How to make Twitter Bootstrap menu dropdown on hover rather than click
To get the menu to automatically drop on hover then this can achieved using basic CSS. You need to work out the selector to the hidden menu option and then set it to display as block when the appropriate li tag is hovered over. Taking the example from the twitter bootstrap page, the selector would be as follows:
ul.nav li.dropdown:hover > ul.dropdown-menu {
display: block;
}
However, if you are using Bootstrap's responsive features, you will not want this functionality on a collapsed navbar (on smaller screens). To avoid this, wrap the code above in a media query:
@media (min-width: 979px) {
ul.nav li.dropdown:hover > ul.dropdown-menu {
display: block;
}
}
To hide the arrow (caret) this is done in different ways depending on whether you are using Twitter Bootstrap version 2 and lower or version 3:
Bootstrap 3
To remove the caret in version 3 you just need to remove the HTML <b class="caret"></b> from the .dropdown-toggle anchor element:
<a class="dropdown-toggle" data-toggle="dropdown" href="#">
Dropdown
<b class="caret"></b> <-- remove this line
</a>
Bootstrap 2 & lower
To remove the caret in version 2 you need a little more insight into CSS and I suggest looking at how the :after pseudo element works in more detail. To get you started on your way to understanding, to target and remove the arrows in the twitter bootstrap example, you would use the following CSS selector and code:
a.menu:after, .dropdown-toggle:after {
content: none;
}
It will work in your favour if you look further into how these work and not just use the answers that I have given you.
Thanks to @CocaAkat for pointing out that we were missing the ">" child combinator to prevent sub menus being shown on the parent hover
I created a pure on hover dropdown menu based on the latest (v2.0.2) Bootstrap framework that has support for multiple submenus and thought I'd post it for future users:
body {
padding-top: 60px;
padding-bottom: 40px;
}
.sidebar-nav {
padding: 9px 0;
}
.dropdown-menu .sub-menu {
left: 100%;
position: absolute;
top: 0;
visibility: hidden;
margin-top: -1px;
}
.dropdown-menu li:hover .sub-menu {
visibility: visible;
}
.dropdown:hover .dropdown-menu {
display: block;
}
.nav-tabs .dropdown-menu,
.nav-pills .dropdown-menu,
.navbar .dropdown-menu {
margin-top: 0;
}
.navbar .sub-menu:before {
border-bottom: 7px solid transparent;
border-left: none;
border-right: 7px solid rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.2);
border-top: 7px solid transparent;
left: -7px;
top: 10px;
}
.navbar .sub-menu:after {
border-top: 6px solid transparent;
border-left: none;
border-right: 6px solid #fff;
border-bottom: 6px solid transparent;
left: 10px;
top: 11px;
left: -6px;
}<link href="https://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/twitter-bootstrap/2.3.2/css/bootstrap.min.css" rel="stylesheet" />
<div class="navbar navbar-fixed-top">
<div class="navbar-inner">
<div class="container-fluid">
<a data-target=".nav-collapse" data-toggle="collapse" class="btn btn-navbar">
<span class="icon-bar"></span>
<span class="icon-bar"></span>
<span class="icon-bar"></span>
</a>
<a href="#" class="brand">Project name</a>
<div class="nav-collapse">
<ul class="nav">
<li class="active"><a href="#">Home</a></li>
<li><a href="#">Link</a></li>
<li><a href="#">Link</a></li>
<li><a href="#">Link</a></li>
<li class="dropdown">
<a data-toggle="dropdown" class="dropdown-toggle" href="#">Dropdown <b class="caret"></b></a>
<ul class="dropdown-menu">
<li>
<a href="#">2-level Dropdown <i class="icon-arrow-right"></i></a>
<ul class="dropdown-menu sub-menu">
<li><a href="#">Action</a></li>
<li><a href="#">Another action</a></li>
<li><a href="#">Something else here</a></li>
<li class="divider"></li>
<li class="nav-header">Nav header</li>
<li><a href="#">Separated link</a></li>
<li><a href="#">One more separated link</a></li>
</ul>
</li>
<li><a href="#">Another action</a></li>
<li><a href="#">Something else here</a></li>
<li class="divider"></li>
<li class="nav-header">Nav header</li>
<li><a href="#">Separated link</a></li>
<li><a href="#">One more separated link</a></li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
<form action="" class="navbar-search pull-left">
<input type="text" placeholder="Search" class="search-query span2">
</form>
<ul class="nav pull-right">
<li><a href="#">Link</a></li>
<li class="divider-vertical"></li>
<li class="dropdown">
<a class="#" href="#">Menu</a>
</li>
</ul>
</div>
<!-- /.nav-collapse -->
</div>
</div>
</div>
<hr>
<ul class="nav nav-pills">
<li class="active"><a href="#">Regular link</a></li>
<li class="dropdown">
<a href="#" data-toggle="dropdown" class="dropdown-toggle">Dropdown <b class="caret"></b></a>
<ul class="dropdown-menu" id="menu1">
<li>
<a href="#">2-level Menu <i class="icon-arrow-right"></i></a>
<ul class="dropdown-menu sub-menu">
<li><a href="#">Action</a></li>
<li><a href="#">Another action</a></li>
<li><a href="#">Something else here</a></li>
<li class="divider"></li>
<li class="nav-header">Nav header</li>
<li><a href="#">Separated link</a></li>
<li><a href="#">One more separated link</a></li>
</ul>
</li>
<li><a href="#">Another action</a></li>
<li><a href="#">Something else here</a></li>
<li class="divider"></li>
<li><a href="#">Separated link</a></li>
</ul>
</li>
<li class="dropdown">
<a href="#">Menu</a>
</li>
<li class="dropdown">
<a href="#">Menu</a>
</li>
</ul>Demo