How can I transition height: 0; to height: auto; u

Question

I am trying to make a <ul> slide down using CSS transitions.

The <ul> starts off at height: 0;. On hover, the height is set to height:auto;. However, this is causing it to simply appear, not transition,

If I do it from height: 40px; to height: auto;, then it will slide up to height: 0;, and then suddenly jump to the correct height.

How else could I do this without using JavaScript?

#child0 {
  height: 0;
  overflow: hidden;
  background-color: #dedede;
  -moz-transition: height 1s ease;
  -webkit-transition: height 1s ease;
  -o-transition: height 1s ease;
  transition: height 1s ease;
}
#parent0:hover #child0 {
  height: auto;
}
#child40 {
  height: 40px;
  overflow: hidden;
  background-color: #dedede;
  -moz-transition: height 1s ease;
  -webkit-transition: height 1s ease;
  -o-transition: height 1s ease;
  transition: height 1s ease;
}
#parent40:hover #child40 {
  height: auto;
}
h1 {
  font-weight: bold;
}

The only difference between the two snippets of CSS is one has height: 0, the other height: 40.
<hr>
<div id="parent0">
  <h1>Hover me (height: 0)</h1>
  <div id="child0">Some content
    <br>Some content
    <br>Some content
    <br>Some content
    <br>Some content
    <br>Some content
    <br>
  </div>
</div>
<hr>
<div id="parent40">
  <h1>Hover me (height: 40)</h1>
  <div id="child40">Some content
    <br>Some content
    <br>Some content
    <br>Some content
    <br>Some content
    <br>Some content
    <br>
  </div>
</div>

Answer 1

Jake's answer to animate the max-height is great, but I found the delay caused by setting a large max-height annoying.

One could move the collapsable content into an inner div and calculate the max height by getting the height of the inner div (via JQuery it'd be the outerHeight()).

$('button').bind('click', function(e) { 
  e.preventDefault();
  w = $('#outer');
  if (w.hasClass('collapsed')) {
    w.css({ "max-height": $('#inner').outerHeight() + 'px' });
  } else {
    w.css({ "max-height": "0px" });
  }
  w.toggleClass('collapsed');
});

Here's a jsfiddle link: http://jsfiddle.net/pbatey/duZpT

Here's a jsfiddle with the absolute minimal amount of code required: http://jsfiddle.net/8ncjjxh8/

Answer 2

This is regular problem I've solved like this

http://jsfiddle.net/ipeshev/d1dfr0jz/

Try to set delay of closed state to some negative number and play a little bit with the value. You will see the difference.It can be made almost to lie the human eye ;).

It works in major browsers, but good enough for me. It is strange but give some results.

.expandable {
    max-height: 0px;
    overflow: hidden;
    transition: all 1s linear -0.8s;
}

button:hover ~ .expandable {
    max-height: 9000px;
    transition: all 1s ease-in-out;
}

Answer 3

You can, with a little bit of non-semantic jiggery-pokery. My usual approach is to animate the height of an outer DIV which has a single child which is a style-less DIV used only for measuring the content height.

function growDiv() {
  var growDiv = document.getElementById('grow');
  if (growDiv.clientHeight) {
    growDiv.style.height = 0;
  } else {
    var wrapper = document.querySelector('.measuringWrapper');
    growDiv.style.height = wrapper.clientHeight + "px";
  }
}

#grow {
  -moz-transition: height .5s;
  -ms-transition: height .5s;
  -o-transition: height .5s;
  -webkit-transition: height .5s;
  transition: height .5s;
  height: 0;
  overflow: hidden;
  outline: 1px solid red;
}

<input type="button" onclick="growDiv()" value="grow">
<div id='grow'>
  <div class='measuringWrapper'>
    <div>
      The contents of my div.
    </div>
    <div>
      The contents of my div.
    </div>
    <div>
      The contents of my div.
    </div>
    <div>
      The contents of my div.
    </div>
    <div>
      The contents of my div.
    </div>
    <div>
      The contents of my div.
    </div>
  </div>
</div>

One would like to just be able to dispense with the .measuringWrapper and just set the DIV's height to auto and have that animate, but that doesn't seem to work (the height gets set, but no animation occurs).

function growDiv() {
  var growDiv = document.getElementById('grow');
  if (growDiv.clientHeight) {
    growDiv.style.height = 0;
  } else {
    growDiv.style.height = 'auto';
  }
}

#grow {
  -moz-transition: height .5s;
  -ms-transition: height .5s;
  -o-transition: height .5s;
  -webkit-transition: height .5s;
  transition: height .5s;
  height: 0;
  overflow: hidden;
  outline: 1px solid red;
}

<input type="button" onclick="growDiv()" value="grow">
<div id='grow'>
  <div>
    The contents of my div.
  </div>
  <div>
    The contents of my div.
  </div>
  <div>
    The contents of my div.
  </div>
  <div>
    The contents of my div.
  </div>
  <div>
    The contents of my div.
  </div>
  <div>
    The contents of my div.
  </div>
</div>

My interpretation is that an explicit height is needed for the animation to run. You can't get an animation on height when either height (the start or end height) is auto.

Answer 4

You can transition from height:0 to height:auto providing that you also provide min-height and max-height.

div.stretchy{
    transition: 1s linear;
}

div.stretchy.hidden{
    height: 0;
}

div.stretchy.visible{
    height: auto;
    min-height:40px;
    max-height:400px;
}

Answer 5

Expanding on @jake's answer, the transition will go all the way to the max height value, causing an extremely fast animation - if you set the transitions for both :hover and off you can then control the crazy speed a little bit more.

So the li:hover is when the mouse enters the state and then the transition on the non-hovered property will be the mouse leave.

Hopefully this will be of some help.

e.g:

.sidemenu li ul {
   max-height: 0px;
   -webkit-transition: all .3s ease;
   -moz-transition: all .3s ease;
   -o-transition: all .3s ease;
   -ms-transition: all .3s ease;
   transition: all .3s ease;
}
.sidemenu li:hover ul {
    max-height: 500px;
    -webkit-transition: all 1s ease;
   -moz-transition: all 1s ease;
   -o-transition: all 1s ease;
   -ms-transition: all 1s ease;
   transition: all 1s ease;
}
/* Adjust speeds to the possible height of the list */

Here's a fiddle: http://jsfiddle.net/BukwJ/

Answer 6

A visual workaround to animating height using CSS3 transitions is to animate the padding instead.

You don't quite get the full wipe effect, but playing around with the transition-duration and padding values should get you close enough. If you don't want to explicitly set height/max-height, this should be what you're looking for.

div {
    height: 0;
    overflow: hidden;
    padding: 0 18px;
    -webkit-transition: all .5s ease;
       -moz-transition: all .5s ease;
            transition: all .5s ease;
}
div.animated {
    height: auto;
    padding: 24px 18px;
}

http://jsfiddle.net/catharsis/n5XfG/17/ (riffed off stephband's above jsFiddle)