What is tocbot?
The tocbot npm package is designed to generate a table of contents (TOC) based on the headings in a given HTML document. It automatically creates a TOC that can be styled and configured to enhance navigation within long documents, making it easier for users to jump to different sections.
What are tocbot's main functionalities?
Generate TOC
This feature allows you to generate a table of contents by specifying the selectors for the TOC container, the content where the headings are located, and the headings to be included in the TOC.
tocbot.init({
tocSelector: '.js-toc',
contentSelector: '.js-toc-content',
headingSelector: 'h1, h2, h3'
});
Customize TOC Styling
This feature allows you to customize the classes applied to the TOC links, active links, list, and list items, enabling you to style the TOC to match your site's design.
tocbot.init({
tocSelector: '.js-toc',
contentSelector: '.js-toc-content',
headingSelector: 'h1, h2, h3',
linkClass: 'toc-link',
activeLinkClass: 'is-active-link',
listClass: 'toc-list',
listItemClass: 'toc-list-item'
});
Smooth Scrolling
This feature enables smooth scrolling when a user clicks on a TOC link, providing a better user experience.
tocbot.init({
tocSelector: '.js-toc',
contentSelector: '.js-toc-content',
headingSelector: 'h1, h2, h3',
scrollSmooth: true
});
Collapse Sub-Headings
This feature allows you to specify the depth of headings that should be collapsible, helping to keep the TOC concise and focused on higher-level headings.
tocbot.init({
tocSelector: '.js-toc',
contentSelector: '.js-toc-content',
headingSelector: 'h1, h2, h3',
collapseDepth: 3
});
Other packages similar to tocbot
markdown-toc
The markdown-toc package generates a TOC for markdown files. Unlike tocbot, which operates on HTML content in the browser, markdown-toc is used primarily in Node.js environments or as part of a build process for markdown files.
doctoc
Doctoc is another tool for generating a TOC for markdown files, which can be used in a command-line environment. It is similar to markdown-toc but also supports updating existing TOCs within a document.
toc
The toc package is a Node.js module that generates a JSON representation of a TOC for HTML content. It differs from tocbot in that it does not provide the functionality to automatically insert the TOC into a webpage.
Tocbot builds a table of contents (TOC) from headings in an HTML document. This is useful for documentation websites or long markdown pages because it makes them easier to navigate. This library was inspired by Tocify, the main difference is that Tocbot uses native DOM methods and avoids the jQuery & jQuery UI dependencies.
Get Started
You can use npm to install it or include the script on the page with HTML.
Download it here
Include JS
Install it with npm.
npm install --save tocbot
Then use with either commonjs or ESM imports:
const tocbot = require('tocbot/dist/tocbot.js')
import tocbot from 'tocbot'
tocbot.init()
OR
Include the script at the bottom of the page before the closing body tag.
<script src="https://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/tocbot/4.30.0/tocbot.min.js"></script>
Include CSS
CSS is used for expanding & collapsing groupings and some basic styling.
<link rel="stylesheet" href="https://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/tocbot/4.30.0/tocbot.css">
OR
If you installed it with npm and use sass / postcss you might try importing the styles from 'node_modules', see the includePath option documentation for more info
@import 'tocbot/src/scss/tocbot';
Usage
Initialize the script at the bottom of the page before the closing body tag.
tocbot.init({
tocSelector: '.js-toc',
contentSelector: '.js-toc-content',
headingSelector: 'h1, h2, h3',
hasInnerContainers: true,
});
NOTE: Make sure the body is scrollable and the document headings have id attributes, tocbot and your browser needs these things to make hashes jump to the proper heading, some markdown libraries (like marked) already do this for you.
If content in the div has changed then trigger a refresh (optionally with new options).
tocbot.refresh();
Also you can use it within typescript:
import * as tocbot from 'tocbot';
tocbot.init({
});
tocbot.refresh();
tocbot.destroy();
Examples
If you'd like to add your page to this list open a pull request.
Requirements
This library uses vanilla JavaScript. It is less than 350 bytes of CSS and about 3.6Kb of JavaScript (minified and gzipped) it also has no dependencies.
This script works in all modern browsers and IE 9+.
Make sure rendered headings have id attributes, some markdown libraries (like marked) already do this. If you need to do this client side see this script.
NOTE: to exclude anchor elements from smooth scrolling, add the class no-smooth-scroll
.
To handle fixed headers with tocbot, just pass the header offsets as options to tocbot. For example, the options needed for a 40px
tall fixed header would be:
tocbot.init({
headingsOffset: 40,
scrollSmoothOffset: -40
})
API
Options
tocSelector: '.js-toc',
tocElement: null,
contentSelector: '.js-toc-content',
contentElement: null,
headingSelector: 'h1, h2, h3',
ignoreSelector: '.js-toc-ignore',
hasInnerContainers: false,
linkClass: 'toc-link',
extraLinkClasses: '',
activeLinkClass: 'is-active-link',
listClass: 'toc-list',
extraListClasses: '',
isCollapsedClass: 'is-collapsed',
collapsibleClass: 'is-collapsible',
listItemClass: 'toc-list-item',
activeListItemClass: 'is-active-li',
collapseDepth: 0,
scrollSmooth: true,
scrollSmoothDuration: 420,
scrollSmoothOffset: 0,
scrollEndCallback: function (e) {},
headingsOffset: 1,
throttleTimeout: 50,
positionFixedSelector: null,
positionFixedClass: 'is-position-fixed',
fixedSidebarOffset: 'auto',
includeHtml: false,
includeTitleTags: false,
onClick: function (e) {},
orderedList: true,
scrollContainer: null,
skipRendering: false,
headingLabelCallback: false,
ignoreHiddenElements: false,
headingObjectCallback: null,
basePath: '',
disableTocScrollSync: false,
tocScrollingWrapper: null,
tocScrollOffset: 30,
enableUrlHashUpdateOnScroll: false
Methods
.init
Initialize tocbot with an options object.
tocbot.init(options)
.destroy
Destroy tocbot and remove event listeners.
tocbot.destroy()
.refresh
Refresh tocbot if the document changes and it needs to be rebuilt.
tocbot.refresh()
Troubleshooting
- Tocbot scrolls to the right position onClick but highlighting doesn't seem to show the active section
- Try running this from the console:
tocbot.refresh({ ...tocbot.options, hasInnerContainers: true })
. If that works then one option (hasInnerContainers: true
) to handle inner containers should be all you need to add.
- If you have a really long TOC and are seeing headings getting truncated, then have a look at this issue for a workaround to resolve it.
Contributing
Contributions and suggestions are welcome! Please feel free to open an issue if you run into a problem or have a feature request. I'll do my best to respond in a timely fashion.
If you want to open a pull request just fork the repo but please make sure all tests and lint pass.
Running Tests
npm run test
Steps to publish
- Push a branch and open a pull request
- run
npm version <patch|minor|major>
- Update readme.md with notes
- Merge the pull request
- commit dist/
- run
npm publish
- make release on github
License
MIT