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.

Test if element can be seen by the user on an html page

Is there any way to know if an element is visible on an html page?
Like this:
One can probably do it considering the horizontal/vertical scrolling positions, the width/height of the browser window and the position/size of the element on the page, but I have little experience in jQuery so I don't know how to do it. And there might be a simple function one can call, I don't know.

You can use the .is(':visible') selectors to check if an element is currently visible in the DOM.
Edit:
However, as #BenM mentioned, this doesn't check if the elements on your page are actually out of your scrollable range - a great little plugin you could use in that case would be Viewport Selectors for jQuery.

Here is some code that I use to do this. It has been tested to work great.
function isVisible($obj) {
var top = $(window).scrollTop();
var bottom = top + $(window).height();
var objTop = $obj.offset().top;
var objBottom = objTop + $obj.height();
if(objTop < bottom && objBottom > top) {
//some part of $obj is visible on the screen.
//does not consider left/right, only vertical.
}
}

Content flicker/jump on infinite scroll/loop

I am looking for help / a point in the right direction / or a solution for a flicker/jump, when scrolling on a looping/infinite website, which can be seen in this fiddle.
What seems to be causing the jump is:
"$(window).scrollTop(half_way - child_height);", and what could also be a Chrome windows scrollTop bug, but it is happening in all browsers at the moment.
If I remove "- child_height" there is no longer a flicker but the page no longer scrolls correctly, which can be seen in this fiddle.
Also, on the very first scroll the right hand column jumps up by three boxes - also because of 'half_way', which I can fix by giving it a "bottom: -600px;"
The full code:
http://jsfiddle.net/djsbaker/j3d8r/1/
var num_children = $('#up-left').children().length;
var child_height = $('#up-left').height() / num_children;
var half_way = num_children * child_height / 2;
$(window).scrollTop(half_way);
function crisscross() {
$('#up-left').css('bottom', '-' + window.scrollY + 'px');
$('#down-right').css('bottom', '-' + window.scrollY + 'px');
var firstLeft = $('#up-left').children().first();
var lastLeft = $('#up-left').children().last();
var lastRight = $('#down-right').children().last();
var firstRight = $('#down-right').children().first();
if (window.scrollY > half_way ) {
$(window).scrollTop(half_way - child_height);
lastRight.appendTo('#up-left');
firstLeft.prependTo('#down-right');
} else if (window.scrollY < half_way - child_height) {
$(window).scrollTop(half_way);
lastLeft.appendTo('#down-right');
firstRight.prependTo('#up-left');
}
}
$(window).scroll(crisscross);

Okay - here is a 'working' version - and by works I mean it less flickery than before. I thought it was flicker free, and it was when I was on battery power, but plugged into the mains and the CPU is fast enough to get flicker.
As I mentioned, to get rid of the flicker you need to clone the objects, manipulate them and then replace them into the DOM, rather than just manipulating the DOM directly.
I did this by getting the contents of <div id="content"> manipulating them and then replacing them into that <div>.
Also, it's a good idea to only find things in the DOM once, and from then on use a reference to that object rather than searching repeatedly. e.g.
var leftSide = $(clone).find('.up-left');
....
lastRight.appendTo(leftSide);
....
$(leftSide).css('bottom', '-' + window.scrollY + 'px');
rather than:
lastRight.appendTo('#up-left');
$('#up-left').css('bottom', '-' + window.scrollY + 'px');
Searching the DOM is relatively slow, and so storing references can improve performance/reduce flicker.
Storing the object also makes the code easier to understand (imho) as you can easily see that you're referencing the same thing, rather than possibly different things.

I still get flickering in chrome on windows with Danack solution. For this site I would control all the scrolling (you already scroll manually one of the sides), and give elements absolute positions.
Or if you insist on using the browser scrolling, may be use animations: animate the height of the last elements till 0px then use appendTo, and then animato from 0px to the normal height...

This might be a long shot, but I had the same flickering when working with infinitescroll,
and ended up using imagesLoaded.I ended up appending the additional images (now loaded) with a fade in, and that prevented them from flickering because of the fact they were loaded.
So maybe by using the imagesloaded - or a callback on the images, you can solve the flickering. It does decrease the speed though. I can image that if you want to scroll through everything as fast as possible, this might not be the solution. Good luck!

A solution would be to not use the native scrolling functionality but to simulate scrolling. This would be done by setting the overflow of your content to "hidden" in addition with capturing the "mousewheel" event on it and triggering some action when it is called. I started to try this out here (using MooTools instead of jQuery since I'm more fimilar with it). It's currently just "working" on the left side by altering the margin-top of the first element.
My next steps would be:
Check if the negative margin-top of the first element is bigger than the height of it and move it to the right side if so.
Same logic for the last box on the right side with a negative margin-bottom.
This has some downsides, though. Simulating scrolling doesn't feel as natural as the native scrolling functionality and clicking the mousewheel doesn't work. These might be solveable but it would require some more coding to get it to work smoothly. Anyway, in the end you would have a solution without any flickering and with no sticky scrollbar at the side (An idea for a replacement could be a small area on the side that triggers the scrolling on mouseover).

Scroll a div vertically to a desired position using jQuery

This is a followup question for this:
Scrollpane on the bottom, css is hacky, javascript is hard
I ended up doing the scrolling in the same way explained in the accepted answer.
Now there is a request that one item is selected somehow (eg. as an url parameter or by some javascript calls) I should scroll the pane to the item with the corresponding ID in the scrollpane. Like a link to an anchor () would work!
I want to make a javascript call like this
function scrollTo(id) {
$('#middle').magicallyScrollThatItemWouldBeVisible(itemid);
}
But this is not in jQuery (or at least I don't know of it). So is there a way to make it?
I'll post a simple jsFiddle here:
http://jsfiddle.net/ruisoftware/U6QdQ/4/
Help me write that scrollTo function!
A .animate would be fine too.
UPDATE: If it was not clear I would like it to only align to the left or right side of the panel, it it was overflowed on that side (so the minimum possible amount of scrolling happens)

It's not jQuery, just JavaScript, and I've actually never used it all, so I'm not sure how you would have to mess with it to get it to work in this situation, but there is a scrollIntoView function:
yourElement.scrollIntoView();

Since the elements have a fixed width, you can count the number of elements by using .index() + 1, and animate to this value (after subtracting the container's width).
If you want the element to be centered, use - Math.round(middle.width()/100)*50.
Fiddle: http://jsfiddle.net/U6QdQ/17/
//This code should be run on load / DOMReady
(function($){ //Run on load / DOMReady
$.fn.magicScrollTo = function(){
var middle = $("#middle");
var currentScrollLeft = middle.scrollLeft();
var width = middle.width();
var newScrollLeft = this.offset().left + currentScrollLeft - middle.offset().left;
if(newScrollLeft >= currentScrollLeft && newScrollLeft <= currentScrollLeft + width - this.outerWidth()) return;
if(newScrollLeft > currentScrollLeft){ //If the element is at the right side
newScrollLeft = newScrollLeft - width + this.outerWidth();
}
middle.animate({
scrollLeft: newScrollLeft,
}, 'fast')
}
})(jQuery);
Usage:
//Select the 4rd element, and scroll to it (eq is zero-based):
$('.item').eq(3).magicScrollTo();

Something along these lines would be a good start:
http://jsfiddle.net/vHjJ4/
This will bring the target into the centre of the carousel. I think you will have to add in some extra checks to make sure that it didn't scroll to far, for example if you targeted the first or last element...unless this is built into the scroll function (it might be).

I'm not sure I understand your question exactly, but it sounds like you're asking how to scroll horizontally to the selected item in the bottom pane. If so, try something like this:
//get the position of the element relative to the parent ("middle")
var pos = $("#itemid").position();
if (pos){
$("#middle").scrollLeft(pos.left);
}
From here, you can use the width of middle to center the item if needed.

JavaScript to scroll long page to DIV

I have a link on a long HTML page. When I click it, I wish a div on another part of the page to be visible in the window by scrolling into view.
A bit like EnsureVisible in other languages.
I've checked out scrollTop and scrollTo but they seem like red herrings.
Can anyone help?

old question, but if anyone finds this through google (as I did) and who does not want to use anchors or jquery; there's a builtin javascriptfunction to 'jump' to an element;
document.getElementById('youridhere').scrollIntoView();
and what's even better; according to the great compatibility-tables on quirksmode, this is supported by all major browsers!

If you don't want to add an extra extension the following code should work with jQuery.
$('a[href=#target]').
click(function(){
var target = $('a[name=target]');
if (target.length)
{
var top = target.offset().top;
$('html,body').animate({scrollTop: top}, 1000);
return false;
}
});

How about the JQuery ScrollTo - see this sample code

You can use Element.scrollIntoView() method as was mentioned above. If you leave it with no parameters inside you will have an instant ugly scroll. To prevent that you can add this parameter - behavior:"smooth".
Example:
document.getElementById('scroll-here-plz').scrollIntoView({behavior: "smooth", block: "start", inline: "nearest"});
Just replace scroll-here-plz with your div or element on a website. And if you see your element at the bottom of your window or the position is not what you would have expected, play with parameter block: "". You can use block: "start", block: "end" or block: "center".
Remember: Always use parameters inside an object {}.
If you would still have problems, go to https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Element/scrollIntoView
There is detailed documentation for this method.

Click here to scroll
<A name='myAnchorALongWayDownThePage"></a>
No fancy scrolling but it should take you there.

The difficulty with scrolling is that you may not only need to scroll the page to show a div, but you may need to scroll inside scrollable divs on any number of levels as well.
The scrollTop property is a available on any DOM element, including the document body. By setting it, you can control how far down something is scrolled. You can also use clientHeight and scrollHeight properties to see how much scrolling is needed (scrolling is possible when clientHeight (viewport) is less than scrollHeight (the height of the content).
You can also use the offsetTop property to figure out where in the container an element is located.
To build a truly general purpose "scroll into view" routine from scratch, you would need to start at the node you want to expose, make sure it's in the visible portion of it's parent, then repeat the same for the parent, etc, all the way until you reach the top.
One step of this would look something like this (untested code, not checking edge cases):
function scrollIntoView(node) {
var parent = node.parent;
var parentCHeight = parent.clientHeight;
var parentSHeight = parent.scrollHeight;
if (parentSHeight > parentCHeight) {
var nodeHeight = node.clientHeight;
var nodeOffset = node.offsetTop;
var scrollOffset = nodeOffset + (nodeHeight / 2) - (parentCHeight / 2);
parent.scrollTop = scrollOffset;
}
if (parent.parent) {
scrollIntoView(parent);
}
}

This worked for me
document.getElementById('divElem').scrollIntoView();

Answer posted here - same solution to your problem.
Edit: the JQuery answer is very nice if you want a smooth scroll - I hadn't seen that in action before.

Why not a named anchor?

The property you need is location.hash. For example:
location.hash = 'top'; //would jump to named anchor "top
I don't know how to do the nice scroll animation without the use of dojo or some toolkit like that, but if you just need it to jump to an anchor, location.hash should do it.
(tested on FF3 and Safari 3.1.2)

I can't add a comment to futtta's reply above, but for a smoother scroll use:
onClick="document.getElementById('more').scrollIntoView({block: 'start', behavior: 'smooth'});"

<button onClick="scrollIntoView()"></button>
<br>
<div id="scroll-to"></div>
function scrollIntoView() {
document.getElementById('scroll-to').scrollIntoView({
behavior: 'smooth'
});
}
The scrollIntoView method accepts scroll-Options to animate the scroll.
With smooth scroll
document.getElementById('scroll-to').scrollIntoView({
behavior: 'smooth'
});
No animation
document.getElementById('scroll-to').scrollIntoView();

There is a jQuery plugin for the general case of scrolling to a DOM element, but if performance is an issue (and when is it not?), I would suggest doing it manually. This involves two steps:
Finding the position of the element you are scrolling to.
Scrolling to that position.
quirksmode gives a good explanation of the mechanism behind the former. Here's my preferred solution:
function absoluteOffset(elem) {
return elem.offsetParent && elem.offsetTop + absoluteOffset(elem.offsetParent);
}
It uses casting from null to 0, which isn't proper etiquette in some circles, but I like it :) The second part uses window.scroll. So the rest of the solution is:
function scrollToElement(elem) {
window.scroll(0, absoluteOffset(elem));
}
Voila!

As stated already, Element.scrollIntoView() is a good answer. Since the question says "I have a link on a long HTML page..." I want to mention a relevant detail. If this is done through a functional link it may not produce the desired effect of scrolling to the target div. For example:
HTML:
<a id="link1" href="#">Scroll With Link</a>
JavaScript:
const link = document.getElementById("link1");
link.onclick = showBox12;
function showBox12()
{
const box = document.getElementById("box12");
box.scrollIntoView();
console.log("Showing Box:" + box);
}
Clicking on Scroll With Link will show the message on the console, but it would seem to have no effect because the # will bring the page back to the top. Interestingly, if using href="" one might actually see the page scroll to the div and jump back to the top.
One solution is to use the standard JavaScript to properly disable the link:
<a id="link1" href="javascript:void(0);">Scroll With Link</a>
Now it will go to box12 and stay there.

I use a lightweight javascript plugin that I found works across devices, browsers and operating systems: zenscroll

scrollTop (IIRC) is where in the document the top of the page is scrolled to. scrollTo scrolls the page so that the top of the page is where you specify.
What you need here is some Javascript manipulated styles. Say if you wanted the div off-screen and scroll in from the right you would set the left attribute of the div to the width of the page and then decrease it by a set amount every few seconds until it is where you want.
This should point you in the right direction.
Additional: I'm sorry, I thought you wanted a separate div to 'pop out' from somewhere (sort of like this site does sometimes), and not move the entire page to a section. Proper use of anchors would achieve that effect.

I personally found Josh's jQuery-based answer above to be the best I saw, and worked perfectly for my application... of course, I was already using jQuery... I certainly wouldn't have included the whole jQ library just for that one purpose.
Cheers!
EDIT: OK... so mere seconds after posting this, I saw another answer just below mine (not sure if still below me after an edit) that said to use:
document.getElementById('your_element_ID_here').scrollIntoView();
This works perfectly and in so much less code than the jQuery version! I had no idea that there was a built-in function in JS called .scrollIntoView(), but there it is! So, if you want the fancy animation, go jQuery. Quick n' dirty... use this one!

For smooth scroll this code is useful
$('a[href*=#scrollToDivId]').click(function() {
if (location.pathname.replace(/^\//,'') == this.pathname.replace(/^\//,'') && location.hostname == this.hostname) {
var target = $(this.hash);
target = target.length ? target : $('[name=' + this.hash.slice(1) +']');
var head_height = $('.header').outerHeight(); // if page has any sticky header get the header height else use 0 here
if (target.length) {
$('html,body').animate({
scrollTop: target.offset().top - head_height
}, 1000);
return false;
}
}
});

Correct me if I'm wrong but I'm reading the question again and again and still think that Angus McCoteup was asking how to set an element to be position: fixed.
Angus McCoteup, check out http://www.cssplay.co.uk/layouts/fixed.html - if you want your DIV to behave like a menu there, have a look at a CSS there