The Scrollspy Plugin
The Scrollspy plugin is used to automatically update links in a navigation list based on scroll position.
How To Create a Scrollspy
The following example shows how to create a scrollspy:
Example
<!-- The scrollable area -->
<body data-spy="scroll"
data-target=".navbar" data-offset="50">
<!-- The navbar - The
<a> elements are used to jump to a section in the scrollable area -->
<nav
class="navbar navbar-inverse navbar-fixed-top">
...
<ul class="nav
navbar-nav">
<li><a href="#section1">Section 1</a></li>
...
</nav>
<!-- Section 1
-->
<div id="section1">
<h1>Section 1</h1>
<p>Try to scroll this page and look at
the navigation bar while scrolling!</p>
</div>
...
</body>
Try it Yourself »
Example Explained
Add data-spy="scroll" to the element that should be used as the scrollable
area (often this is the <body> element).
Then add the data-target attribute with a value of the id or the class name
of the navigation bar (.navbar). This is to make sure that the navbar
is connected with the scrollable area.
Note that scrollable elements must match the ID of the links inside the navbar's
list items
(<div id="section1"> matches <a href="#section1">).
The optional data-offset attribute specifies the number of pixels to offset
from top when calculating the position of scroll. This is useful when you feel
that the links inside the navbar changes the active state too soon or too early
when jumping to the scrollable elements. Default is 10 pixels.
Requires relative positioning: The element with data-spy="scroll" requires the CSS position property, with a value of "relative" to work properly.
Scrollspy Vertical Menu
In this example, we use Bootstrap's vertical navigation pills as menu:
Example
<body data-spy="scroll" data-target="#myScrollspy" data-offset="20">
<div class="container">
<div class="row">
<nav class="col-sm-3" id="myScrollspy">
<ul class="nav nav-pills nav-stacked">
<li><a href="#section1">Section 1</a></li>
...
</ul>
</nav>
<div
class="col-sm-9">
<div id="section1">
<h1>Section 1</h1>
<p>Try to
scroll this page and look at the navigation list while scrolling!</p>
</div>
...
</div>
</div>
</div>
</body>
Try it Yourself »
Complete Bootstrap Scrollspy Reference
For a complete reference of all scrollspy methods and events, go to our Bootstrap JS Scrollspy Reference.