Tutorial Add Active Navigation Class Based on URL
Ideally you output this class from the server side, but if you can't...
Let's say you have navigation like this:
<nav>
<ul>
<li><a href="/">Home</a></li>
<li><a href="/about/">About</a></li>
<li><a href="/clients/">Clients</a></li>
<li><a href="/contact/">Contact Us</a></li>
</ul>
</nav>
And you are at the URL:
http://yoursite.com/about/team/
And you want the About link to get a class of "active" so you can visually indicate it's the active navigation.
$(function() {
$('nav a[href^="/' + location.pathname.split("/")[1] + '"]').addClass('active');
});
Essentially that will match links in the nav who's href attribute begins with "/about" (or whatever the secondary directory happens to be).