Question

The following is basic working DropDown menu, child’s appear on parent hover.

<script type="text/javascript">
  $(document).ready(function () { 
    $('#nav li').hover(
      function () {
      //show its submenu
        $('ul', this).stop().slideDown(100);
      }, 
      function () {
      //hide its submenu
        $('ul', this).stop().slideUp(100); 
      }
    );
  });
</script>

<style type="text/css">
  #nav li {background-color:#CCC; }
</style>

<ul id="nav">
  <li><a href="#" class="selected">Parent A</a>
    <ul>
      <li><a href="#">Item a1</a></li>
      <li><a href="#" class="selected">Item a2</a></li>
      <li><a href="#">Item a3</a></li>
    </ul>
  </li>
  <li><a href="#">Parent B</a>
    <ul>
      <li><a href="#">Item b1</a></li>
      <li><a href="#">Item b2</a></li>
      <li><a href="#">Item b3</a></li>
      <li><a href="#">Item b4</a></li>
    </ul> 
  </li>
</ul>

Currently child’s appears when hover is anywhere on the area of the parent box (i.e. also outside the text, on the invisible area of the parent div).

I want the child’s to appear only on hover of the parent link (on the ‘href’ text only).

I couldn’t find the answer anywhere.

Answer 1

Try using the a element as target for hover instead of the entire li, as follows:

<script type="text/javascript">
  $(document).ready(function () { 
    $('#nav ul').hide();

    $('#nav li > a').hover(
      function () {
      //show its submenu
        $('ul', this.parentNode).stop().slideDown(100);
      }
    );
   $('#nav li').hover(null, 
      function (e) {
      //hide its submenu
        $('ul', this.parentNode).stop().slideUp(100); 
      }
   );
  });
</script>

See working demo .