Say I have an unordered list, like so:

<ul>
   <li>One</li>
   <li>Two</li>
   <li>Three</li>
   <li>Four</li>
   <li>Five</li>
</ul>

How would I, using JQuery, hide the last 2 list items and have a 'show more' link there, so when clicked upon, the last 2 list items would appear?

<ul>
   <li>One</li>
   <li>Two</li>
   <li>Three</li>
   <li style="display:none;">Four</li>
   <li style="display:none;">Five</li>
   <li>Show More</li>
</ul>

Say I have an unordered list, like so:

<ul>
   <li>One</li>
   <li>Two</li>
   <li>Three</li>
   <li>Four</li>
   <li>Five</li>
</ul>

How would I, using JQuery, hide the last 2 list items and have a 'show more' link there, so when clicked upon, the last 2 list items would appear?

<ul>
   <li>One</li>
   <li>Two</li>
   <li>Three</li>
   <li style="display:none;">Four</li>
   <li style="display:none;">Five</li>
   <li>Show More</li>
</ul>

• javascript
• jquery
• hide
• toggle

7 Answers 7

Try the following code example:

$('ul li:gt(3)').hide();
$('.show_button').click(function() {
    $('ul li:gt(3)').show();
});

For fun, here's a roundabout way to do it in one chain:

$('ul')
  .find('li:gt(3)')
  .hide()
  .end()
  .append(
    $('<li>Show More...</li>').click( function(){
      $(this).siblings(':hidden').show().end().remove();
    })
);

I only wanted to show the "show/hide" if greater than max, so I did this, following Ken:

$('ul').each(function(){
  var max = 6
  if ($(this).find("li").length > max) {
    $(this)
      .find('li:gt('+max+')')
      .hide()
      .end()
      .append(
        $('<li>More...</li>').click( function(){
          $(this).siblings(':hidden').show().end().remove();
        })
    );
  }
});

It would be more like this. You would have to hide the children greater than 2, because Three is indexed as 2. Also, if you wanted to put the Show More in an LI tag, you would need to include :not(:last-child) in your selector. Like so:

<script src="http://code.jquery.com/jquery-latest.min.js"></script>
<ul>
<li>1</li>
<li>2</li>
<li>3</li>
<li>4</li>
<li>5</li>
<li><a href=# class=show>Show More</a></li>
</ul>
<script>$("li:gt(2):not(:last-child)").hide();
$('.show').click(function(){
$("li:gt(2)").show();
});
</script>

You can try the Show First N Items jQuery Plugin. All you need to write is this:

<ul class="show-first" data-show-first-count="3">
    <li>One</li>
    <li>Two</li>
    <li>Three</li>
    <li>Four</li>
    <li>Five</li>
</ul>

It will automatically convert to this:

<ul class="show-first" data-show-first-count="3">
    <li>One</li>
    <li>Two</li>
    <li>Three</li>
    <li><a href="#" class="show-first-control">Show More</a></li>
    <li style="display: none;">Four</li>
    <li style="display: none;">Five</li>
</ul>

And after clicking Show More, it will convert to this:

<ul class="show-first" data-show-first-count="3">
    <li>One</li>
    <li>Two</li>
    <li>Three</li>
    <li style="display: none;"><a href="#" class="show-first-control">Show More</a></li>
    <li style="display: list-item;">Four</li>
    <li style="display: list-item;">Five</li>
</ul>

Fyi, I contributed code to this plugin.

Following Ken and Cloud, I added provision for the "More" button to turn to "Less" and toggle the relevant list items.

$('.nav_accordian').each(function(){
    var max = 6
    if ($(this).find('li').length > max) {
        $(this).find('li:gt('+max+')').hide().end().append('<li class="sub_accordian"><span class="show_more">(see more)</span></li>');
        $('.sub_accordian').click( function(){
            $(this).siblings(':gt('+max+')').toggle();
            if ( $('.show_more').length ) {
                $(this).html('<span class="show_less">(see less)</span>');
            } else {
                $(this).html('<span class="show_more">(see more)</span>');
            };
        });
    };
});

I'm assuming that you are starting with the UL as per your example code.

I would find the UL and hide items greater than the index of the last item you'd like to initially display. Then I would add a new item to act as a hook for displaying the rest. Finally, I'd hide the show more option as it was no longer needed.

See the following:

$('ul li:gt(3)')
.hide()
.parent()
.append('<li onclick="$(this).parent().find(''li:gt(3)'').show();$(this).hide();">Show more</li>');