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Navigation Plugin

Contents

A plugin for creating infinite-depth hierarchical navigation in Eleventy projects. Supports breadcrumbs too! Used in production on this very website!

Template Compatibility Jump to heading

Installation Jump to heading

Available on npm.

npm install @11ty/eleventy-navigation --save-dev

Open up your Eleventy config file (probably .eleventy.js) and use addPlugin:

Filename .eleventy.js
const eleventyNavigationPlugin = require("@11ty/eleventy-navigation");

module.exports = function(eleventyConfig) {
eleventyConfig.addPlugin(eleventyNavigationPlugin);
};
INFO:
You’re only allowed one module.exports in your configuration file, so make sure you only copy the require and the addPlugin lines above!

Read more about Eleventy plugins.

Adding Templates to the Navigation Jump to heading

Add the eleventyNavigation object to your front matter data (or in a data directory file). Assign a unique string to the key property inside of eleventyNavigation.

Example Jump to heading

mammals.md Jump to heading

---
eleventyNavigation:
key: Mammals
---

This gives us:

  • Mammals

humans.md Jump to heading

To nest a template inside of the Mammals template, use parent: Mammals:

---
eleventyNavigation:
key: Humans
parent: Mammals
---

Any templates that do not have parent will be assumed to be at the top level.

Now our navigation structure looks like:

  • Mammals
    • Humans

bats.md Jump to heading

---
eleventyNavigation:
key: Bats
parent: Mammals
---

Now our navigation structure looks like:

  • Mammals
    • Humans
    • Bats

You can nest these as deep as you want! Want to put something under Humans or Bats? Use parent: Humans or parent: Bats. If you want to add another root template, leave out parent.

If you want your key and your link text to be different, use the title property:

---
eleventyNavigation:
key: Mammals
title: All of the Mammals
---

Re-Ordering Items Jump to heading

To ensure that Humans comes first before Bats, use the order property. It can have an arbitrary number. If omitted, order: 0 is the default.

---
eleventyNavigation:
key: Humans
parent: Mammals
order: 1
---
---
eleventyNavigation:
key: Bats
parent: Mammals
order: 2
---

Overriding the URL Jump to heading

Added in Navigation v0.1.4 If you’d like to add a link to an external URL that is not on your local page, create a new file for it and add a url key.

---
eleventyNavigation:
key: Zach’s site
url: https://www.zachleat.com/
permalink: false
---

Use permalink: false to ensure that this meta-template doesn’t create a file in your Eleventy site output.

Rendering the Navigation Menu (Easy Mode) Jump to heading

Nunjucks and Liquid engines are supported. If you’re tired of reading, just use one of the following. These are using the filters documented below. If you want more control or need additional customization, keep reading!

Output HTML Jump to heading

View this example in: Liquid Nunjucks 11ty.js Handlebars

To Markdown Jump to heading

Added in Navigation 0.3.1

View this example in: Liquid Nunjucks 11ty.js Handlebars

Advanced: Rendering the Navigation Bar (Deep Dive) Jump to heading

Fetch the menu items using the eleventyNavigation Filter Jump to heading

The eleventyNavigation filter returns a sorted array of objects with url and title properties (sorted using order, as noted above). If an entry has nested children, it will also include a children property with an array of similar objects (and those may contain children too, and so on).

Example: Fetch all pages Jump to heading

For our documented templates above with the following template:

View this example in: Liquid Nunjucks 11ty.js Handlebars
INFO:
Note that you can also pass any collection into eleventyNavigation. It doesn’t have to be collections.all!

Shows that navPages has the following structure:

[
{
"key": "Mammals",
"url": "/mammals/",
"title": "Mammals",
"children": [
{
"key": "Humans",
"parentKey": "Mammals",
"url": "/humans/",
"title": "Humans"
},
{
"key": "Bats",
"parentKey": "Mammals",
"url": "/bats/",
"title": "Bats"
}
]
}
]

Example: Get just one Branch Jump to heading

Just show the children of a specific key, pass a key to eleventyNavigation:

View this example in: Liquid Nunjucks 11ty.js Handlebars
[
{
"key": "Humans",
"parentKey": "Mammals",
"url": "/humans/",
"title": "Humans"
},
{
"key": "Bats",
"parentKey": "Mammals",
"url": "/bats/",
"title": "Bats"
}
]

Example: Breadcrumbs Jump to heading

You can also render only the parents of a specific key too, to make breadcrumb navigation. Pass a key to eleventyNavigationBreadcrumb like this:

View this example in: Liquid Nunjucks 11ty.js Handlebars

And an array of all the parents of the Bats entry will be returned (top-most parent is first):

[
{
"key": "Mammals",
"url": "/mammals/",
"title": "Mammals"
}
]
Include the current page in breadcrumb results
View this example in: Liquid Nunjucks 11ty.js Handlebars
Allow missing pages (nodes) in breadcrumbs

Added in Navigation 0.3.3

View this example in: Liquid Nunjucks 11ty.js

Render the menu items using the eleventyNavigationToHtml or eleventyNavigationToMarkdown Filters Jump to heading

There are a couple of methods for rendering. Using the eleventyNavigationToHtml and eleventyNavigationToMarkdown filters will render the full navigation tree. Use this if you want to easily scale to an unlimited number of tiers/levels in your navigation. If you want full control of the markup, render the structure manually using the Copy and Paste templates example below. Use this if your navigation will have one level/tier of items.

With the Navigation structure returned from eleventyNavigation or eleventyNavigationBreadcrumb, we can render the navigation. Pass the object to the eleventyNavigationToHtml or eleventyNavigationToMarkdown filter to automatically output the full menu (as HTML or Markdown):

The eleventyNavigationToMarkdown filter is Added in Navigation 0.3.1.

View this example in: Liquid Nunjucks 11ty.js Handlebars

Showing excerpts Jump to heading

You can also use this to display a longer list of navigation items with description text. This is useful for category/index pages. Add excerpt to the eleventyNavigation object.

---
eleventyNavigation:
key: Mammals
excerpt: Vertebrate animals of the class Mammalia.
---

When you render a navigation list, pass showExcerpt: true to the eleventyNavigationToHtml filter, like so:

View this example in: Liquid Nunjucks 11ty.js Handlebars

Advanced: All Rendering Options for eleventyNavigationToMarkdown Jump to heading

Added in Navigation 0.3.1

View this example in: Liquid Nunjucks 11ty.js Handlebars

Advanced: All Rendering Options for eleventyNavigationToHtml Jump to heading

You can change the HTML elements, classes on the list and list items, and add an additional class for the current page’s navigation entry!

View this example in: Liquid Nunjucks 11ty.js Handlebars

These work with eleventyNavigationBreadcrumb | eleventyNavigationToHtml too.

If you find yourself using a lot of these class options, maybe you should use the Advanced: Unlimited Child Levels example below and have full control of your HTML!

Bring your own HTML: Render the menu items manually Jump to heading

This template will render a single tier of items (no children) without using the eleventyNavigationToHtml or eleventyNavigationToMarkdown filters. This method gives you full control of the markup but is more complex with deeply nested menu structures.

Note that eleventyNavigationToMarkdown is Added in Navigation 0.3.1.

View this example in: Liquid Nunjucks 11ty.js Handlebars

You can use a Nunjucks macro to recursively render list items of any depth but the code isn’t quite as clean:

Nunjucks Macro Code for Rendering Unlimited Child Levels:
Syntax Nunjucks
{% set navPages = collections.all | eleventyNavigation %}
{% macro renderNavListItem(entry) -%}
<li{% if entry.url == page.url %} class="my-active-class"{% endif %}>
<a href="{{ entry.url }}">{{ entry.title }}</a>
{%- if entry.children.length -%}
<ul>
{%- for child in entry.children %}{{ renderNavListItem(child) }}{% endfor -%}
</ul>
{%- endif -%}
</li>
{%- endmacro %}

<ul>
{%- for entry in navPages %}{{ renderNavListItem(entry) }}{%- endfor -%}
</ul>

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