Navbar

How it works

Here’s what you need to know before getting started with the navbar:

  • Navbars require a wrapping .navbar with .navbar-expand{-sm|-md|-lg|-xl|-xxl} for responsive collapsing and color scheme classes.
  • Navbars and their contents are fluid by default. Change the container to limit their horizontal width in different ways.
  • Use our spacing and flex utility classes for controlling spacing and alignment within navbars.
  • Navbars are responsive by default, but you can easily modify them to change that. Responsive behavior depends on our Collapse JavaScript plugin.
  • Ensure accessibility by using a <nav> element or, if using a more generic element such as a <div>, add a role="navigation" to every navbar to explicitly identify it as a landmark region for users of assistive technologies.
  • Indicate the current item by using aria-current="page" for the current page or aria-current="true" for the current item in a set.
The animation effect of this component is dependent on the prefers-reduced-motion media query. See the reduced motion section of our accessibility documentation.

Read on for an example and list of supported sub-components.

Supported content

Navbars come with built-in support for a handful of sub-components. Choose from the following as needed:

  • .navbar-brand for your company, product, or project name.
  • .navbar-nav for a full-height and lightweight navigation (including support for dropdowns).
  • .navbar-toggler for use with our collapse plugin and other navigation toggling behaviors.
  • Flex and spacing utilities for any form controls and actions.
  • .navbar-text for adding vertically centered strings of text.
  • .collapse.navbar-collapse for grouping and hiding navbar contents by a parent breakpoint.

Here’s an example of all the sub-components included in a responsive light-themed navbar that automatically collapses at the lg (large) breakpoint.

This example uses color (bg-light) and spacing (my-2, my-lg-0, me-sm-0, my-sm-0) utility classes.

External content

Sometimes you want to use the collapse plugin to trigger hidden content elsewhere on the page. Because our plugin works on the id and data-target matching, that’s easily done!