DEV Community

Michael Burrows
Michael Burrows

Posted on • Originally published at w3collective.com

Code a responsive step progress bar with HTML, CSS, & JavaScript

In this tutorial we’ll be creating a responsive step progress bar. These are commonly used when a large form is split into several steps. They let the user know how much of the form they have completed and how much remains.

Here’s what the completed progress bar will look like:

Image description

Let’s get started by creating the HTML markup:

<div id="progress">
  <div id="progress-bar"></div>
  <ul id="progress-num">
    <li class="step active">1</li>
    <li class="step">2</li>
    <li class="step">3</li>
    <li class="step">4</li>
  </ul>
</div>
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

You can easily add more steps here if required and the progress bar will remain responsive and functional. We’ll also need some buttons to control the progress through the steps as follows:

<button id="progress-prev" class="btn" disabled>Prev</button>
<button id="progress-next" class="btn">Next</button>
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

Now for the JavaScript starting with variables for the various elements:

const progressBar = document.getElementById("progress-bar");
const progressNext = document.getElementById("progress-next");
const progressPrev = document.getElementById("progress-prev");
const steps = document.querySelectorAll(".step");
let active = 1;
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

To navigate through the steps we’ll add an eventListener to detect clicks on each of the buttons:

progressNext.addEventListener("click", () => {
  active++;
  if (active > steps.length) {
    active = steps.length;
  }
  updateProgress();
});

progressPrev.addEventListener("click", () => {
  active--;
  if (active < 1) {
    active = 1;
  }
  updateProgress();
});
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

This increases or decreases the active count based on the button clicked. It also prevents the active count from going higher or lower than the number of steps. We’re also calling a updateProgress function which looks like this:

const updateProgress = () => {
  // toggle active class on list items
  steps.forEach((step, i) => {
    if (i < active) {
      step.classList.add("active");
    } else {
      step.classList.remove("active");
    }
  });
  // set progress bar width  
  progressBar.style.width = 
    ((active - 1) / (steps.length - 1)) * 100 + "%";
  // enable disable prev and next buttons
  if (active === 1) {
    progressPrev.disabled = true;
  } else if (active === steps.length) {
    progressNext.disabled = true;
  } else {
    progressPrev.disabled = false;
    progressNext.disabled = false;
  }
};
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

This does 3 things:

  • Loops through each of the steps and toggles the active class.
  • Set’s the progress bar width as a percentage based on the active and total steps.
  • Disables the appropriate button when the active step is either the first or last step.

Now we just need to add some CSS to see the progress bar in action:

#progress {
  position: relative;
  margin-bottom: 30px;   
}
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

Relative positioning so we can use absolute position on the children elements.

#progress-bar {
  position: absolute;
  background: lightseagreen;
  height: 5px;
  width: 0%;
  top: 50%;
  left: 0;
}
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

This sets the base styles for the the progress bar, we toggle it’s width in the JavaScript.

#progress-num {
  margin: 0;
  padding: 0;
  list-style: none;
  display: flex;
  justify-content: space-between;
}
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

This evenly distributes the numbers within the parent <div> no matter the width.

#progress-num::before {
  content: "";
  background-color: lightgray;
  position: absolute;
  top: 50%;
  left: 0;
  height: 5px;
  width: 100%;
  z-index: -1;
}
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

CSS pseudo-element that represents the inactive portion of the progress bar.

#progress-num .step {
  border: 3px solid lightgray;
  border-radius: 100%;
  width: 25px;
  height: 25px;
  line-height: 25px;
  text-align: center;
  background-color: #fff;
  font-family: sans-serif;
  font-size: 14px;    
  position: relative;
  z-index: 1;
}
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

Styles each inactive steps inside a circle.

#progress-num .step.active {
  border-color: lightseagreen;
  background-color: lightseagreen;
  color: #fff;
}
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

Styles active steps border and background color to match the progress bar.

That’s all for this tutorial, you should now have a working responsive step progress bar that can be customised to suit your needs. As always you can find the full source code used in this tutorial on Github.

Top comments (0)