Animated Custom Select Box with jQuery and CSS3

An easy jQuery & CSS solution to help you beautify default select boxes with support for custom styles, CSS3 animations and native select functions. The goal is to convert the select options into a dropdown list that is easy to style and customize.

How to use it:

1. Create a standard select box as follow:

<select id="year">
  <option value="hide">-- Year --</option>
  <option value="2010">2010</option>
  <option value="2011">2011</option>
  <option value="2012">2012</option>
  <option value="2013">2013</option>
  <option value="2014">2014</option>
  <option value="2015">2015</option>
</select>

2. The core CSS / CSS3 rules to style the select box (dropdown list).

.select-hidden {
  display: none;
  visibility: hidden;
  padding-right: 10px;
}

.select {
  cursor: pointer;
  display: inline-block;
  position: relative;
  font-size: 16px;
  color: #fff;
  width: 220px;
  height: 40px;
}

.select-styled {
  position: absolute;
  top: 0;
  right: 0;
  bottom: 0;
  left: 0;
  background-color: #24b1c2;
  padding: 8px 15px;
  -moz-transition: all 0.2s ease-in;
  -o-transition: all 0.2s ease-in;
  -webkit-transition: all 0.2s ease-in;
  transition: all 0.2s ease-in;
}

.select-styled:after {
  content: "";
  width: 0;
  height: 0;
  border: 7px solid transparent;
  border-color: #fff transparent transparent transparent;
  position: absolute;
  top: 16px;
  right: 10px;
}

.select-styled:hover { background-color: #22a9b9; }

.select-styled:active, .select-styled.active { background-color: #209dac; }

.select-styled:active:after, .select-styled.active:after {
  top: 9px;
  border-color: transparent transparent #fff transparent;
}

.select-options {
  display: none;
  position: absolute;
  top: 100%;
  right: 0;
  left: 0;
  z-index: 999;
  margin: 0;
  padding: 0;
  list-style: none;
  background-color: #209dac;
}

.select-options li {
  margin: 0;
  padding: 12px 0;
  text-indent: 15px;
  border-top: 1px solid #1c8a97;
  -moz-transition: all 0.15s ease-in;
  -o-transition: all 0.15s ease-in;
  -webkit-transition: all 0.15s ease-in;
  transition: all 0.15s ease-in;
}

.select-options li:hover {
  color: #24b1c2;
  background: #fff;
}

.select-options li[rel="hide"] { display: none; }

3. Include the necessary jQuery library at the bottom of the web page.

<script src="//code.jquery.com/jquery-2.1.4.min.js"></script> 

4. The core JavaScript to convert the select box into a beautiful ul li based dropdown list.

$('select').each(function(){
    var $this = $(this), numberOfOptions = $(this).children('option').length;
  
    $this.addClass('select-hidden'); 
    $this.wrap('<div class="select"></div>');
    $this.after('<div class="select-styled"></div>');

    var $styledSelect = $this.next('div.select-styled');
    $styledSelect.text($this.children('option').eq(0).text());
  
    var $list = $('<ul />', {
        'class': 'select-options'
    }).insertAfter($styledSelect);
  
    for (var i = 0; i < numberOfOptions; i++) {
        $('<li />', {
            text: $this.children('option').eq(i).text(),
            rel: $this.children('option').eq(i).val()
        }).appendTo($list);
    }
  
    var $listItems = $list.children('li');

 
  
  $styledSelect.click(function(e) {
     if($('.select-options').is(':visible')) {
        e.stopPropagation();
        $styledSelect.text($(this).text()).removeClass('active');
        $this.val($(this).attr('rel'));
      
        $list.hide();
        //console.log($this.val());   

     } else {
        e.stopPropagation();
        $('div.select-styled.active').each(function(){
            $(this).removeClass('active').next('ul.select-options').hide();
        });
        $(this).toggleClass('active').next('ul.select-options').toggle();
     }//end if
    });
  
    $listItems.click(function(e) {
        e.stopPropagation();
        $styledSelect.text($(this).text()).removeClass('active');
        $this.val($(this).attr('rel'));
        $list.hide();
        //console.log($this.val());
    });
    
    $(document).click(function() {
        $styledSelect.removeClass('active');
        $list.hide();
    });

});

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This awesome jQuery plugin is developed by sh. For more Advanced Usages, please check the demo page or visit the official website.