How to create a toggle button in Bootstrap

I originally created a web app in HTML, CSS and JavaScript, then was asked to create it again in Bootstrap too. I've done it all fine, but I had toggle buttons in the web app that have changed back to radio (originally checkbox) buttons instead of the toggle buttons I had originally.

The code for the buttons is:

<label>
  Notifications
  <span class='toggle'>
    <input type='radio'
      class='notifications'
      name='notifications'
      id='notifications' />
  </span>
</li>
<label>
  Preview
  <span class='toggle'>
    <input type='radio'
      class='preview'
      name='preview'
      id='preview' />
  </span>
</li>

and the JavaScript and CSS files that the HTML page is linked to are:

<script src = 'jqtouch.js'></script>
<script src="jquery.js"></script>
<script src="js/bootstrap.js"></script>
<link href="css/bootstrap.css" rel="stylesheet">
<link href="css/bootstrap-responsive.css" rel="stylesheet">

Is there a way to change the code so I can get the toggle button back?

Solution 1:

Initial answer from 2013

An excellent (unofficial) Bootstrap Switch is available.

<input type="checkbox" name="my-checkbox" checked>
$("[name='my-checkbox']").bootstrapSwitch();

It uses radio types or checkboxes as switches. A type attribute has been added since V.1.8.

Source code is available on Github.

Note from 2018

I would not recommend to use those kind of old Switch buttons now, as they always seemed to suffer of usability issues as pointed by many people.

Please consider having a look at modern Switches like this one from the React Component framework (not Bootstrap related, but can be integrated in Bootstrap grid and UI though).

Other implementations exist for Angular, View or jQuery.

import '../assets/index.less'
import React from 'react'
import ReactDOM from 'react-dom'
import Switch from 'rc-switch'

class Switcher extends React.Component {
  state = {
    disabled: false,
  }

  toggle = () => {
    this.setState({
      disabled: !this.state.disabled,
    })
  }

  render() {
    return (
      <div style={{ margin: 20 }}>
        <Switch
          disabled={this.state.disabled}
          checkedChildren={'开'}
          unCheckedChildren={'关'}
        />
        </div>
      </div>
    )
  }
}

ReactDOM.render(<Switcher />, document.getElementById('__react-content'))

Native Bootstrap Switches

See ohkts11's answer below about the native Bootstrap switches.

Solution 2:

If you don't mind changing your HTML, you can use the data-toggle attribute on <button>s. See the Single toggle section of the button examples:

<button type="button" class="btn btn-primary" data-toggle="button">
    Single toggle
</button>

Solution 3:

Bootstrap 3 has options to create toggle buttons based on checkboxes or radio buttons: http://getbootstrap.com/javascript/#buttons

Checkboxes

<div class="btn-group" data-toggle="buttons">
  <label class="btn btn-primary active">
    <input type="checkbox" checked> Option 1 (pre-checked)
  </label>
  <label class="btn btn-primary">
    <input type="checkbox"> Option 2
  </label>
  <label class="btn btn-primary">
    <input type="checkbox"> Option 3
  </label>
</div>

Radio buttons

<div class="btn-group" data-toggle="buttons">
  <label class="btn btn-primary active">
    <input type="radio" name="options" id="option1" checked> Option 1 (preselected)
  </label>
  <label class="btn btn-primary">
    <input type="radio" name="options" id="option2"> Option 2
  </label>
  <label class="btn btn-primary">
    <input type="radio" name="options" id="option3"> Option 3
  </label>
</div>

For these to work you must initialize .btns with Bootstrap's Javascript:

$('.btn').button();

Solution 4:

I've been trying to activate 'active' class manually with javascript. It's not as usable as a complete library, but for easy cases seems to be enough:

var button = $('#myToggleButton');
button.on('click', function () {
  $(this).toggleClass('active');
});

If you think carefully, 'active' class is used by bootstrap when the button is being pressed, not before or after that (our case), so there's no conflict in reuse the same class.

Try this example and tell me if it fails: http://jsbin.com/oYoSALI/1/edit?html,js,output

Solution 5:

If you want to keep a small code base, and you are only going to be needing the toggle button for a small part of the application. I would suggest instead maintain you're javascript code your self (angularjs, javascript, jquery) and just use plain CSS.

Good toggle button generator: https://proto.io/freebies/onoff/