@nice-digital/global-nav

Global header and footer used across all NICE digital services

📑 Table of contents (click to expand)

Global navigation

What is it?

Global Nav consists common header and footer to be used across all NICE digital services. It is designed to be used across any NICE branded, externally facing web application. This includes all externally facing services that sit under the nice.org.uk domain. It also includes other NICE branded sites like Evidence Search that sit on non-NICE domains. It is a replacement for NICE.TopHat.

Functionality

The header covers the following high-level functionality:

main navigation
skip links
search and autocomplete
COVID-19 message
TLS warning message for old IE
sign in and account management via NICE Accounts
- In the future will support Auth0

Non-functional

The following non-functional requirements apply:

accessible: to WCAG 2.0 AA
touch: optimized for touch with sufficient touch targets
print: print styles
security: tested against OWASP top 10 and pen tested
progressive enhancement:
- mobile first
- non-JS fallback for SSR React apps
browser support: IE11+

Stack

React
SCSS for styles
CSS Modules for generated class names
PostCSS for transforming CSS with plugins:
- autoprefixer for automatically adding vendor prefixes in CSS
- and NICE Digital shared browserslist config
Vite for module bundling
Babel 7 for ES6/JSX → ES5 transpilation
accessible-autocomplete
ESLint for linting our JavaScript
- with NICE Digital shared eslint config
Stylelint for linting our SCSS
Prettier for code formatting
Jest for JS unit tests and snapshot tests
NICE Design System core for SASS mixins, functions and colour/spacing variables
- NICE Icons

Principles

Consider the following development principles:

One single header and footer component (and optional main wrapper component with back to top link) across all NICE services
Progressively enhanced to support maximum number of devices and browsers
Fast performance
- single HTTP request for CDN minified bundle
- as small as possible bundle size
High unit test coverage
'Standard' React wherever possible
- easy for any React developer to pickup
Consistent code style and formatting
- as if a single developer worked across the codebase
Clear extension points and hooks for integrating into applications
- To avoid some of the issues from TopHat where there was no consistency

CSS Modules

We use SCSS modules for a few reasons:

local scoping of SCSS avoids accidental cascades:
- within global nav
- polluting out of global nav into the global scope
obfuscated class names discourages overriding CSS styles in your app. This is by design to keep the header consistent across all services.

Using SCSS allows us to use mixins, functions and variables from the NICE Design System.

If you really need to override styles, see the overrides documentation.

🚀 Set up

TL;DR; to run the project locally, do the following:

install Node 14+ or latest LTS version. Or even better, use Volta to use the Node version pinned in package.json.
run npm ci on the command line to install dependencies
run npm start on the command line
navigate to http://localhost:8080/ in a browser.

This compiles the application and spins up a development server. It then watches for changes to files and:

lints changed files
automatically rebuilds the app.

It then automatically reloads the application in the Browser (so no need for a manual reload) using Hot Module Replacement (HMR) in webpack.

Other commands

There are various other commands you can run for further things like tests and linting:

Tests

npm test Lints code and runs tests
npm test:unit Runs Jest unit tests
npm test:unit:watch Runs Jest unit tests and watches for changes. Run this in development.
npm test:unit:coverage Runs Jest unit tests and reports coverage

If you've installed the VSCode npm extension then you can easily run scripts by:

right-clicking the script name in package.json
or Ctrl+Shift+P -> npm run script -> test:unit:watch.

Run individual files

To run a single test file, use the jest cli option to pass in a regex to match test files. For example, to run just files that match nav:

npm run-script test:unit -- nav

Run individual tests

To run a single test, or a bunch of tests that match a given name, use the jest --testNamePattern cli flag (or the -t alias). For example, to run all tests that check aria attributes:

npm run-script test:unit -- -t aria

Linting

npm run lint Lints both JavaScript and SCSS
npm run prettier Checks files for Prettier code style
npm run prettier:fix Fixes Prettier code style issues
npm run lint:js Lints just JavaScript files
npm run lint:js:fix Fixes linting issues automatically in JavaScript files
npm run lint:scss Lints just SCSS files
npm run lint:scss:fix Fixes linting issues automatically in SCSS files

Production build

To distinguish between local development builds and builds on TeamCity, a custom npm script has been added, 'build:teamcity.'. The local build step does not work on TeamCity as 'vite build' needs to be passed differently for a build configuration step. For production on TeamCity, npm run build:teamcity is used first, then 'vite build' is passed in:

run build:teamcity vite build

IDE

We recommend using VS Code as the IDE. It's free, used consistently across NICE Digital Services because of the .NET integration and is extensible with high quality, useful extensions:

Extensions

The following VS Code extensions are strongly recommended, but not required:

EditorConfig for VS Code - configures VSCode to use the correct settings (line endings etc) for various files
stylelint - this will highlight SCSS linting errors directly in the IDE
eslint - automatically lints your JavaScript as you type and highlights any errors
Prettier - Code formatter - highlights code formatting issues in the IDE and formats the file on save
npm and npm Intellisense for support for using npm
Jest for automatically running tests and highlighting errors in the IDE

Gotchas

Check you have the right version of Node installed
Make sure have LF line endings as this is a cross-platform project. This should happen automatically because of settings in .gitattributes and .editorconfig.
Watch out for features of React that Nerv doesn't support, for example refs.

How to use

We support 2 main methods for using the Global Nav in your projects:

as a React component installed directly into your app
or externally to your app, loaded via the CDN.

React

Install and use Global Nav as a dependency in a React application to include it as part of your application bundle.

This is a good option if you're rendering you're app's interface via React, either client side or server side, or both. For example, if you're using Create React App, Gatsby or Next.js.

Note if you're using Create React App you'll need to use v2+ because we use CSS modules

Install the package and require the Header, Footer and Main React components into your application, just as you would for any other 3rd party component:

Installation

First, install the @nice-digital/global-nav package from npm into your project:

npm i @nice-digital/global-nav --save

Note: we used to recommend installing directly from GitHub via npm i nice-digital/global-nav --save (notice the missing @), which still works but we now recommend using npm.

Then, require the header and/or footer and/or main into your application:

Usage

Import the header, footer and main component like this:

import { Header, Footer, Main } from '@nice-digital/global-nav';

Note: we've used ES6 module imports for this examples as we've assumed all React apps will be using ES6.

These header, footer and main components that can be be used like any other React component and configured via props, for example:

const search = {
  autocomplete: '/autocomplete',
};

const page = () => (
  <div>
    <Header service="guidance" search={search} />
		<Main withPadding={true} myOptionalProp={myOptionalProp} className="my-optional-class" >{/* Your page content here */} </Main>
    <Footer />
  </div>
);

Wrapping your template with the main component will render a main tag in the html with a back to top link.

For a full list of all the available props, see the props section below:

Props

Main props

Main.withPadding

Type: Boolean
Default: true

Optional spacing between page content and footer back-to-top link.

Header props

Header.service

Type: String | null
Default: ''
Values: guidance, standards, evidence, bnf, bnfc, cks, journals

The identifier of the service to highlight in the main menu. See services.json for a list of the available service identifiers.

Header.skipLinkId

Type: String | null
Default: 'content-start'

The identifier of the skip link target. An empty div with this id will be created at the end of the header, if it doesn't already exist on the page.

Header.renderSearchOnly

Type: boolean
Default: false

Optionally render the header with search box only to aid with debugging by reducing noise in the rendered output.

Header.onNavigating

Type: String | Function
Default: null

Function parameters:

element (HTMLAnchorElement) the HTML anchor element that was clicked to trigger the navigation
href (String) the href of the link that was clicked

Currently onNavigating only applies to the sub navigation.

Pass onNavigating to prevent default of the default navigation behaviour and provide your own implementation. Pass either a function, or the name of a function defined on window. E.g.:

window.onNavigatingHandler = function (e) {
  // Define your implementation here e.g.:

  if (e.href === '/#browse') {
    // Trigger some custom behaviour
  } else window.location.assign(e.href); // Fallback to navigation as normal
};

var global_nav_config = {
  header: {
    onNavigating: 'onNavigatingHandler',
  },
};

Header.onResize

Type: String | Function
Default: null

Pass an onResize function to handle when the header is resized. This includes banners being closed/collapsed:

var global_nav_config = {
  header: {
    onResize: function () {
      // Define your resize implementation here
    },
  },
};

Or the name of a function defined on window. E.g.:

window.onResizeHandler = function () {
  // Define your resize implementation here
};

var global_nav_config = {
  header: {
    onResize: 'onResizeHandler',
  },
};

Header.onDropdownOpen

Type: String, Function
Default: null

Pass an onDropdownOpen property to enable callback when dropdown is open. Pass either a function, or the name of a function defined on window. E.g.:

window.onDropdownOpenHandler = function () {
  // Define your implementation here e.g.:
  document.querySelector("body").classList.add("global-nav__dropdown--open");
};

var global_nav_config = {
  header: {
      onDropdownOpen: 'onDropdownOpenHandler',
  },
};

Header.onDropdownClose

Type: String, Function
Default: null

Pass an onDropdownClose property to enable callback when dropdown is closed. Pass either a function, or the name of a function defined on window. E.g.:

window.onDropdownCloseHandler = function (e) {
  // Define your implementation here e.g.:
 document.querySelector("body").classList.remove("global-nav__dropdown--open")

};

var global_nav_config = {
  header: {
      onDropdownClose: 'onDropdownCloseHandler',
  },
};

Header.additionalSubMenuItems

Type: null | Array
Default: null

Pass an additionalSubMenuItems array to add extra sub menu items for a given service.

The array should be an array of objects, each containing a service: string and another array of links: Array. The links array should contain an array of text: string and url: string. E.g:

const adminMenus = [{
    service: "indev",
    links: [{text: "Admin", url: "/admin"}]
  },{
    service: "publications",
    links: [{text: "Admin", url: "/admin"}]
  }];

var global_nav_config = {
  header: {
    additionalSubMenuItems: adminMenus,
  },
};

Header.search

Type: Boolean | Object
Default: {}

Search is enabled by default, pass false to disable it e.g. <Header search={false} />. Or pass a set of key/value pairs to configure search and autocomplete:

Header.search.url

Type: String
Default: /search

The url of the search results page that the search form submits a GET request to. For example submitting a search term paracetamol with a url of /search will go to /search?q=paracetamol.

Header.search.autocomplete

Type: Boolean | String | Array<AutoCompleteSuggestion> | AutoCompleteOptions
Default: false

The source for autocomplete (typeahead) suggestions. Set to false to disable autocomplete.

Pass an array of objects to use as the source. The objects in the array should have two keys of Title: string and Link: string, with an optional TitleHtml: string and TypeAheadType: string. E.g.:

const suggestions = [
  { Title: 'Achilles tendinopathy', Link: '/achilles-tendinopathy' },
  { Title: 'Acne vulgaris', Link: '/acne-vulgaris', TitleHtml: '<mark>Acne</mark> vulgaris', TypeAheadType: 'keyword' },
];
<Header search={{ autocomplete: suggestions }} />;

Pass a string, not containing a slash, to use a variable with that name on window e.g. <Header search={{ autocomplete: "topics" }} />. This is useful for when the suggestions are loaded asynchronously after page load.

Or to make a remote call to a URL on demand, if the source name does contain a slash e.g. <Header search={{ autocomplete: "/autocomplete?ajax=ajax" }} />.

The response is expected to be JSON in the format Array<{ Title: string, TitleHtml?: string, Link: string }> e.g.:

[
  {
    "Title": "Paracetamol",
    "Link": "/search?q=Paracetamol"
  },
  {
    "Title": "Paracetamol",
    "TitleHtml": "<mark>Para</mark>cetamol",
    "Link": "/search?q=Paracetamol",
		"TypeAheadType": "keyword"
  }
]

Or to customise the template for autocomplete suggestions, pass an object with suggestions and suggestionTemplate, for example:

const autocompleteOptions = {
		// Suggestions can be either the name of a variable, a remote url starting with a slash or an array
		suggestions: "/a-remote-url",
		// Return an HTML string, for example:
		suggestionTemplate: (suggestion) => {
			if (!suggestion || !suggestion.Link) return "";
			return `<a href="${suggestion.Link}">${
				suggestion.TitleHtml || suggestion.Title
			}</a>`;
		}
	};

<Header search={{
		autocomplete: autocompleteOptions
	}} />;

If you're using TypeScript, then you can import types e.g.:

import { AutoCompleteSuggestions, AutoCompleteOptions } from "@nice-digital/global-nav";

Header.search.placeholder

Type: String
Default: Search NICE…

Override the placeholder (and label) of the search input box, for example change to Search BNF… for the BNF microsite.

Header.search.query

- Type: String
Default: ""

The search query term, usually taken from the q value of the querstring.

If you're using .NET, use HttpUtility.JavaScriptStringEncode to avoid XSS attacks and make sure Request Validation is enabled.

Note: old TopHat looked for the q querystring value itself, but with Global Nav it's the responsibility of each application to pass in the search term.

Header.search.onSearching

Type: String, Function
Default: null

Function parameters:

query (String) the query term used in the search

The search form by default submits a GET request to /search?q=XYZ. Disable this and provide your own implementation by passing an onSearching property. Pass either a function, or the name of a function defined on window. E.g.:

window.onSearchingHandler = function (e) {
  // Define your implementation here e.g.:
  window.location.assign('/search?q=' + encodeURIComponent(e.query));
};

var global_nav_config = {
  header: {
    search: {
      onSearching: 'onSearchingHandler',
    },
  },
};

Header.auth

Type: Boolean | Object
Default: {}

Authentication is enabled by default. Disable authentication by passing false:

// React:
<Header auth={false} />

// Or config:
var global_nav_config = {
  header: {
    auth: false,
  },
};

Pass a set of key/value pairs to configure authentication, for example:

// React
<Header auth={{ environment: 'live', provider: 'niceAccounts' }} />

// Or config:
var global_nav_config = {
  header: {
    auth: { environment: 'live', provider: 'niceAccounts' },
  },
};

See the header.auth properties below for how to configure authentication providers.

Header.auth.environment

Type: String
Default: live
Values: live, test, beta, local

This value is the authentication environment eg beta would be beta-accounts.nice.org.uk.

Header.auth.provider

Type: String
Default: niceAccounts
Values: niceAccounts, idam

The authentication provider allows the provider to be changed. If the provider is set to niceAccounts then an environment be defined. If the provider is set to idam the links and displayName must be defined.

Header.auth.links

Type: Array | null
Default: null
Values: [{ key: "Sign in", value: "/Account/Login" }], [{ key: "My profile", value: "/Account/profile" },{ key: "Sign out", value: "/Account/Logout" }]

If the authentication provider has been set to "idam", then an array of links must be provided. If the user is logged out then a "Sign in" link should be provided with an appropriate url supplied - this should be the first in the list. If the user is logged in, then a number of links are supported, with a "Sign out" link normally last in the list, also a displayName must be supplied.

Header.auth.displayName

Type: String | null
Default: null

The displayName is the user's name and must be provided if the "idam" provider is used and the user is logged in.

Footer props

Footer.service

Type: String | null
Default: ''
Values: pathways, guidance, standards, evidence, bnf, bnfc, cks, journals

The identifier of the currently active service. See services.json for a list of the available service identifiers.

CDN

Reference the Global Nav bundle directly from the NICE CDN to render the Global Nav. We recommend including this before the closing </body> tag but before your application's scripts:

<script src="//cdn.nice.org.uk/global-nav/global-nav.min.js"></script>

This renders with the default configuration. See the configuration section below for how to pass options into the Global Nav.

Note: you can reference the non-minified version by removing .min from the filename.

Reference a specific version of the global nav by including the build number as a sub folder. This is useful for testing, in case of a breaking change, or in case of needing to roll back for a hotfix, for example:

<script src="//alpha-cdn.nice.org.uk/global-nav/4.1.806-GN-180-FixInDev/global-nav.min.js"></script>
or
<script src="//cdn.nice.org.uk/global-nav/4.1.805%2Br6D13311/global-nav.min.js"></script>

Note the production build needs the + character in the build metadata encoding as %2B to avoid browsers interpreting it as a space in the URL.

Container IDs

The CDN version of Global Nav creates its own containers for the header and footer if they don't already exist on the page. These containers use the ids:

global-nav-header for the header
global-nav-footer for the footer.

Include empty elements with these ids on the page and Global Nav will render into these instead of creating its own:

<body>
  <div id="global-nav-header"></div>
  <main>
    <!-- Your page content here -->
  </main>
  <div id="global-nav-footer"></div>
  <script src="//cdn.nice.org.uk/global-nav/global-nav.min.js"></script>
</body>

Overrides

Where possible, we recommend using the provided configuration hooks like onSearching, onNavigating, onRendering, onRendered etc for hooking into or overriding default Global Nav behaviours, rather than using unsupported CSS selectors.

Use the global-nav-header and global-nav-footer ids to target the Global Nav for more bespoke behaviours - these are the only officially supported selector hooks.

Please don't rely on inner implementations for hooks or overrides.

For example, if you're targeting the search form via jQuery, use the robust $("#global-nav-header form[role='search']") selector rather than $("#global-nav-search-form") as this is an inner implementation and might change.

Try not to override Global Nav styles in your app: the Global Nav exists to give consistency across NICE digital services. If you really have to, then same rules as apply as above. For example in CSS:

#global-nav-header {
  position: relative;
}

Configuration

Global Nav configuration is loaded from a global JavaScript variable on the window object called global_nav_config. Include this variable before the cdn script include. Here's a fulle example of all the available config options:

var global_nav_config = {
  service: 'guidance',
  header: {
    skipLinkId: 'content-start',
    cookie: true,
    onNavigating: function (e) {
      // Use e.href
    },
    auth: {
      environment: 'beta',
      provider: 'niceAccounts',
    },
    search: {
      autocomplete: '/autocomplete?ajax=ajax',
      url: '/search',
      placeholder: 'Search NICE…',
      query: '"diabetes in pregnancy"',
      onSearching: function (e) {
        // Use e.query
      },
    },
  },
  footer: false,
};

The following config options apply:

service

Type: String
Default: null

The key of the service to highlight on the navigation elements. See src/Header/Nav/links.json for the available options.

header

Type: Boolean | Object
Default: null

The header renders by default, set header to false to stop it from rendering e.g. global_nav_config = { header: false }. Or, pass an object of key/value pairs of settings specific to the header. See the header props section for available options.

In addition to the options from the React props, there are also the following callbacks available when rendering using the CDN embed:

header.onRendering

Type: Function | String signature: function(element)
Default: null

Function parameters:

element (HTMLElement) the HTML element the header will be rendered in to

A callback function, called just before the header is rendered. If it is a string, then a function with that name will be looked for on window.

header.onRendered

Type: Function | String signature: function(element)
Default: null

Function parameters:

element (HTMLElement) the HTML the header was rendered in to

A callback function, called just after the header has been rendered. If it is a string, then a function with that name will be looked for on window.

footer

Type: Boolean | Object
Default: null

The footer renders by default, set footer to false to stop it from rendering e.g. global_nav_config = { footer: false }. Or, pass an object of key/value pairs of settings specific to the footer. See the footer props section for available options.

Deployments

We create 2 deployment artifacts: one for deploying to the CDN and one test site for previewing the header and footer.

To test what the deployment packages looks like locally, run the following command:

dotnet pack NICE.GlobalNav.CDN.csproj -o publish /p:Version=1.2.3-r1a2b3c
# OR dotnet pack NICE.GlobalNav.Preview.csproj -o publish /p:Version=1.2.3-r1a2b3c

Where the version number can be any valid SemVer build number compatible with Octopus Deploy. Note: this version number will be the build number when TeamCity creates this build artifact.

Note: you'll need the DotNet Core SDK installed. We don't use NuGet.exe to build so we can run on both Windows and Linux

Upgrading to v2

Version 2 is a breaking change, because we removed the cookie banner and associated cookie option.

If you were already using cookie: false in the header config, then the upgrade is easy - the cookie: false will no longer do anything so can safely be removed.

If you were using cookie: true (or not setting the cookie option and leaving the default value of true) then you will need to include the cookie banner separately from Global Nav.

Upgrading to v3

Version 3 removes react hot loader, replacing it with fast refresh. Although this is mostly internal implmenentation, react-hot-loader was a production dependency, and the Header and Footer components were both exported wrapped in hot. So this could affect services using Global Nav as an npm dependency (installed from GitHub).

Upgrading to v4

V4 involved updating a lot of dependencies. Mostly this was internal implementation details. However, the one external facing change was the build command changing from npm run build -- --env.version=1.2.3 to npm run build -- --env version=1.2.3. Notice the space instead of the dot. This is a result of the --env parameter in webpack 4.

Upgrading to v5

Version 5 includes updates for the summer 2022 brand refresh. It's mostly an internal refactor of typography and colour updates and shouldn't include any breaking API changes.

Upgrading to v6

Version 6 is mostly updates of dependencies, the biggest of which was React Testing Library (from Enzyme). It also includes support for React 18 and Design System v5.

Upgrading to v7

Updated autocomplete component.

Upgrading to v7.1

In Version 7.1, significant changes to improve the development and build processes of the project have been introduced:

Migrating to Vite

Migration from Webpack to Vite, a faster build tool. Vite provides improved performance and a better development experience with features like Fast Refresh, which replaces React Hot Loader. Terser minification options enable further optimisation of the bundle size, resulting in approximately 10% reduction in bundle size during the build process.

Easier transition to TypeScript

With the migration to Vite, transitioning to TypeScript in the future will be more straightforward. Vite's TypeScript support will make the process smoother when the time comes for the project to adopt TypeScript.

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