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UI libraries / InstantSearch.js / Widgets

menu

Signature 
menu({
  container: string|HTMLElement,
  attribute: string,
  // Optional parameters
  limit: number,
  showMore: boolean,
  showMoreLimit: number,
  sortBy: string[]|function,
  templates: object,
  cssClasses: object,
  transformItems: function,
});
Import
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import { menu } from 'instantsearch.js/es/widgets';
See code examples
See live example

About this widget

The menu widget displays a menu that lets the user choose a single value for a specific attribute.

As the menu widget is internally based on a hierarchical refinement, you can not refine on a value including the default separator (>). Instead, you can use the hierarchicalMenu widget.

Requirements

The attribute provided to the widget must be in attributes for faceting, either on the dashboard) or using attributesForFaceting with the API.

Examples

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menu({
  container: '#menu',
  attribute: 'categories',
});

Options

Parameter Description
container
type: string|HTMLElement
Required

The CSS Selector of the DOM element inside which the widget is inserted.
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menu({
  // ...
  container: '#menu',
});
attribute
type: string
Required

The name of the attribute in the records.

To avoid unexpected behavior, you can’t use the same attribute prop in a different type of widget.
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menu({
  // ...
  attribute: 'categories',
});
limit
type: number
default: 10
Optional

How many facet values to retrieve. When you enable the showMore feature, this is the number of facet values to display before clicking the “Show more” button.
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menu({
  // ...
  limit: 20,
});
showMore
type: boolean
default: false
Optional

Limits the number of results and display a showMore button.
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menu({
  // ...
  showMore: true,
});
showMoreLimit
type: number
default: 20
Optional

How many facet values to retrieve when showing more.
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menu({
  // ...
  showMoreLimit: 30,
});
sortBy
type: string[]|function
default: Uses facetOrdering if set, ["isRefined", "name:asc"]
Optional

How to sort refinements. Must be one or more of the following strings:

  • "count" (same as "count:desc")
  • "count:asc"
  • "count:desc"
  • "name" (same as "name:asc")
  • "name:asc"
  • "name:desc"
  • "isRefined" (same as "isRefined:asc")
  • "isRefined:asc"
  • "isRefined:desc"

It’s also possible to give a function, which receives items two by two, like JavaScript’s Array.sort.

If facetOrdering is set for this facet in renderingContent, and no value for sortBy is passed to this widget, facetOrdering is used, and the default order as a fallback.
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menu({
  // ...
  sortBy: ['count:desc', 'name:asc'],
});
templates
type: object
Optional

The templates to use for the widget.
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menu({
  // ...
  templates: {
    // ...
  },
});
cssClasses
type: object
default: {}
Optional

The CSS classes you can override:

  • root: the root element of the widget.
  • noRefinementRoot: the root element if there are no refinements.
  • list: the list of results.
  • item: the list items. They contain the link and separator.
  • selectedItem: the selected item in the list. This is the last one, or the root one if there are no refinements.
  • link: the link element of each item.
  • label: the label element of each item.
  • count: the count element of each item.
  • showMore: the “Show more” button.
  • disabledShowMore: the “Show more” button when disabled.
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menu({
  // ...
  cssClasses: {
    root: 'MyCustomMenu',
    list: [
      'MyCustomMenuList',
      'MyCustomMenuList--sub-class',
    ],
  },
});
transformItems
type: function
default: items => items
Optional

Receives the items and is called before displaying them. Should return a new array with the same shape as the original array. Useful for transforming, removing, or reordering items.

In addition, the full results data is available, which includes all regular response parameters, as well as parameters from the helper (for example disjunctiveFacetsRefinements).
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menu({
  // ...
  transformItems(items) {
    return items.map(item => ({
      ...item,
      label: item.label.toUpperCase(),
    }));
  },
});

/* or, combined with results */
menu({
  // ...
  transformItems(items, { results }) {
    return items.map(item => ({
      ...item,
      label: item.isRefined
        ? `${item.label} (${results.nbPages} pages)`
        : item.label,
    }));
  },
});

Templates

You can customize parts of the widget’s UI using the Templates API.

Every template provides an html function you can use as a tagged template. Using html lets you safely provide templates as an HTML string. It works directly in the browser without a build step. See Templating your UI for more information.

The html function is available starting from v4.46.0.

Parameter Description
item
type: string|function
Optional

Item template. It exposes:

  • count: the number of occurrences of the facet in the result set.
  • isRefined: returns true if the value is selected.
  • label: the label to display.
  • value: the value used for refining.
  • url: the URL with the selected refinement.
  • cssClasses: an object containing all the computed classes for the item.
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<span class="${cssClasses.label}">${label}</span> <span class="${cssClasses.count}"> ${count.toLocaleString()} </span> </a> `; }, }, });" class="snippet-body "> 
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menu({
  // ...
  templates: {
    item(data, { html }) {
      const { label, count, url, cssClasses } = data;

      return html`
        <a class="${cssClasses.link}" href="${url}">
          <span class="${cssClasses.label}">${label}</span>
          <span class="${cssClasses.count}">
            ${count.toLocaleString()}
          </span>
        </a>
      `;
    },
  },
});
<span class="{{cssClasses.label}}">{{label}}</span> <span class="{{cssClasses.count}}"> {{#helpers.formatNumber}}{{count}}{{/helpers.formatNumber}} </span> </a> `, }, });" class="snippet-body hidden"> 
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// String-based templates are deprecated, use functions instead.
menu({
  // ...
  templates: {
    item: `
      <a class="{{cssClasses.link}}" href="{{url}}">
        <span class="{{cssClasses.label}}">{{label}}</span>
        <span class="{{cssClasses.count}}">
          {{#helpers.formatNumber}}{{count}}{{/helpers.formatNumber}}
        </span>
      </a>
    `,
  },
});
showMoreText
type: string|function
Optional

The template for the “Show more” button text. It exposes:

  • isShowingMore: boolean: whether the list is expanded.
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menu({
  // ...
  templates: {
    showMoreText(data, { html }) {
      return html`<span>${data.isShowingMore ? 'Show less' : 'Show more'}</span>`;
    },
  },
});

HTML output

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<div class="ais-Menu">
  <div class="ais-Menu-searchBox">
    <!-- SearchBox widget here -->
  </div>
  <ul class="ais-Menu-list">
    <li class="ais-Menu-item ais-Menu-item--selected">
      <a class="ais-Menu-link" href="#">
        <span class="ais-Menu-label">Appliances</span>
        <span class="ais-Menu-count">4,306</span>
      </a>
    </li>
    <li class="ais-Menu-item">
      <a class="ais-Menu-link" href="#">
        <span class="ais-Menu-label">Audio</span>
        <span class="ais-Menu-count">1,570</span>
      </a>
    </li>
  </ul>
  <button class="ais-Menu-showMore">Show more</button>
</div>

Customize the UI with connectMenu

If you want to create your own UI of the menu widget, you can use connectors.

This connector is also used to build other widgets: MenuSelect

To use connectMenu, you can import it with the declaration relevant to how you installed InstantSearch.js.

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import { connectMenu } from 'instantsearch.js/es/connectors';

Then it’s a 3-step process:

// 1. Create a render function
const renderMenu = (renderOptions, isFirstRender) => {
  // Rendering logic
};

// 2. Create the custom widget
const customMenu = connectMenu(
  renderMenu
);

// 3. Instantiate
search.addWidgets([
  customMenu({
    // Widget parameters
  })
]);

See code examples

Create a render function

This rendering function is called before the first search (init lifecycle step) and each time results come back from Algolia (render lifecycle step).

const renderMenu = (renderOptions, isFirstRender) => {
  const {
    object[] items,
    boolean canRefine,
    function refine,
    function sendEvent,
    function createURL,
    boolean isShowingMore,
    boolean canToggleShowMore,
    function toggleShowMore,
    object widgetParams,
  } = renderOptions;

  if (isFirstRender) {
    // Do some initial rendering and bind events
  }

  // Render the widget
};

If SEO is critical to your search page, your custom HTML markup needs to be parsable:

  • use plain <a> tags with href attributes for search engines bots to follow them,
  • use semantic markup with structured data when relevant, and test it.

Refer to our SEO checklist for building SEO-ready search experiences.

Rendering options

Parameter Description
items
type: object[]

The elements that can be refined for the current search results. With each item:

  • value: string: the value of the menu item.
  • label: string: the label of the menu item.
  • count: number: the number of results matched after a refinement is applied.
  • isRefined: boolean: indicates if the refinement is applied.
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const renderMenu = (renderOptions, isFirstRender) => {
  const { items } = renderOptions;

  document.querySelector('#menu').innerHTML = `
    <ul>
      ${items
        .map(
          item => `
            <li>
              <a href="#">
                ${item.label} (${item.count})
              </a>
            </li>
          `
        )
        .join('')}
    </ul>
  `;
};
canRefine
type: boolean
Required

Indicates if search state can be refined.
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const renderMenu = (renderOptions, isFirstRender) => {
  const { items, canRefine, refine } = renderOptions;

  const container = document.querySelector('#menu');
  if (!canRefine) {
    container.innerHTML = '';
    return;
  }
};
refine
type: function

A function to toggle a refinement.
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const renderMenu = (renderOptions, isFirstRender) => {
  const { items, refine } = renderOptions;

  const container = document.querySelector('#menu');

  container.innerHTML = `
    <ul>
      ${items
        .map(
          item => `
            <li>
              <a
                href="#"
                data-value="${item.value}"
                style="font-weight: ${item.isRefined ? 'bold' : ''}"
              >
                ${item.label} (${item.count})
              </a>
            </li>
          `
        )
        .join('')}
    </ul>
  `;

  [...container.querySelectorAll('a')].forEach(element => {
    element.addEventListener('click', event => {
      event.preventDefault();
      refine(event.currentTarget.dataset.value);
    });
  });
};
sendEvent
type: (eventType, facetValue) => void

The function to send click events.

  • The view event is automatically sent when the facets are rendered.
  • The click event is automatically sent when refine is called.

  • You can learn more about the insights middleware.

  • eventType: 'click'
  • facetValue: string
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// For example,
sendEvent('click', 'Apple');

/*
  A payload like the following will be sent to the `insights` middleware.
  {
    eventType: 'click',
    insightsMethod: 'clickedFilters',
    payload: {
      eventName: 'Filter Applied',
      filters: ['brand:"Apple"'],
      index: '',
    },
    widgetType: 'ais.menu',
  }
*/
createURL
type: function
default: (item.value) => string

Generates a URL for the corresponding search state.
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const renderMenu = (renderOptions, isFirstRender) => {
  const { items, createURL } = renderOptions;

  document.querySelector('#menu').innerHTML = `
    <ul>
      ${items
        .map(
          item => `
            <li>
              <a
                href="${createURL(item.value)}"
                style="font-weight: ${item.isRefined ? 'bold' : ''}"
              >
                ${item.label} (${item.count})
              </a>
            </li>
          `
        )
        .join('')}
    </ul>
  `;
};
isShowingMore
type: boolean

Returns true if the menu is displaying all the menu items.
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const renderMenu = (renderOptions, isFirstRender) => {
  const { items, isShowingMore, toggleShowMore } = renderOptions;

  const container = document.querySelector('#menu');

  if (isFirstRender) {
    const ul = document.createElement('ul');
    const button = document.createElement('button');
    button.textContent = 'Show more';

    button.addEventListener('click', () => {
      toggleShowMore();
    });

    container.appendChild(ul);
    container.appendChild(button);
  }

  container.querySelector('ul').innerHTML = items
    .map(
      item => `
        <li>
          <a href="#">
            ${item.label} (${item.count})
          </a>
        </li>
      `
    )
    .join('');

  container.querySelector('button').textContent = isShowingMore
    ? 'Show less'
    : 'Show more';
};
canToggleShowMore
type: boolean

Returns true if the “Show more” button can be activated (enough items to display more and not already displaying more than limit items).
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const renderMenu = (renderOptions, isFirstRender) => {
  const { items, canToggleShowMore, toggleShowMore } = renderOptions;

  const container = document.querySelector('#menu');

  if (isFirstRender) {
    const ul = document.createElement('ul');
    const button = document.createElement('button');
    button.textContent = 'Show more';

    button.addEventListener('click', () => {
      toggleShowMore();
    });

    container.appendChild(ul);
    container.appendChild(button);
  }

  container.querySelector('ul').innerHTML = items
    .map(
      item => `
        <li>
          <a href="#">
            ${item.label} (${item.count})
          </a>
        </li>
      `
    )
    .join('');

  container.querySelector('button').disabled = !canToggleShowMore;
};
toggleShowMore
type: function

Toggles the number of displayed values between limit and showMoreLimit.
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const renderMenu = (renderOptions, isFirstRender) => {
  const { items, toggleShowMore } = renderOptions;

  const container = document.querySelector('#menu');

  if (isFirstRender) {
    const ul = document.createElement('ul');
    const button = document.createElement('button');
    button.textContent = 'Show more';

    button.addEventListener('click', () => {
      toggleShowMore();
    });

    container.appendChild(ul);
    container.appendChild(button);
  }

  container.querySelector('ul').innerHTML = items
    .map(
      item => `
        <li>
          <a href="#">
            ${item.label} (${item.count})
          </a>
        </li>
      `
    )
    .join('');
};
widgetParams
type: object

All original widget options forwarded to the render function.
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const renderMenu = (renderOptions, isFirstRender) => {
  const { widgetParams } = renderOptions;

  widgetParams.container.innerHTML = '...';
};

// ...

search.addWidgets([
  customMenu({
    // ...
    container: document.querySelector('#menu'),
  })
]);

Create and instantiate the custom widget

We first create custom widgets from our rendering function, then we instantiate them. When doing that, there are two types of parameters you can give:

  • Instance parameters: they are predefined parameters that you can use to configure the behavior of Algolia.
  • Your own parameters: to make the custom widget generic.

Both instance and custom parameters are available in connector.widgetParams, inside the renderFunction.

const customMenu = connectMenu(
  renderMenu
);

search.addWidgets([
  customMenu({
    attribute: string,
    // Optional instance params
    limit: number,
    showMoreLimit: number,
    sortBy: string[]|function,
    transformItems: function,
  })
]);

Instance options

Parameter Description
attribute
type: string
Required

The name of the attribute for faceting.

To avoid unexpected behavior, you can’t use the same attribute prop in a different type of widget.
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customMenu({
  attribute: 'categories',
});
limit
type: number
default: 10
Optional

How many facet values to retrieve. When you enable the showMore feature, this is the number of facet values to display before clicking the “Show more” button.
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customMenu({
  // ...
  limit: 20,
});
showMoreLimit
type: number
default: 10
Optional

How many facet values to retrieve when showing more.
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customMenu({
  // ...
  showMoreLimit: 20,
});
sortBy
type: string[]|function
default: Uses facetOrdering if set, ["isRefined", "name:asc"]
Optional

How to sort refinements. Must be one or more of the following strings:

  • "count:asc"
  • "count:desc"
  • "name:asc"
  • "name:desc"
  • "isRefined"

It’s also possible to give a function, which receives items two by two, like JavaScript’s Array.sort.

If facetOrdering is set for this facet in renderingContent, and no value for sortBy is passed to this widget, facetOrdering is used, and the default order as a fallback.
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customMenu({
  // ...
  sortBy: ['count:desc', 'name:asc'],
});
transformItems
type: function
Optional

Receives the items and is called before displaying them. Should return a new array with the same shape as the original array. Useful for transforming, removing, or reordering items.

In addition, the full results data is available, which includes all regular response parameters, as well as parameters from the helper (for example disjunctiveFacetsRefinements).
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customMenu({
  // ...
  transformItems(items) {
    return items.map(item => ({
      ...item,
      label: item.label.toUpperCase(),
    }));
  },
});

/* or, combined with results */
customMenu({
  // ...
  transformItems(items, { results }) {
    return items.map(item => ({
      ...item,
      label: item.isRefined
        ? `${item.label} (${results.nbPages} pages)`
        : item.label,
    }));
  },
});

Full example

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// 1. Create a render function
const renderMenu = (renderOptions, isFirstRender) => {
  const {
    items,
    refine,
    createURL,
    isShowingMore,
    canToggleShowMore,
    toggleShowMore,
    widgetParams,
  } = renderOptions;

  if (isFirstRender) {
    const ul = document.createElement('ul');
    const button = document.createElement('button');
    button.textContent = 'Show more';

    button.addEventListener('click', () => {
      toggleShowMore();
    });

    widgetParams.container.appendChild(ul);
    widgetParams.container.appendChild(button);
  }

  widgetParams.container.querySelector('ul').innerHTML = items
    .map(
      item => `
        <li>
          <a
            href="${createURL(item.value)}"
            data-value="${item.value}"
            style="font-weight: ${item.isRefined ? 'bold' : ''}"
          >
            ${item.label} (${item.count})
          </a>
        </li>
      `
    )
    .join('');

  [...widgetParams.container.querySelectorAll('a')].forEach(element => {
    element.addEventListener('click', event => {
      event.preventDefault();
      refine(event.currentTarget.dataset.value);
    });
  });

  const button = widgetParams.container.querySelector('button');

  button.disabled = !canToggleShowMore;
  button.textContent = isShowingMore ? 'Show less' : 'Show more';
};

// 2. Create the custom widget
const customMenu = connectMenu(
  renderMenu
);

// 3. Instantiate
search.addWidgets([
  customMenu({
    container: document.querySelector('#menu'),
    attribute: 'categories',
    showMoreLimit: 20,
  })
]);
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