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Smashingmagazine
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Creating The “Moving Highlight” Navigation Bar With JavaScript And CSS
- The article discusses updating an old jQuery tutorial on creating a 'moving highlight' navigation bar using vanilla JavaScript and CSS in 2025.
- Two methods are demonstrated in the tutorial: using getBoundingClientRect to animate the border between navigation items and utilizing the View Transition API for progressive enhancement.
- Initial markup includes a standard navigation bar with an additional div element for highlighting the active item.
- Event handlers are added to animate the highlight when a new item is clicked, ensuring smooth transitions using calculated styles.
- The View Transition API simplifies the process by handling animations between before and after views, reducing the need for separate highlight elements.
- Adjustments are made to address sizing issues during transitions by declaring explicit heights for view-transition-old and view-transition-new pseudo-selectors.
- The tutorial concludes by showcasing a refined navigation bar with smooth transitions achieved through vanilla JavaScript and CSS techniques.
- The demo implementations and resources for further reading are also provided in the article.
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