Hidden sidebar that shows up on hover

Question

I'm trying to create a sidebar that is hidden by default but that shows up on hover. The closest example I can think of is this one: http://www.sidlee.com/. When you're on any of the pages beyond the home page, the sidebar only shows numbers. Once you move your mouse over this area, the sidebar expands to show the text. I'm guessing there's a way to do this with JavaScript but I'm no expert so I though somebody here could help me out.

Answer 1

That's just a simple example but hopefully it will put you on the right track :)

CSS:

#nav{width:200px;height:100%;position:absolute;top:0;left:0;z-index:100;background:#111;color:#fff;overflow:hidden;}
#nav ul{margin:0;padding:0;width:200px;margin:10px;list-style:none;}
#nav a span{margin:0 10px 0 0;}
#nav a{color:#fff;font-size:14px;text-decoration:none;}

jQuery:

$(function(){
    $('#nav').hover(function(){
        $(this).animate({width:'200px'},500);
    },function(){
        $(this).animate({width:'35px'},500);
    }).trigger('mouseleave');
});

HTML:

<div id="nav">
<ul>
<li><a href=""><span>01</span> HomePage</a></li>
<li><a href=""><span>02</span> SubPage 1</a></li>
<li><a href=""><span>03</span> SubPage 2</a></li>
<li><a href=""><span>04</span> SubPage 3</a></li>
<li><a href=""><span>05</span> SubPage 4</a></li>
</ul>
</div>

If you want to show only numbers at start (without the closing animation onload) change the #nav{width:35px;} and remove the .trigger('mouseleave')

Cheers

G.