Displaying active navigation based on contextual data

Question

I have the following separated fragment in a Thymeleaf template.

<ul class="nav nav-tabs">
    <li role="presentation"><a href="/">Freight Invoices</a></li>
    <li role="presentation"><a href="/processed">Processed Invoices</a></li>
    <li role="presentation"><a href="/postingrules">Posting Rules</a></li>
    <li role="presentation" class="active"><a href="/settings">Settings</a></li>
</ul>

I want to add an "active" class to active navigation element — but it seems hard to accomplish in Thymyleaf. Any suggestions?

Answer 1

You could add a ModelAttribute with the value active in your controllers for each page, e.g. :

SettingsController.java

@RequestMapping("/settings")
public String viewSettings(Model model) {
  // do stuff
  model.addAttribute("classActiveSettings","active");
  return "settings";
}

OR in a SettingsControllerAdvice.java

@ControllerAdvice(assignableTypes = SettingsController.class)
public class SettingsControllerAdvice {

    @ModelAttribute("classActiveSettings")
    public String cssActivePage() {
        return "active";
    }

}

Then, in the navigation fragment included in your settings.html :

<ul class="nav nav-tabs">
     <!-- Other links -->
    <li role="presentation" th:class="${classActiveSettings}">
       <a th:href="@{/settings}">Settings</a>
    </li>
</ul>

Finally, you can repeat this process for each controller and links in your navbar.