Is it appropriate to wrap each navigation element in a div? - css

Question

I'm learning HTML + CSS and working on a website where I need to have a vertical navigation bar on the left side which will have four elements which can be interacted with. Is it standard practice to wrap each of these four elements with a div or is there a more elegant or semantic way to solve this problem? I will want each element to have unique on-click functions associated with them, which is why I thought giving them divs and classes would make the most sense for interacting with them later.
Thanks!

Answer 1

JSFIDDLE DEMO
HTML structure:
There are many ways to achieve a vertical navigation.
The most common would be to use ul and li:
<div id="lnav_container">
<ul id="lnav">
<li class="lnav_item">Item 1</li>
<li class="lnav_item">Item 2</li>
<li class="lnav_item">Item 3</li>
<li class="lnav_item">Item 4</li>
</ul>
</div>
Also very common to have a tags inside li.
Styling:
You can get rid of the bullets by having list-style-type: none; for the ul.
You can give them different style on hover by using :hover selector to make it more interactive.
.lnav_item {
width: 74%;
margin-top: 10px;
}
.lnav_item:first-child {margin-top: 0px;}
.lnav_item.selected {width: 86%;}
.lnav_item a {
display: inline-block;
width: 100%;
line-height: 30px;
padding: 8px 5px 5px 0px;
background-color: yellow;
color: black;
font-weight: bold;
text-decoration: none;
border-radius: 2px 12px 12px 2px;
}
.lnav_item.selected a {
background-color: green;
color: white;
font-size: 18px;
}
.lnav_item:hover a {background-color: orange;}
To get rid of a underline use text-decoration: none; and override its default coloring if you wish.
Javascript (jQuery):
It'll be easy to bind clickListener to the items:
$('.lnav_item a').on('click', function() {
//$(this) item is clicked, do whatever you want
$('.lnav_item').removeClass('selected');
$(this).parent().addClass('selected');
});
EDIT:
If you want to give each of the navigation items a different style, etc, you can achieve it different ways:
jsfiddle DEMO
You can use CSS' nth-child() selector:
.lnav_item:nth-child(2):hover a{background-color: #252F1D;}
.lnav_item:nth-child(3):hover a{background-color: white;}
If you're doing it in jQuery, alternatively you can use the function with parameter (index) and maybe use eq if needed.
$('.lnav_item > a').each(function(index) {
if(index == 0) {
//give it a different onClick, CSS rule, etc
}
//and so on
});
index is zero-based, but nth-child starts from one.

Answer 2

The typical HTML5 markup for a site navigation menu would be a nav element that contains an ul element:
<nav>
<ul>
<li>1</li>
<li>2</li>
<li>3</li>
<li>4</li>
</ul>
</nav>
If you can get your CSS/JS to work with this markup (+ class attributes or whatever you need), great.
If you need more elements, add div and/or span elements: they are meaningless, so they don’t change the semantics of your document.

Answer 3

NAV elements are simply LISTS.
You don't need to wrap them in anything.
Here's an example of my own Navigation Panel (I also placed it on the left-hand side of my screen)
<nav>
<ul style="list-style: none">
<h3>Main Menu</h3>
<li style="font-size: 100%"><b>Article 1</b></li>
<ul style="list-style: none">
<br>
<dt>
<li style="font-size: 100%"><a href="Article 1.1">Article
1.1</a>
</li>
<br>
<li style="font-size: 100%"><a href="Article 1.2">Article
1.2</a>
</li>
<br>
</dt>
</ul>
<br>
</nav>