I am trying to implement left-aligned stacked tabs using the Tab jquery plugin in Bootstrap 3 where tabs are rendered vertically to the left of tab content, rather than on top. When I try the following;

   <ul class="nav nav-tabs nav-stacked">
        <li><a href="#tab1" data-toggle="tab">Tab 1</a></li>
        <li><a href="#tab2" data-toggle="tab">Tab 2</a></li>
        <li><a href="#tab3" data-toggle="tab">Tab 3</a></li>
    </ul>


    <div class="tab-content">
        <div class="tab-pane fade" id="tab1">
            Tab 1 content
        </div>
        <div class="tab-pane fade" id="tab2">
            Tab 2 content              
        </div>
        <div class="tab-pane fade" id="tab3">
            Tab 3 content
        </div>
    </div>

Tabs are stacked on top of each other, but are not properly rendered as being turned to the left, instead they are just horizontal tabs stuck on top of each other. Tab content is properly shown/hidden in the content divs.

This was handled in Bootstrap 2.x using the tab-left and tab-right classes, but this is deprecated in Bootstrap 3 and doesn't really seem to be replaced with anything. Does anyone know if proper left-right tab rendering is possible in the Bootstrap 3 Tab plugin?


Solution 1:

Left, Right and Below tabs were removed from Bootstrap 3, but you can add custom CSS to achieve this..

.tabs-below > .nav-tabs,
.tabs-right > .nav-tabs,
.tabs-left > .nav-tabs {
  border-bottom: 0;
}

.tab-content > .tab-pane,
.pill-content > .pill-pane {
  display: none;
}

.tab-content > .active,
.pill-content > .active {
  display: block;
}

.tabs-below > .nav-tabs {
  border-top: 1px solid #ddd;
}

.tabs-below > .nav-tabs > li {
  margin-top: -1px;
  margin-bottom: 0;
}

.tabs-below > .nav-tabs > li > a {
  -webkit-border-radius: 0 0 4px 4px;
     -moz-border-radius: 0 0 4px 4px;
          border-radius: 0 0 4px 4px;
}

.tabs-below > .nav-tabs > li > a:hover,
.tabs-below > .nav-tabs > li > a:focus {
  border-top-color: #ddd;
  border-bottom-color: transparent;
}

.tabs-below > .nav-tabs > .active > a,
.tabs-below > .nav-tabs > .active > a:hover,
.tabs-below > .nav-tabs > .active > a:focus {
  border-color: transparent #ddd #ddd #ddd;
}

.tabs-left > .nav-tabs > li,
.tabs-right > .nav-tabs > li {
  float: none;
}

.tabs-left > .nav-tabs > li > a,
.tabs-right > .nav-tabs > li > a {
  min-width: 74px;
  margin-right: 0;
  margin-bottom: 3px;
}

.tabs-left > .nav-tabs {
  float: left;
  margin-right: 19px;
  border-right: 1px solid #ddd;
}

.tabs-left > .nav-tabs > li > a {
  margin-right: -1px;
  -webkit-border-radius: 4px 0 0 4px;
     -moz-border-radius: 4px 0 0 4px;
          border-radius: 4px 0 0 4px;
}

.tabs-left > .nav-tabs > li > a:hover,
.tabs-left > .nav-tabs > li > a:focus {
  border-color: #eeeeee #dddddd #eeeeee #eeeeee;
}

.tabs-left > .nav-tabs .active > a,
.tabs-left > .nav-tabs .active > a:hover,
.tabs-left > .nav-tabs .active > a:focus {
  border-color: #ddd transparent #ddd #ddd;
  *border-right-color: #ffffff;
}

.tabs-right > .nav-tabs {
  float: right;
  margin-left: 19px;
  border-left: 1px solid #ddd;
}

.tabs-right > .nav-tabs > li > a {
  margin-left: -1px;
  -webkit-border-radius: 0 4px 4px 0;
     -moz-border-radius: 0 4px 4px 0;
          border-radius: 0 4px 4px 0;
}

.tabs-right > .nav-tabs > li > a:hover,
.tabs-right > .nav-tabs > li > a:focus {
  border-color: #eeeeee #eeeeee #eeeeee #dddddd;
}

.tabs-right > .nav-tabs .active > a,
.tabs-right > .nav-tabs .active > a:hover,
.tabs-right > .nav-tabs .active > a:focus {
  border-color: #ddd #ddd #ddd transparent;
  *border-left-color: #ffffff;
}

Working example: http://bootply.com/74926

UPDATE

If you don't need the exact look of a tab (bordered appropriately on the left or right as each tab is activated), you can simple use nav-stacked, along with Bootstrap col-* to float the tabs to the left or right...

nav-stacked demo: http://codeply.com/go/rv3Cvr0lZ4

<ul class="nav nav-pills nav-stacked col-md-3">
    <li><a href="#a" data-toggle="tab">1</a></li>
    <li><a href="#b" data-toggle="tab">2</a></li>
    <li><a href="#c" data-toggle="tab">3</a></li>
</ul>

Solution 2:

The Bootstrap team seems to have removed it. See here: https://github.com/twbs/bootstrap/issues/8922 . @Skelly's answer involves custom css which I didn't want to do so I used the grid system and nav-pills. It worked fine and looked great. The code looks like so:

<div class="row">

  <!-- Navigation Buttons -->
  <div class="col-md-3">
    <ul class="nav nav-pills nav-stacked" id="myTabs">
      <li class="active"><a href="#home" data-toggle="pill">Home</a></li>
      <li><a href="#profile" data-toggle="pill">Profile</a></li>
      <li><a href="#messages" data-toggle="pill">Messages</a></li>
    </ul>
  </div>

  <!-- Content -->
  <div class="col-md-9">
    <div class="tab-content">
      <div class="tab-pane active" id="home">Home</div>
      <div class="tab-pane" id="profile">Profile</div>
      <div class="tab-pane" id="messages">Messages</div>
    </div>
  </div>

</div>

You can see this in action here: http://bootply.com/81948

[Update] @SeanK gives the option of not having to enable the nav-pills through Javascript and instead using data-toggle="pill". Check it out here: http://bootply.com/96067. Thanks Sean.