Button groups

Use button groups to join multiple buttons together as one composite component. Build them with a series of <a> or <button> elements.

Best practices

We recommend the following guidelines for using button groups and toolbars:

• Always use the same element in a single button group, <a> or <button>.
• Don't mix buttons of different colors in the same button group.
• Use icons in addition to or instead of text, but be sure include alt and title text where appropriate.

Related Button groups with dropdowns (see below) should be called out separately and always include a dropdown caret to indicate intended behavior.

Default example

Here's how the HTML looks for a standard button group built with anchor tag buttons:

<div class="btn-group">
  <a class="btn" href="#">1</a>
  <a class="btn" href="#">2</a>
  <a class="btn" href="#">3</a>
</div>

Toolbar example

Combine sets of <div class="btn-group"> into a <div class="btn-toolbar"> for more complex components.

<div class="btn-toolbar">
  <div class="btn-group">
    ...
  </div>
</div>

Checkbox and radio flavors

Button groups can also function as radios, where only one button may be active, or checkboxes, where any number of buttons may be active. View the Javascript docs for that.

Get the javascript »

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Heads up

CSS for button groups is in a separate file, button-groups.less.

Button dropdowns

Use any button to trigger a dropdown menu by placing it within a .btn-group and providing the proper menu markup.

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Heads up! Button dropdowns require the Bootstrap dropdown plugin to function.

Example markup

Similar to a button group, our markup uses regular button markup, but with a handful of additions to refine the style and support Bootstrap's dropdown jQuery plugin.

<div class="btn-group">
  <a class="btn dropdown-toggle" data-toggle="dropdown" href="#">
    Action
    <span class="caret"></span>
  </a>
  <ul class="dropdown-menu">
    <!-- dropdown menu links -->
  </ul>
</div>

Split button dropdowns

Building on the button group styles and markup, we can easily create a split button. Split buttons feature a standard action on the left and a dropdown toggle on the right with contextual links.

Example markup

We expand on the normal button dropdowns to provide a second button action that operates as a separate dropdown trigger.

<div class="btn-group">
  <a class="btn" href="#">Action</a>
  <a class="btn dropdown-toggle" data-toggle="dropdown" href="#">
    <span class="caret"></span>
  </a>
  <ul class="dropdown-menu">
    <!-- dropdown menu links -->
  </ul>
</div>

Powerful base class

All nav components here—tabs, pills, and lists—share the same base markup and styles through the .nav class.

When to use

Tabs and pills are great for sections of content or navigating between pages of related content.

Component alignment

To align nav links, use the .pull-left or .pull-right utility classes. Both classes will add a CSS float in the specified direction.

Basic tabs

Take a regular <ul> of links and add .nav-tabs:

• Home
• Profile
• Messages

<ul class="nav nav-tabs">
  <li class="active">
    <a href="#">Home</a>
  </li>
  <li><a href="#">...</a></li>
  <li><a href="#">...</a></li>
</ul>

Basic pills

Take that same HTML, but use .nav-pills instead:

• Home
• Profile
• Messages

<ul class="nav nav-pills">
  <li class="active">
    <a href="#">Home</a>
  </li>
  <li><a href="#">...</a></li>
  <li><a href="#">...</a></li>
</ul>

How to stack 'em

As tabs and pills are horizontal by default, just add a second class, .nav-stacked, to make them appear vertically stacked.

Stacked tabs

• Home
• Profile
• Messages

<ul class="nav nav-tabs nav-stacked">
  ...
</ul>

Stacked pills

• Home
• Profile
• Messages

<ul class="nav nav-pills nav-stacked">
  ...
</ul>

Rich menus made easy

Dropdown menus in Bootstrap tabs and pills are super easy and require only a little extra HTML and a lightweight jQuery plugin.

Head over to the Javascript page to read the docs on initializing dropdowns in Bootstrap.

Tabs with dropdowns

• Home
• Profile
• Dropdown
  • Action
  • Another action
  • Something else here
  • Separated link

<ul class="nav nav-tabs">
  <li class="dropdown">
    <a class="dropdown-toggle"
       data-toggle="dropdown"
       href="#">
        Dropdown
        <b class="caret"></b>
      </a>
    <ul class="dropdown-menu">
      <!-- links -->
    </ul>
  </li>
</ul>

Pills with dropdowns

• Home
• Profile
• Dropdown
  • Action
  • Another action
  • Something else here
  • Separated link

<ul class="nav nav-pills">
  <li class="dropdown">
    <a class="dropdown-toggle"
       data-toggle="dropdown"
       href="#">
        Dropdown
        <b class="caret"></b>
      </a>
    <ul class="dropdown-menu">
      <!-- links -->
    </ul>
  </li>
</ul>

Application-style navigation

Nav lists provide a simple and easy way to build groups of nav links with optional headers. They're best used in sidebars like the Finder in OS X.

Structurally, they're built on the same core nav styles as tabs and pills, so usage and customization are straightforward.

With icons

Nav lists are also easy to equip with icons. Add the proper <i> tag with class and you're set.

Example nav list

Take a list of links and add class="nav nav-list":

<ul class="nav nav-list">
  <li class="nav-header">
    List header
  </li>
  <li class="active">
    <a href="#">Home</a>
  </li>
  <li>
    <a href="#">Library</a>
  </li>
  ...
</ul>

Example with icons

Same example, but with <i> tags for icons.

<ul class="nav nav-list">
  ...
  <li>
    <a href="#">
      <i class="icon-book"></i>
      Library
    </a>
  </li>
  ...
</ul>

What's included

Bring your tabs to life with a simple plugin to toggle between content via tabs. Bootstrap integrates tabbable tabs in four styles: top (default), right, bottom, and left.

Changing between them is easy and only requires changing very little markup.

Tabbable example

To make tabs tabbable, wrap the .nav-tabs in another div with class .tabbable.

Custom jQuery plugin

All tabbable tabs are powered by our lightweight jQuery plugin. Read more about how to bring tabbable tabs to life on the javascript docs page.

Get the javascript →

Tabs on the bottom

Flip the order of the HTML and add a class to put tabs on the bottom.

<div class="tabbable tabs-below">
  <div class="tab-content">
    ...
  </div>
  <ul class="nav nav-tabs">
    ...
  </ul>
</div>

Tabs on the left

Swap the class to put tabs on the left.

<div class="tabbable tabs-left">
  <ul class="nav nav-tabs">
    ...
  </ul>
  <div class="tab-content">
    ...
  </div>
</div>

Tabs on the right

Swap the class to put tabs on the right.

<div class="tabbable tabs-right">
  <ul class="nav nav-tabs">
    ...
  </ul>
  <div class="tab-content">
    ...
  </div>
</div>

Navbar scaffolding

The navbar requires only a few divs to structure it well for static or fixed display.

<div class="navbar">
  <div class="navbar-inner">
    <div class="container">
      ...
    </div>
  </div>
</div>

Fixed navbar

To make the navbar fixed to the top of the viewport, add .navbar-fixed-top to the outermost div, .navbar.

<div class="navbar navbar-fixed-top">
  ...
</div>

In your CSS, you will also need to account for the overlap it causes by adding 40px or more of padding to your <body>. Be sure to add this after the core Bootstrap CSS and before the optional responsive CSS.

Brand name

A simple link to show your brand or project name only requires an anchor tag.

<a class="brand" href="#">
  Project name
</a>

Search form

Search forms receive custom styles in the navbar with the .navbar-search class. Include .pull-left or .pull-right on the form to align it.

<form class="navbar-search pull-left">
  <input type="text" class="search-query" placeholder="Search">
</form>

Optional responsive variation

Depending on the amount of content in your topbar, you might want to implement the responsive options. To do so, wrap your nav content in a containing div, .nav-collapse.collapse, and add the navbar toggle button, .btn-navbar.

<div class="navbar">
  <div class="navbar-inner">
    <div class="container">

      <!-- .btn-navbar is used as the toggle for collapsed navbar content -->
      <a class="btn btn-navbar" data-toggle="collapse" data-target=".nav-collapse">
        <span class="icon-bar"></span>
        <span class="icon-bar"></span>
        <span class="icon-bar"></span>
      </a>

      <!-- Be sure to leave the brand out there if you want it shown -->
      <a class="brand" href="#">Project name</a>

      <!-- Everything you want hidden at 940px or less, place within here -->
      <div class="nav-collapse">
        <!-- .nav, .navbar-search, .navbar-form, etc -->
      </div>

    </div>
  </div>
</div>

Nav links

Nav items are simple to add via unordered lists.

<ul class="nav">
  <li class="active">
    <a href="#">Home</a>
  </li>
  <li><a href="#">Link</a></li>
  <li><a href="#">Link</a></li>
</ul>

You can easily add dividers to your nav links with an empty list item and a simple class. Just add this between links:

<ul class="nav">
  ...
  <li class="divider-vertical"></li>
  ...
</ul>

Component alignment

To align a nav, search form, or text, use the .pull-left or .pull-right utility classes. Both classes will add a CSS float in the specified direction.

Adding dropdowns

Adding dropdowns to the nav is super simple, but does require the use of our javascript plugin.

<ul class="nav">
  <li class="dropdown">
    <a href="#"
          class="dropdown-toggle"
          data-toggle="dropdown">
          Account
          <b class="caret"></b>
    </a>
    <ul class="dropdown-menu">
      ...
    </ul>
  </li>
</ul>

Get the javascript →

Why use them

Breadcrumb navigation is used as a way to show users where they are within an app or a site, but not for primary navigation. Keep their use sparse and succinct to be most effective.

Examples

A single example shown as it might be displayed across multiple pages.

• Home

• Home /
• Library

• Home /
• Library /
• Data

Markup

HTML is your standard unordered list with links.

<ul class="breadcrumb">
  <li>
    <a href="#">Home</a> <span class="divider">/</span>
  </li>
  <li>
    <a href="#">Library</a> <span class="divider">/</span>
  </li>
  <li class="active">
    <a href="#">Data</a>
  </li>
</ul>

When to use

Ultra simplistic and minimally styled pagination inspired by Rdio, great for apps and search results. The large block is hard to miss, easily scalable, and provides large click areas.

Stateful page links

Links are customizable and work in a number of circumstances with the right class. .disabled for unclickable links and .active for current page.

Flexible alignment

Add either of two optional classes to change the alignment of pagination links: .pagination-centered and .pagination-right.

Examples

The default pagination component is flexible and works in a number of variations.

Markup

Wrapped in a <div>, pagination is just a <ul>.

<div class="pagination">
  <ul>
    <li><a href="#">Prev</a></li>
    <li class="active">
      <a href="#">1</a>
    </li>
    <li><a href="#">2</a></li>
    <li><a href="#">3</a></li>
    <li><a href="#">4</a></li>
    <li><a href="#">Next</a></li>
  </ul>
</div>

About pager

The pager component is a set of links for simple pagination implementations with light markup and even lighter styles. It's great for simple sites like blogs or magazines.

Default example

By default, the pager centers links.

• Previous
• Next

<ul class="pager">
  <li>
    <a href="#">Previous</a>
  </li>
  <li>
    <a href="#">Next</a>
  </li>
</ul>

Aligned links

Alternatively, you can align each link to the sides:

• ← Older
• Newer →

<ul class="pager">
  <li class="previous">
    <a href="#">&larr; Older</a>
  </li>
  <li class="next">
    <a href="#">Newer &rarr;</a>
  </li>
</ul>

Bootstrap provides a lightweight, flexible component called a hero unit to showcase content on your site. It works well on marketing and content-heavy sites.

Markup

Wrap your content in a div like so:

<div class="hero-unit">
  <h1>Heading</h1>
  <p>Tagline</p>
  <p>
    <a class="btn btn-primary btn-large">
      Learn more
    </a>
  </p>
</div>

A simple shell for an h1 to appropratiely space out and segment sections of content on a page. It can utilize the h1's default small, element as well most other components (with additional styles).

<div class="page-haeder">
  <h1>Example page header</h1>
</div>

Default thumbnails

By default, Bootstrap's thumbnails are designed to showcase linked images with minimal required markup.

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Highly customizable

With a bit of extra markup, it's possible to add any kind of HTML content like headings, paragraphs, or buttons into thumbnails.

• 

  Thumbnail label

  Cras justo odio, dapibus ac facilisis in, egestas eget quam. Donec id elit non mi porta gravida at eget metus. Nullam id dolor id nibh ultricies vehicula ut id elit.

  Action Action

• 

  Thumbnail label

  Cras justo odio, dapibus ac facilisis in, egestas eget quam. Donec id elit non mi porta gravida at eget metus. Nullam id dolor id nibh ultricies vehicula ut id elit.

  Action Action

Why use thumbnails

Thumbnails (previously .media-grid up until v1.4) are great for grids of photos or videos, image search results, retail products, portfolios, and much more. They can be links or static content.

Simple, flexible markup

Thumbnail markup is simple—a ul with any number of li elements is all that is required. It's also super flexible, allowing for any type of content with just a bit more markup to wrap your contents.

Uses grid column sizes

Lastly, the thumbnails component uses existing grid system classes—like .span2 or .span3—for control of thumbnail dimensions.

The markup

As mentioned previously, the required markup for thumbnails is light and straightforward. Here's a look at the default setup for linked images:

<ul class="thumbnails">
  <li class="span3">
    <a href="#" class="thumbnail">
      <img src="http://placehold.it/260x180" alt="">
    </a>
  </li>
  ...
</ul>

For custom HTML content in thumbnails, the markup changes slightly. To allow block level content anywhere, we swap the <a> for a <div> like so:

<ul class="thumbnails">
  <li class="span3">
    <div class="thumbnail">
      <img src="http://placehold.it/260x180" alt="">
      <h5>Thumbnail label</h5>
      <p>Thumbnail caption right here...</p>
    </div>
  </li>
  ...
</ul>

More examples

Explore all your options with the various grid classes available to you. You can also mix and match different sizes.

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Rewritten base class

With Bootstrap 2, we've simplified the base class: .alert instead of .alert-message. We've also reduced the minimum required markup—no <p> is required by default, just the outer <div>.

Single alert message

For a more durable component with less code, we've removed the differentiating look for block alerts, messages that come with more padding and typically more text. The class also has changed to .alert-block.

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Goes great with javascript

Bootstrap comes with a great jQuery plugin that supports alert messages, making dismissing them quick and easy.

Get the plugin »

Example alerts

Wrap your message and an optional close icon in a div with simple class.

<div class="alert">
  <a class="close" data-dismiss="alert">×</a>
  <strong>Warning!</strong> Best check yo self, you're not looking too good.
</div>

Easily extend the standard alert message with two optional classes: .alert-block for more padding and text controls and .alert-heading for a matching heading.

<div class="alert alert-block">
  <a class="close" data-dismiss="alert">×</a>
  <h4 class="alert-heading">Warning!</h4>
  Best check yo self, you're not...
</div>

Error or danger

<div class="alert alert-error">
  ...
</div>

Success

<div class="alert alert-success">
  ...
</div>

Information

<div class="alert alert-info">
  ...
</div>

Basic

Default progress bar with a vertical gradient.

<div class="progress">
  <div class="bar"
       style="width: 60%;"></div>
</div>

Striped

Uses a gradient to create a striped effect.

<div class="progress progress-info
     progress-striped">
  <div class="bar"
       style="width: 20%;"></div>
</div>

Animated

Takes the striped example and animates it.

<div class="progress progress-danger
     progress-striped active">
  <div class="bar"
       style="width: 40%;"></div>
</div>

Additional colors

Progress bars utilize some of the same class names as buttons and alerts for similar styling.

• .progress-info
• .progress-success
• .progress-danger

Alternatively, you can customize the LESS files and roll your own colors and sizes.

Behavior

Progress bars use CSS3 transitions, so if you dynamically adjust the width via javascript, it will smoothly resize.

If you use the .active class, your .progress-striped progress bars will animate the stripes left to right.

Browser support

Progress bars use CSS3 gradients, transitions, and animations to achieve all their effects. These features are not supported in IE7-8 or older versions of Firefox.

Opera does not support animations at this time.

Wells

Use the well as a simple effect on an element to give it an inset effect.

<div class="well">
  ...
</div>

Badges

Use a badge on an element for an unread count or as a simple indicator.

<span class="badge">3</div>

Close icon

Use the generic close icon for dismissing content like modals and alerts.

×

<a class="close">&times;</a>