  position: absolute !important;
  z-index: 999;
  top: 100%;
  left: -999em;
  background-color: lightgray;
  box-shadow: 1px 1px 10px rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1);
  margin: 0;
  padding: 0;
  list-style-type: none;
  width: 200px;
  border-radius: .5rem;
}

header .navigation li .sub-menu:focus {
  left: 0;
}

header .navigation li .sub-menu a {
  display: block;
  padding: .25rem;
  text-align: center;
  text-decoration: none;
}

header .navigation li .sub-menu a:hover,
header .navigation li .sub-menu a:focus {
  color: white;
  /*BOTH WORK*/
}

header .navigation>.menu-item-has-children:hover>.sub-menu,
header .navigation>.menu-item-has-children:focus>.sub-menu {
  left: 0;
  /* ONLY THE :HOVER WOKRS */
}
<header class="sticky-top">

  <div class="container-fluid">

    <h1>test</h1>

    <div class="menu-all-pages-container">
      <ul id="menu-all-pages" class="navigation">
        <li id="menu-item-1636" class="menu-item menu-item-type-custom menu-item-object-custom menu-item-1636"><a href="http://wpthemetestdata.wordpress.com/">Home</a></li>
        <li id="menu-item-1637" class="menu-item menu-item-type-post_type menu-item-object-page menu-item-1637"><a href="http://localhost/wordpress/?page_id=703">Blog</a></li>
        <li id="menu-item-1638" class="menu-item menu-item-type-post_type menu-item-object-page menu-item-1638"><a href="http://localhost/wordpress/?page_id=701">Front Page</a></li>
        <li id="menu-item-1639" class="menu-item menu-item-type-post_type menu-item-object-page menu-item-has-children menu-item-1639"><a href="http://localhost/wordpress/?page_id=2">About The Tests</a>
          <ul class="sub-menu" tabindex="0">
            <li id="menu-item-1760" class="menu-item menu-item-type-post_type menu-item-object-page menu-item-1760"><a href="http://localhost/wordpress/?page_id=1133">Page Image Alignment</a></li>
            <li id="menu-item-1761" class="menu-item menu-item-type-post_type menu-item-object-page menu-item-1761"><a href="http://localhost/wordpress/?page_id=1134">Page Markup And Formatting</a></li>
            <li id="menu-item-1640" class="menu-item menu-item-type-post_type menu-item-object-page menu-item-1640"><a href="http://localhost/wordpress/?page_id=501">Clearing Floats</a></li>
            <li id="menu-item-1641" class="menu-item menu-item-type-post_type menu-item-object-page menu-item-1641"><a href="http://localhost/wordpress/?page_id=155">Page with comments</a></li>
            <li id="menu-item-1642" class="menu-item menu-item-type-post_type menu-item-object-page menu-item-1642"><a href="http://localhost/wordpress/?page_id=156">Page with comments disabled</a></li>
          </ul>
        </li>
        <li id="menu-item-1643" class="menu-item menu-item-type-post_type menu-item-object-page menu-item-has-children menu-item-1643"><a href="http://localhost/wordpress/?page_id=174">Level 1</a>
          <ul class="sub-menu">
            <li id="menu-item-1644" class="menu-item menu-item-type-post_type menu-item-object-page menu-item-has-children menu-item-1644"><a href="http://localhost/wordpress/?page_id=173">Level 2</a>
              <ul class="sub-menu">
                <li id="menu-item-1645" class="menu-item menu-item-type-post_type menu-item-object-page menu-item-1645"><a href="http://localhost/wordpress/?page_id=172">Level 3</a></li>
                <li id="menu-item-1762" class="menu-item menu-item-type-post_type menu-item-object-page menu-item-1762"><a href="http://localhost/wordpress/?page_id=746">Level 3a</a></li>
                <li id="menu-item-1763" class="menu-item menu-item-type-post_type menu-item-object-page menu-item-1763"><a href="http://localhost/wordpress/?page_id=748">Level 3b</a></li>
              </ul>
            </li>
            <li id="menu-item-1764" class="menu-item menu-item-type-post_type menu-item-object-page menu-item-1764"><a href="http://localhost/wordpress/?page_id=742">Level 2a</a></li>
            <li id="menu-item-1765" class="menu-item menu-item-type-post_type menu-item-object-page menu-item-1765"><a href="http://localhost/wordpress/?page_id=744">Level 2b</a></li>
          </ul>
        </li>
        <li id="menu-item-1646" class="menu-item menu-item-type-post_type menu-item-object-page menu-item-1646"><a href="http://localhost/wordpress/?page_id=146">Lorem Ipsum</a></li>
        <li id="menu-item-1766" class="menu-item menu-item-type-post_type menu-item-object-page menu-item-1766"><a href="http://localhost/wordpress/?page_id=733">Page A</a></li>
        <li id="menu-item-1767" class="menu-item menu-item-type-post_type menu-item-object-page menu-item-1767"><a href="http://localhost/wordpress/?page_id=735">Page B</a></li>
      </ul>
    </div>

  </div>

</header>
Tags:

2

Answers


  1. 0

    You should add tabindex='0' property to the .sub-menu element if you haven’t to make it focusable. Not all elements are focusable. :focus on <a> tag works because it is focusable as long as it has either href or tabindex attribute. Refer here for more on tabindex.

    Edit: I have checked the code and it looks like you want the .sub-menu to stay visible when the links inside it are focused as well. So add this style for that and it should work. You want the left position of the .sub-menu to be 0 as long as the links inside it are focused.

    header .navigation > .menu-item-has-children > .sub-menu:focus-within {
  left: 0;
}
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  2. 0

    I took the liberty to re-write the code a bit since there was a lot of noise. If you can, next time only post the code that is absolutely necessary to demonstrate the problem :).

    Since the code is now different from yours, you might need to make some changes. If you are unable to apply them, please leave a comment, and I’ll see if I can adapt it more closely to what you posted.

    ul {
  list-style: none;
  padding: 0;
}

.nav {
  display: flex;
  background-color: gray;
}

.nav li {
  flex: 1;
}

.about-the-tests {
  position: relative;
}

.sub-menu {
  position: absolute;
  visibility: hidden;
}


/* Opens the menu when the "About the Tests" link is focused */

.about-the-tests a:focus+.sub-menu,

/* Keeps the menu open when a link is focused inside it */

.about-the-tests:focus-within .sub-menu {
  visibility: visible;
}
    <!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">

<head>
</head>

<body>
  <ul class="nav">
    <li><a href="https://example.com">Home</a></li>
    <li><a href="https://example.com">Blog</a></li>
    <li><a href="https://example.com">Front Page</a></li>
    <li class="about-the-tests">
      <a href="https://example.com">About the Tests</a>
      <ul class="sub-menu">
        <li><a href="https://example.com/page_image_alignment">Page Image Alignment</a></li>
        <li><a href="https://example.com/page_markup_and_formatting">Page Markup And Formatting</a></li>
        <li><a href="https://example.com/clearing_floats">Clearing Floats</a></li>
        <li><a href="https://example.com/page_with_comments">Page with comments</a></li>
        <li><a href="https://example.com/page_with_comments_disabled">Page with comments disabled</a></li>
      </ul>
    </li>
    <li><a href="https://example.com">Level 1</a></li>
  </ul>
</body>

</html>

    The main thing I added was the focus-within pseudo class.

    I also changed how the display is hidden. Now it’s hidden using the visibility property. You can also try it with the display property, but I don’t know how well screen readers deal with that. Anyway, I think both of those approaches are cleaner than moving the elements off the screen.

    Also: Try avoiding !important. It’s almost always a mistake in your CSS, as later CSS rules may always overwrite previous ones.

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