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SleekTabs

What is it?

SleekTabs is a bit of software written in PHP that allows you to make tabbed web pages really easily. With just a small snippet of code, you can have tabs anywhere on your page. When a user clicks a tab, some new information gets loaded into the page, without them having to endure a full reload.

The result is a cool, sleek way to improve your users’ experience by making it faster and better. It also uses less bandwidth, as the whole page doesn’t need to be retransferred each time a tab is clicked.

Please note: this script is not connected in any way to the Sleektabs premium WordPress theme by Kriesi, it just happens to share the name.

What about people without JavaScript on? Will my site break?

No. SleekTabs is clever enough that if you set it up correctly, a fallback URL can be specified. When the user clicks a tab with JavaScript off (or if a search engine wants to view a tab, for example), it still works. Sure, it's not as flashy, but it still works.

How do I set it up?

I've put together a video tutorial which should assist you with a basic set up.

Alternatively, you can read a textual version of that tutorial, which may be easier to quickly refer back to, or if you need to go at a slower pace.

SleekTabs also contains an example script — index.php which comes as part of the download. This example script uses a slightly different way of implementing SleekTabs, using just a single file. I recommend you follow the tutorials above, however, as it makes more sense to build your implementations using multiple files, to keep things organised.

What about browser support?

We aim to support all mainstream modern browsers, including Firefox, Internet Explorer, Opera, Safari and other browsers based on the Gecko and WebKit engines.

Who made this?

SleekTabs is made by myself and Richard Fitzgerald, but hosted here on my site. SleekTabs originally came into life as it was adapted from an internal class used to make tabbed interfaces on a project I was working on. It has now evolved and grown into its own script.

What are the licence terms?

SleekTabs is free software/open source under the BSD Licence. See the licence header in the sleektabs.php file for more information.

Download

Get downloading below.

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Documentation

Documentation on SleekTabs is available by browsing the documentation wiki.

SleekTabs on PHP Classes

SleekTabs is listed on the PHP Classes site.

Please see http://www.phpclasses.org/browse/package/3824.html for more information.

SleekTabs 0.1 won the April 2007 PHP Classes Innovation Award!

Demonstrations

In case you haven’t already seen this, I have put together a two-part video tutorial on SleekTabs.

You are also welcome to view this video demonstration of SleekTabs, but please be aware it was created for the old version of SleekTabs, version 0.1. Many things have now changed.

Changelog