Make Bootstrap 3 Tabs Responsive

Bootstrap tabs are not responsive out of the box. Responsive, IMO, is a style change, changing functions is Adaptive. There are a few plugins to turn the Bootstrap 3 tabs into a Collapse component. The best and most updated one is : https://github.com/flatlogic/bootstrap-tabcollapse.

Here's one way of implementing it:

DEMO: http://jsbin.com/zibani/1/

EDIT: http://jsbin.com/zibani/1/edit

This turns the content into a collapse component:

Dependencies:

1. Bootstrap 3.2 css or higher but still in the 3 series
2. Bootstrap 3.2 jQuery or higher but still in the 3 series
3. Compatible version of bootstrap-tabcollapse.js

HTML -- same as question with class name addition:

       <ul class="nav nav-tabs content-tabs" id="maincontent" role="tablist">

jQuery:

$(document).ready(function() {

    // DEPENDENCY: https://github.com/flatlogic/bootstrap-tabcollapse
    $('.content-tabs').tabCollapse();

    // initialize tab function
    $('.nav-tabs a').click(function(e) {
        e.preventDefault();
        $(this).tab('show');
    });

});

CSS -- optional for fat fingers and active states:

.panel-heading {
    padding: 0
}
.panel-heading a {
    display: block;
    padding: 20px 10px;
}
.panel-heading a.collapsed {
    background: #fff
}
.panel-heading a {
    background: #f7f7f7;
    border-radius: 5px;
}
.panel-heading a:after {
    content: '-'
}
.panel-heading a.collapsed:after {
    content: '+'
}
.nav.nav-tabs li a,
.nav.nav-tabs li.active > a:hover,
.nav.nav-tabs li.active > a:active,
.nav.nav-tabs li.active > a:focus {
    border-bottom-width: 0px;
    outline: none;
}
.nav.nav-tabs li a {
    padding-top: 20px;
    padding-bottom: 20px;
}
.tab-pane {
    background: #fff;
    padding: 10px;
    border: 1px solid #ddd;
    margin-top: -1px;
}

I prefer a css only scheme based on horizontal scroll, like tabs on android. This's my solution, just wrap with a class nav-tabs-responsive:

<div class="nav-tabs-responsive">
  <ul class="nav nav-tabs" role="tablist">
    <li>...</li>
  </ul>
</div>

And two css lines:

.nav-tabs { min-width: 600px; }
.nav-tabs-responsive { overflow: auto; }

600px is the point over you will be responsive (you can set it using bootstrap variables)

Slack has a cool way of making tabs small viewport friendly on some of their admin pages. I made something similar using bootstrap. It's kind of a tabs → dropdown.

Demo: http://jsbin.com/nowuyi/1

Here's what it looks like on a big viewport:

Here's how it looks collapsed on a small viewport:

Here's how it looks expanded on a small viewport:

the HTML is exactly the same as default bootstrap tabs.

There is a small JS snippet, which requires jquery (and inserts two span elements into the DOM):

$.fn.responsiveTabs = function() {
  this.addClass('responsive-tabs');
  this.append($('<span class="glyphicon glyphicon-triangle-bottom"></span>'));
  this.append($('<span class="glyphicon glyphicon-triangle-top"></span>'));

  this.on('click', 'li.active > a, span.glyphicon', function() {
    this.toggleClass('open');
  }.bind(this));

  this.on('click', 'li:not(.active) > a', function() {
    this.removeClass('open');
  }.bind(this));
};

$('.nav.nav-tabs').responsiveTabs();

And then there is a lot of css (less):

@xs: 768px;


.responsive-tabs.nav-tabs {
  position: relative;
  z-index: 10;
  height: 42px;
  overflow: visible;
  border-bottom: none;

  @media(min-width: @xs) {
    border-bottom: 1px solid #ddd;
  }

  span.glyphicon {
    position: absolute;
    top: 14px;
    right: 22px;
    &.glyphicon-triangle-top {
      display: none;
    }
    @media(min-width: @xs) {
      display: none;
    }
  }

  > li {
    display: none;
    float: none;
    text-align: center;

    &:last-of-type > a {
      margin-right: 0;
    }

    > a {
      margin-right: 0;
      background: #fff;
      border: 1px solid #DDDDDD;

      @media(min-width: @xs) {
        margin-right: 4px;
      }
    }

    &.active {
      display: block;
      a {
        @media(min-width: @xs) {
          border-bottom-color: transparent; 
        }
        border: 1px solid #DDDDDD;
        border-radius: 2px;
      }
    }

    @media(min-width: @xs) {
      display: block;
      float: left;
    }

  }

  &.open {

    span.glyphicon {
      &.glyphicon-triangle-top {
        display: block;
        @media(min-width: @xs) {
          display: none;
        }
      }
      &.glyphicon-triangle-bottom {
        display: none;
      }
    }

    > li {
      display: block;

      a {
        border-radius: 0;
      }

      &:first-of-type a {
        border-radius: 2px 2px 0 0;
      }
      &:last-of-type a {
        border-radius: 0 0 2px 2px;
      }
    }
  }
}

There is a new one: http://hayatbiralem.com/blog/2015/05/15/responsive-bootstrap-tabs/

And also Codepen sample available here: http://codepen.io/hayatbiralem/pen/KpzjOL

No needs plugin. It uses just a little css and jquery.

Here's a sample tabs markup:

<ul class="nav nav-tabs nav-tabs-responsive">
    <li class="active">
        <a href="#tab1" data-toggle="tab">
            <span class="text">Tab 1</span>
        </a>
    </li>
    <li class="next">
        <a href="#tab2" data-toggle="tab">
            <span class="text">Tab 2</span>
        </a>
    </li>
    <li>
        <a href="#tab3" data-toggle="tab">
            <span class="text">Tab 3</span>
        </a>
    </li>
    ...
</ul>

.. and jQuery codes are also here:

(function($) {

  'use strict';

  $(document).on('show.bs.tab', '.nav-tabs-responsive [data-toggle="tab"]', function(e) {
    var $target = $(e.target);
    var $tabs = $target.closest('.nav-tabs-responsive');
    var $current = $target.closest('li');
    var $parent = $current.closest('li.dropdown');
        $current = $parent.length > 0 ? $parent : $current;
    var $next = $current.next();
    var $prev = $current.prev();
    var updateDropdownMenu = function($el, position){
      $el
        .find('.dropdown-menu')
        .removeClass('pull-xs-left pull-xs-center pull-xs-right')
        .addClass( 'pull-xs-' + position );
    };

    $tabs.find('>li').removeClass('next prev');
    $prev.addClass('prev');
    $next.addClass('next');

    updateDropdownMenu( $prev, 'left' );
    updateDropdownMenu( $current, 'center' );
    updateDropdownMenu( $next, 'right' );
  });

})(jQuery);