Moving Boxes Content with jQuery

Today we will create a website template with some really sweet animations using jQuery. The idea is to have little boxes scattered around at the top of the site and when a menu item is clicked, the boxes animate to form the main content area. We will use some different animation effects that we will add as options to the menu item.

The content area will custom scroll for which we will be using the really awesome jScrollPane Plugin by Kevin Luck. We will also use the jQuery 2d transformation plugin by Grady in order to rotate the little boxes while we animate them, and the the jQuery Easing Plugin for some spice.

The beautiful photos are by Jin. Visit his Flickr photostream at http://www.flickr.com/photos/jinthai/

So, let’s start!

The Markup

First, we want to place the background image with the grid overlay:

<div id="mb_background" class="mb_background">
	<img class="mb_bgimage" src="images/default.jpg" alt="Background"/>
	<div class="mb_overlay"></div>
</div>

The next div element will be used to add the little boxes with their random position and rotation degree

<div id="mb_pattern" class="mb_pattern"></div>

We will place a total of 16 boxes (div elements) into this container.
The menu and the heading will have the following HTML stucture:

<div class="mb_heading">
	<h1>Lack of Color</h1>
</div>

<div id="mb_menu" class="mb_menu">
	<a href="#" data-speed="600" data-easing="easeOutBack">About</a>
	<a href="#" data-speed="1000" data-easing="easeInExpo">Work</a>
	<a href="#" data-speed="600" data-easing="easeOutBack">Media</a>
	<a href="#" data-speed="1000" data-easing="easeInExpo">Contact</a>
</div>

As you can see, we will add two “data-” attributes that we’ll use to define the speed and the easing effect that will be associated to the animation of the boxes. Read more about these new custom data attributes of HTML5 on John Resig’s blog: HTML 5 data- Attributes
Next, we will define the structure for the content area. There will be a main wrapper with the class “mb_content_wrapper” which contains all the content containers that have the class “mb_content” and a span for the closing cross:

<div id="mb_content_wrapper" class="mb_content_wrapper">
	<span class="mb_close"></span>
	<div class="mb_content">
		<h2>About</h2>
		<div class="mb_content_inner">
			<p>Some text...</p>
		</div>
	</div>
	<div class="mb_content">
		...
	</div>
	<div class="mb_content">
		...
	</div>
	<div class="mb_content">
		...
	</div>
</div>

One of the content elements is going to contain a list of images:

<div class="mb_content_inner">
	<p>...</p>
	<ul id="mb_imagelist" class="mb_imagelist">
		<li><img src="images/small/1.jpg" alt="image1" data-bgimg="images/image1.jpg"/></li>
		<li><img src="images/small/2.jpg" alt="image2" data-bgimg="images/image2.jpg"/></li>
		<li>...</li>
	</ul>
	<p>...</p>
</div>

And that’s all the HTML. Now, let’s make it pretty!

The CSS

First, we will embed our reset.css that will reset all the basic styles, and we’ll define some main properties:

@import url('reset.css');

body{
	background:#000;
	color:#fff;
	font-family: 'PT Sans Narrow', Arial, sans-serif;
}
a{
	color:#fff;
	text-decoration:none;
}

Next, we will define the styles for the image that we will use as a background and the overlay pattern:

img.mb_bgimage{
	position:fixed;
	left:0px;
	top:0px;
	width:100%;
	opacity:0.8;
	z-index:1;
}
.mb_overlay{
	width:100%;
	height:100%;
	position:fixed;
	top:0px;
	left:0px;
	background:transparent url(../images/pattern.png) repeat top left;
	z-index:2;
}

They will both be of fixed positioning and we will give them a low z-index so that they really stay under everything else.

The little boxes will all have a height and width of 50 pixel and they will have absolute positioning:

.mb_pattern div{
	position:absolute;
	width:50px;
	height:50px;
	background:#000;
	z-index:10;
}

The main heading will also be positioned absolutely and we will use a font-face from the collection of Google Web Fonts:

.mb_heading h1{
	position:absolute;
	top:10px;
	left:10px;
	font-size:86px;
	color:#000;
	text-shadow:0px 0px 1px #fff;
	font-family:"Astloch", Arial, sans-serif;
	z-index:4;
}

The menu container will be placed absolutely to the left side of the screen:

.mb_menu{
	position:absolute;
	top:154px;
	left:0px;
	z-index:11;
}

The link elements inside of the menu container will be black boxes with a neat transition on hover:

.mb_menu a{
	background-color:#000;
	margin-bottom:2px;
	opacity:0.9;
	display:block;
	width:98px;
	height:98px;
	color:#fff;
	line-height:98px;
	text-align:center;
	text-transform:uppercase;
	outline:none;
	-webkit-transition: all 0.2s ease-in;
	-moz-transition:all 0.2s ease-in;
	-o-transition: all 0.2s ease-in;
	-transition: all 0.2s ease-in;
}
.mb_menu a:hover{
	color:#000;
	background-color:#fff;
}

Read more about transitions in the W3 working draft at http://www.w3.org/TR/css3-transitions/ or in this great article on A List Apart by Dan Cederholm: Understanding CSS3 Transitions.

Next step is to style the content wrapper. We will give it a fixed width and height and a semi-transparent dark background. We’ll hide it initially:

.mb_content_wrapper{
	background:transparent url(../images/bg_menu.png) repeat top left;
	width:400px;
	height:400px;
	position:absolute;
	top:154px;
	left:200px;
	z-index:4;
	display:none;
}

Why don’t we just use opacity instead of a repeated background image? In some browsers all child elements will inherit that opacity level and we cannot set it higher for them. So, if we really want the inner elements to be completely opaque, it’s safer to use a background image for the surrounding container.

The little closing span will have the following style:

span.mb_close{
	position:absolute;
	top:10px;
	right:10px;
	width:11px;
	height:12px;
	cursor:pointer;
	background:transparent url(../images/close.png) no-repeat top left;
	opacity:0.8;
}
span.mb_close:hover{
	opacity:1.0;
}

The content area is going to have some padding and we’ll hide it:

.mb_content{
	padding:30px;
	display:none;
}

The heading will have some background image for the stripe underline:

.mb_content h2{
	font-family:"Astloch";
	text-shadow:0px 0px 1px #fff;
	font-size:42px;
	background:transparent url(../images/line.png) repeat-x bottom left;
	padding:0px 0px 5px 0px;
	margin-bottom:10px;
}

The following container is for the resting content and it will be this element that we will apply the custom scrollbar to:

.mb_content_inner{
	line-height:24px;
	height:268px;
	outline: none;
}
.mb_content_inner p{
	padding:5px 0px;
}

For the thumbnail list in the “Work” section, we will have the following style:

ul.mb_imagelist li{
	float:left;
	margin:2px;
	cursor:pointer;
}
ul.mb_imagelist li img{
	display:block;
	opacity:0.3;
	-webkit-transition: all 0.5s ease-in-out;
	-moz-transition: all 0.5s ease-in-out;
	-o-transition: all 0.5s ease-in-out;
	-transition: all 0.5s ease-in-out;
}
ul.mb_imagelist li img:hover{
	opacity:1.0;
}

As you can see, we will add some transition to it, making the thumbnail become opaque smoothly.

And that’s all the main style. (You can check out the styling for the form and the footer in the style.css file.)

Let’s add some brio to the whole thing!

The JavaScript

So the main idea is to create those little boxes and scatter them around a restricted area and rotate them. When we click on a menu item, we’ll make those boxes animate to a certain position and form the main content container. Then we’ll show the container and the respective content. When clicking on the closing span, we want to make the boxes disperse again.
In the “Works” content, we will have some thumbnails that will show a background image when clicking on them.

So, let’s start by caching some elements:

var $menu				= $('#mb_menu'),
	$menuItems			= $menu.children('a'),
	$mbWrapper			= $('#mb_content_wrapper'),
	$mbClose			= $mbWrapper.children('.mb_close'),
	$mbContentItems		= $mbWrapper.children('.mb_content'),
	$mbContentInnerItems= $mbContentItems.children('.mb_content_inner');
	$mbPattern			= $('#mb_pattern'),
	$works				= $('#mb_imagelist > li'),
	$mb_bgimage			= $('#mb_background > img'),

Next, we will define the “Menu” function:

Menu		 		= (function(){
  ...
})();

/*
call the init method of Menu
 */
Menu.init();

So, inside of our “Menu” function, we’ll define our main functionality, starting with a method to initialize the whole thing:

var init			= function() {
	preloadImages();
	initPlugins();
	initPattern();
	initEventsHandler();
},

We want to preload the images that we have in the “Work” content. The data attribute in the thumbnails tells us, which images we need:

preloadImages		= function() {
	$works.each(function(i) {
		$('').attr('src' , $(this).children('img').data('bgimg'));
	});
},

The jScollPane plugin needs to be initialized, and we’ll apply the custom scroll to the inner content area of the content div when we call this:

initPlugins			= function() {
	$mbContentInnerItems.jScrollPane({
		verticalDragMinHeight: 40,
		verticalDragMaxHeight: 40
	});
},

“initPattern” will randomly place 16 boxes (div elements) into a restricted area. We restrict that area by restricting the top and left values to a certain range:

initPattern			= function() {
	for(var i = 0; i < 16 ; ++i) {
		//opacity, random top, left and angle
		var o		= 0.1,
		t		= Math.floor(Math.random()*196) + 5, // between 5 and 200
		l		= Math.floor(Math.random()*696) + 5, // between 5 and 700
		a		= Math.floor(Math.random()*101) - 50; // between -50 and 50
				
		$el		= $('
').css({
			opacity			: o,
			top				: t + 'px',
			left			: l + 'px'
		});
			
		if (!$.browser.msie)
			$el.transform({'rotate'	: a + 'deg'});
			
		$el.appendTo($mbPattern);
	}
	$mbPattern.children().draggable(); //just for fun
},

When we close the content area we want to move the little boxes back, scattered around randomly again:

disperse			= function() {
	$mbPattern.children().each(function(i) {
		var o			= 0.1,
		t			= Math.floor(Math.random()*196) + 5, 
		l			= Math.floor(Math.random()*696) + 5, 
		a			= Math.floor(Math.random()*101) - 50; 
		$el			= $(this),
		param		= {
			width	: '50px',
			height	: '50px',
			opacity	: o,
			top		: t + 'px',
			left	: l + 'px'
		};
				
		if (!$.browser.msie)
			param.rotate	= a + 'deg';
				
		$el.animate(param, 1000, 'easeOutExpo');
	});
},

Let’s handle the events:

initEventsHandler		= function() {
	/*
		click a link in the menu
	 */
	$menuItems.bind('click', function(e) {
		var $this	= $(this),
		pos		= $this.index(),
		speed	= $this.data('speed'),
		easing	= $this.data('easing');
		//if an item is not yet shown
		if(!$menu.data('open')){
			//if current animating return
			if($menu.data('moving')) return false;
			$menu.data('moving', true);
			$.when(openItem(pos, speed, easing)).done(function(){
				$menu.data({
					open	: true,
					moving	: false
				});
				showContentItem(pos);
				$mbPattern.children().fadeOut(500);
			});
		}
		else
			showContentItem(pos);
		return false;
	});
		
	/*
		click close makes the boxes animate to the top of the page
	 */
	$mbClose.bind('click', function(e) {
		$menu.data('open', false);
		/*
			if we would want to show the default image when we close:
			changeBGImage('images/default.jpg');
		 */
		$mbPattern.children().fadeIn(500, function() {
			$mbContentItems.hide();
			$mbWrapper.hide();
		});
			
		disperse();
		return false;
	});
		
	/*
		click an image from "Works" content item,
		displays the image on the background
	 */
	$works.bind('click', function(e) {
		var source	= $(this).children('img').data('bgimg');
		changeBGImage(source);
		return false;
	});
			
},

When we click on one of the thumbnails in the “Work” section, we want the background image to change. So we define:

changeBGImage			= function(img) {
	//if its the current one return
	if($mb_bgimage.attr('src') === img || $mb_bgimage.siblings('img').length > 0)
		return false;
				
	var $itemImage = $('<img src="'+img+'" alt="Background" class="mb_bgimage" style="display:none;"/>');
	$itemImage.insertBefore($mb_bgimage);
		
	$mb_bgimage.fadeOut(1000, function() {
		$(this).remove();
		$mb_bgimage = $itemImage;
	});
	$itemImage.fadeIn(1000);
},

This shows a content item when there is already one shown:

showContentItem			= function(pos) {
	$mbContentItems.hide();
	$mbWrapper.show();
	$mbContentItems.eq(pos).show().children('.mb_content_inner').jScrollPane();
},

“openItem” moves the boxes from the top to the center of the page, and shows the respective content item:

openItem				= function(pos, speed, easing) {
	return $.Deferred(
		function(dfd) {
			$mbPattern.children().each(function(i) {
				var $el			= $(this),
				param		= {
					width	: '100px',
					height	: '100px',
					top		: 154 + 100 * Math.floor(i/4),
					left	: 200 + 100 * (i%4),
					opacity	: 1
				};

				if (!$.browser.msie)
					param.rotate	= '0deg';

				$el.animate(param, speed, easing, dfd.resolve);
			});
		}
	).promise();
};

And that’s it! We really hope you enjoyed the tutorial and find it useful!