Tailwind CSS static navbar with shadow on scroll for Vue applications

Here's how to have a shadow on a static Tailwind navbar when the user scrolls the page for Vuejs applications

Tailwind CSS static navbar with shadow on scroll for Vue applications

If you're not using Tailwind for your CSS needs - I highly recommend it. It's now a staple of my product building toolkit, and it just fits so well with Vue.js and Nuxt workflows that I can't imagine moving to something else.

One thing about Tailwind is it leaves the Javascript to you. This is so it's library-agnostic.

For most of my projects I want that smooth shadow under the navbar - here's the code I use to achieve it.

The effect we're going for

The HTML

<nav 
    :class="{ 'scrolled': !view.atTopOfPage }" 
    class="fixed flex w-full bg-white border-b items-center justify-between flex-wrap p-5 m-auto top-0 animated">
</nav>

Here, we're adding the .scrolled class when the value in view.atTopOfPage is false.

The CSS


nav {
    z-index: 10
}

nav.scrolled {
    @apply shadow-2xl;
    border-bottom: 0px;
}

Apply the shadow to the navbar when it has the class scrolled.

The Javascript

I have a navbar component that I use throughout the app, so this code would go there.

// in data, I like to store a view object with all 
// the values I need for a component to manage 
// it's 'view' state - ie loading, 
// or in this case, if the user is at the top of the page or not
data () {
    return {
        view: {
            atTopOfPage: true
        }
    }
},

// a beforeMount call to add a listener to the window
beforeMount () {
    window.addEventListener('scroll', this.handleScroll);
},

methods: {
	// the function to call when the user scrolls, added as a method
    handleScroll(){
        // when the user scrolls, check the pageYOffset
        if(window.pageYOffset>0){
            // user is scrolled
            if(this.view.atTopOfPage) this.view.atTopOfPage = false
        }else{
            // user is at top of page
            if(!this.view.atTopOfPage) this.view.atTopOfPage = true
        }
    }
}

The Result

Buttery smooth shadows on your navbar. Check it out in action on my product Referextra.com