Tabs - jQuery plugin for accessible, unobtrusive tabs

Read more about it. To enable history support for Tabs I use my History/Remote plugin.

Download package

Simple Tabs

First tab is active by default:

$('#container').tabs();
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Start With Custom Tab

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Second tab is active:

$('#container').tabs(2);

Two alternative ways to specify the active tab will overrule this argument. First a li element (representing one single tab) belonging to the selected tab class, e.g. set the selected tab class (default: "tabs-selected", see option selectedClass) for one of the unordered li elements in the HTML source. In addition if a fragment identifier/hash in the URL of the page refers to the id of a tab container of a tab interface the corresponding tab will be activated and both the initial argument as well as an eventually declared class attribute will be overruled.

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Slide Effect

Use a slide effect to switch tabs. You can optionally specify the speed for the animation with the option fxSpeed: value. The value is either a string of one of the predefined speeds in jQuery (slow, normal, fast) or an integer value specifying the duration for the animation in milliseconds. If omitted it defaults to normal.

$('#container').tabs({ fxSlide: true });
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Fade Effect

Use a fade effect to switch tabs. You can optionally specify the speed for the animation with the option fxSpeed: value. The value is either a string of one of the predefined speeds in jQuery (slow, normal, fast) or an integer value specifying the duration for the animation in milliseconds. If omitted it defaults to normal.

$('#container').tabs({ fxFade: true, fxSpeed: 'fast' });
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Slide and Fade Effect Combined

Use a combined slide and fade effect to switch tabs:

$('#container').tabs({ fxSlide: true, fxFade: true, fxSpeed: 'fast' });
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Callbacks

Define callback functions that are invoked at different points in time during the tab switch process. These functions are invoked with three arguments: the first one being the clicked tab (the a element), the second one being the div element that holds the content of the clicked tab and the third one being the div element belonging to the tab that gets hidden.
If the onClick callback returns false, the tab switch is canceled. This is especially useful if switching tabs requires form validation before for example.

$('#container').tabs({
    fxFade: true,
    fxSpeed: 'fast',
    onClick: function() {
        alert('onClick');
    },
    onHide: function() {
        alert('onHide');
    },
    onShow: function() {
        alert('onShow');
    }
});
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Automatic height

Adjust height of all tabs to the largest:

$('#container').tabs({ fxAutoHeight: true });
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Custom animation

Define your own custom animation:

$('#container').tabs({ fxShow: { height: 'show', opacity: 'show' } });
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Ajax tabs

Custom HTML structure

If some HTML structure is required that differs from the default one, attach the classes tabs-nav to the unordered list, respectively tabs-container to each container and let the plugin automatically find the required elements by class.

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Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit, sed diam nonummy nibh euismod tincidunt ut laoreet dolore magna aliquam erat volutpat. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit, sed diam nonummy nibh euismod tincidunt ut laoreet dolore magna aliquam erat volutpat. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit, sed diam nonummy nibh euismod tincidunt ut laoreet dolore magna aliquam erat volutpat.

Triggering, disabling, enabling Tabs

$('#container').enableTab(3); // enables third tab
$('#container').triggerTab(3); // triggers third tab
$('#container').disableTab(3); // disables third tab

One or more tabs can also be disabled immediatly by simply setting the disabling class for the li element representing that particular tab or by using the disabled option.

<li class="tabs-disabled">…</li>

$('#container').tabs({ disabled: [2, 3] });
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Changelog (since release of Version 2)

Tested with