Develop Reference

Get element position relative to screen. (Or alternative solution)

I am aware this had been asked before, but no answer actually did the trick as far as I tested them.
Basically what I need is to change some element styles as soon as it "hits" the top border of the screen while scrolling down. This element is a 'Back to Top' button that will be sitting in a section and start following the user when they scroll pass said section.
I am not asking about CSS properties, I am asking about some JS property or method that allow me to know this. IE:
$('#back').distanceFromTopOfTheScreen() // This value will decrease as I scroll down
I know there are other soultions, but the client has asked for this behavior.
Any idea?

You can :
distance = $('#eleId')[0].getBoundingClientRect().top;
For more about getBoundingClientRect() look at the MDN Documentation
Note: This value change when you're scrolling, it gives you the distance between the top border of the element and the top of the Page

Sometimes JQuery make's everything more confusing than Native Javascript, even forgothing the very basics functions:
window.onscroll = function() { fixPosition()};
function fixPosition() {
var Yplus = 4; //number of lines in every scroll
document.getElementById('element').style.top = document.body.scrollTop + Yplus ;
}
This will allows you to move an "element" static on the window following the scroll.

How can I stop an image from moving and cause an action based on a keystroke?

I am teaching myself web programming. I'm also working on C++. I am having a problem with Javascript.
I need to know how to create an "if statement" based on the location of an image.
I am making a simple game that has a cannon that is moving back and forth. I want the user to press a button that will cause the cannon to stop and fire launching another image toward the target.
I have already created the images and a gif of the image that will travel from the cannon in an arc toward the target.
If the user fires when the cannon is in the correct position the image will hit the target.
Can someone tell me how to create an if statement based on position? Or can someone tell me how to make the cannon stop and make the gif appear?

To move the cannon, read up on the onkeyup() event - it will wait for when a key is released, and do something.
What will it do? Probably change the left position of the cannon somehow. I'd recommend setting the CSS style position:absolute on your cannon, then changing the .left property with Javascript.
For example, here's some Javascript to get you started (untested):
var cannon = document.getElementById("cannonPic");
var leftlim = 200;
document.body.onkeyup = function() {
// Remove 'px' from left position style
leftPosition = cannon.style.left.substring(0, cannon.style.left - 2);
// Stop the cannon?
if (leftPosition >= leftLim) {
return;
}
// Move cannon to new position
cannon.style.left = cannon.style.left.substr(0, cannon + 10);
}
And its companion HTML would look like...
...
<img id='cannonPic' src='cannon.jpg' />
...
<script type='text/javascript' src='cannon.js' />
The HTML could be styled like this:
#cannonPic {
left:0;
position:absolute;
}
To answer your "appear/reappear" sub-question, you can use the .display property, accessed via Javascript:
var cannon = document.getElementById("cannonPic");
function appear() {
cannon.style.display = '';
}
function hide() {
cannon.style.display = 'none';
}
A small word of warning, things traveling in arcs will require some math to translate them in two dimensions, depending on how accurate you want it. A fun exercise though if you like math :)

To get the very first image on your page's x and y position on the screen, for instance, try:
var xpos = document.getElementsByTagName('img')[0].x;
var ypos = document.getElementsByTagName('img')[0].y;

Just to add a little background, the way this is typically done:
You have a main loop that will "run" the game.
Each iteration of the loop, you a) update the positions of in-game objects (cannon, projectiles, and targets in your case) and b) render the resulting objects to the screen.
When you detect a "fire" keypress, you simply set the "speed" of your moving cannon to 0, causing it to "stop".
You can retrieve the object's position using Steve's or sajawikio's approach but your game logic determines (and should know) the position of all objects at all times. It is your game logic that says "draw the projectile at position (x,y)". Your game logic should NOT say "I have a projectile, not sure exactly where it is, HMM, so let's query it's position using Javascript". At least not in this case where you have simple, predictable movement.

Fake scroll bars in browser

I want to provide the user with the experience of scrolling through content, but I would like to load the content dynamically so the content in their viewing area is what they would expect, but there is no data above or below what they are looking at. For performance reasons, I don't want that data loaded. So when they scroll down new data gets loaded into their view, and data previously in their view is discarded. Likewise when scrolling up. The scroll bar should represent their location within the entire content though, so using "infinite scrolling" or "lazy loading" does not look like what I need.
My solution may be that I need to re-architect things. As of now, my project is a hex-viewer that allows you to drop a binary file onto it. I create html elements for every byte. This causes performance issues when you end up with a 1MB file (1,000,000+ DOM elements). One solution would be to not use DOM elements/byte but I think this will make other features harder, so I'd like to just not display as many DOM elements at once.

Make a div, set overflow to scroll or auto. As user scrolls you can change the content of the div.
You could look at yahoo mail (the JavaScript based one) to see how they do it (they add rows with email as you scroll).
You don't necessarily need custom scroll bars.
You could look for some code here for custom scroll bars:
http://www.java2s.com/Code/JavaScript/GUI-Components/Scrolltextwithcustomscollbar.htm
or here:
http://www.dyn-web.com/code/scroll/

I'm looking for an answer to this question as well so I'll share where I'm at with it.
I have a large amount of content I want to display vertically and have the user scroll through it. I can load it all into the DOM and scroll normally but that initial creation phase is horribly slow and scrolling can awfully slow also. Also, I will dynamically add to it as I stream more data in.
So I want the same thing which is to be able to dynamically populate and update a non-scrolling area with content. I want to make it seem as if the user is scrolling through that content and have a model (which has lots of data) that is kept off the DOM until it would be seen.
I figure I'll use a queue concept for managing the visible DOM elements. I'd store queueHeadIndex and queueTailIndex to remember what off-DOM elements are shown in the DOM. When the user scrolls down, I'd work out what whether the head of queue falls off the screen and if it does update queueHeadIndex and remove it's DOM element. Secondly I'd then work out whether I need to update queueTailIndex and add a new element to the DOM. For the elements currently in the DOM I'd need to move them (not sure if they need animation here or not yet).
UPDATE:
I've found this which seems to have some promise http://jsfiddle.net/GdsEa/
My current thinking is that there are two parts to the problem.
Firstly, I think I want to disable scrolling and have some sort of virtual scrolling. I've just started looking at http://www.everyday3d.com/blog/index.php/2014/08/18/smooth-scrolling-with-virtualscroll/ for this. This would capture all the events and enable me to programmatically adjust what's currently visible etc. but the browser wouldn't actually be scrolling anything. This seems to provide mouse wheel driven scrolling.
Secondly, I think I need to display a scroll bar. I've had a look at http://codepen.io/chriscoyier/pen/gzBsA and I'm searching around more for something that looks more native. I just want it to visually display where the scroll is and allow the user to adjust the scroll position by dragging the scroller.
Stackoverflow is insisting I paste code so here is some code from that codepen link above
var elem = document.getElementById('scroll-area'),
track = elem.children[1],
thumb = track.children[0],
height = parseInt(elem.offsetHeight, 10),
cntHeight = parseInt(elem.children[0].offsetHeight, 10),
trcHeight = parseInt(track.offsetHeight, 10),
distance = cntHeight - height,
mean = 50, // For multiplier (go faster or slower)
current = 0;
elem.children[0].style.top = current + "px";
thumb.style.height = Math.round(trcHeight * height / cntHeight) + 'px';
var doScroll = function (e) {
// cross-browser wheel delta
e = window.event || e;
var delta = Math.max(-1, Math.min(1, (e.wheelDelta || -e.detail)));
// (1 = scroll-up, -1 = scroll-down)
if ((delta == -1 && current * mean >= -distance) || (delta == 1 && current * mean < 0)) {
current = current + delta;
}
// Move element up or down by updating the `top` value
elem.children[0].style.top = (current * mean) + 'px';
thumb.style.top = 0 - Math.round(trcHeight * (current * mean) / cntHeight) + 'px';
e.preventDefault();
};
if (elem.addEventListener) {
elem.addEventListener("mousewheel", doScroll, false);
elem.addEventListener("DOMMouseScroll", doScroll, false);
} else {
elem.attachEvent("onmousewheel", doScroll);
}
I imagine I'll have one class that listens to scroll events by either the virtual scroll method or the ui and then updates the ui scroller and the ui of the content I'm managing.
Anyway, I'll update this if I find anything more useful.

I think avoiding using DOM elements/byte is going to be the easier solution for me than creating a fake scrolling experience.
UPDATE: I ultimately solved this as explained here: Javascript "infinite" scrolling for finite content?

You're taking about using some serious javascript, specifically AJAX and JSON type elements. There is no easy answer to your questions. You'd need to do a lot of R&D on the subject.

How to resolve mouse hover on overlapping images in jQuery?

This question seems somewhat related to
How do I check if the mouse is over an element in jQuery?
jQuery check hover status before start trigger
but still not quite. Here's the thing: I'm writing a small gallery and at some point the user clicks on a thumbnail. The large version of the image shows as an inside of a full-screen . So far, so good. When the mouse hovers over that I show three images: close, left, right, intended to navigate through an album; when the mouse leaves the image or the navigation images, the three navigation images fade.
These three navigation images partially overlap with the main image, e.g. the close image is a circle in the upper left corner. And that's the tricky part.
The mouseleave triggers whenever the mouse moves from the main image off the side, or from the main image onto one of the three small overlapping images. The mouseenter triggers for each of the small overlapping images as expected.
However, this creates a funky blinking effect because on mouseleave of the main image I hide() the three small images, which immediately triggers a mouseenter for the main image because of the overlap and the mouse still being on top of the main image.
To avoid that, I tried to determine if, upon mouseleave of the main image, the mouse has moved onto one of the small overlapping images. For that, I used this code:
main_img.mouseleave(function() {
if (!hoverButtons()) {
doHideButtons();
}
});
function hoverButtons() {
return (close_img.is(":hover")) || (left_img.is(":hover")) || (right_img.is(":hover"));
}
This works great on Safari and Chrome, but not on FF and IE where the images still blink. Further noodling around posts, it seems that ":hover" is the problem here as it is not a proper selector expression but rather a CSS pseudo class?
I tried to work with switches that I flip on/off as I mouseenter/mouseleave the various images, but that doesn't work either because the events seem to trigger in different orders.
How do I go about this? Thanks!
EDIT: I might have to clarify: before the navigation buttons are shown, I set their respective left and top attributes in order to place them in dependence of the main image's position. That means I need to do some work before I can call .show() on a jQuery selector. I tried to add a new function .placeShow() but that didn't quite work with respect to selectors like $(".nav-button:hidden").placeShow().

You can try with this:
$("#main, #small").mouseenter(function() {
$("#small:hidden").show();
}).mouseleave(function(e) {
if(e.target.id != 'main' || e.target.id != 'small') {
$('#small').hide();
}
});
DEMO

Here is what I ended up doing. There are four images I use in my slide show: the main image, and then left, right, close button images.
main_img = $("<img ... class='main-photo slide-show'/>");
close_img = $("<img ... class='nav-button slide-show'/>");
left_img = $("<img ... class='nav-button slide-show'/>");
right_img = $("<img ... class='nav-button slide-show'/>");
The classes here are essentially empty, but help me to select based on above answers. The main image then shows without navigation buttons, and I attach these event handler functions:
$(".slide-show").mouseenter(function() {
$(".photo-nav:hidden").placeShow();
});
$(".slide-show").mouseleave(function() {
$(".photo-nav").hide();
});
where the placeShow() moves the navigation buttons into their respective places. This function is defined as follows:
$.fn.placeShow = function() {
var pos = main_img.position();
var left = pos.left;
var top = pos.top;
var width = main_img.width();
var height = main_img.height();
close_img.css({ "left":"" + (left-15) + "px", "top":"" + (top-15) + "px" }).show();
left_img.css({ "left":"" + (left+(width/2)-36) + "px" , "top": "" + (top+height-15) + "px" }).show();
right_img.css({ "left":"" + (left+(width/2)+3) + "px", "top":"" + (top+height-15) + "px" }).show();
}
This worked so far on Safari, IE, FF, Chrome (well, the versions I've got here...)
Let me know what you think, if I can trim this code more, or if there are alternative solutions that would be more elegant/fast. The final result of all this is on my website now.
Jens

How to know when an element will be off screen?

I am writing a simple script that displays a dialog box when a user hovers over a profile picture. It dynamically determines the profile pics location on the page and then places itself to the left of it and about 100px above it. This part is working fine.
My issue arises when a profile pic is at the top of the screen and a user mouses over it. The dialog will appear but the top portion of it will be above the fold (i.e. not in the current browser window). Naturally this is not good usability and I would like it to appear on the screen.
My question is how do I know when a dialog will be off screen so I can recalculate its position on the page?
I saw this question which seems like the same as mine but unfortunately no actual solution was provided other then to link to a jQuery plugin. I am using Prototype.

Prototype already provides positions with Element.viewportOffset().
Edit, as Mathew points out document.viewport gives the rest of the information. For example,
var dialogtop = dialog.viewportOffset().top;
if (dialogtop < 0) {
// above top of screen
}
elseif (dialogtop + dialog.getHeight > document.viewport.getHeight()) {
// below bottom of screen
}

You'll want to find the profile pic's position relative to the document (here's a good article on how, though I suspect Prototype's Element.Offset already handles this), then compare it to the body's scrollTop property to see if it's close enough to the top that it needs to have its dialog repositioned.

I am familiar with this problem, however, last time I was able to use a library (Seadragon) to get the screen dimensions and mouse position. I was also working with a fixed size overlay so no code to share with you other than general approach.
For my pop up box I decided to use the event mouse position rather than location of the div on the page. I then compared the mouse position to the known screen size, which I determined on start or resize.
From How do I get the size of the browser window using Prototype.js?
var viewport = document.viewport.getDimensions(); // Gets the viewport as an object literal
var width = viewport.width; // Usable window width
var height = viewport.height; // Usable window height
In Prototype you can also get the mouse coordinates:
function getcords(e){
mouseX = Event.pointerX(e);
mouseY = Event.pointerY(e);
//for testing put the mouse cords in a div for testing purposes
$('debug').innerHTML = 'mouseX:' + mouseX + '-- mouseY:' + mouseY;
}
Source : http://remorse.nl/2008/06/mouse_coordinates_with_prototype/