Improving Performance on Background Parallax Scrolling - javascript

Hello StackOverflow Community,
what I am trying to achieve is a header that can be moved with the mouse.
You klick into the header and drag the mouse and the elements inside the header will move with different speeds.
I achieved the parallaxing part but the performance is not really good. It is partially a bit laggy while dragging the backgrounds.
My question now is: what can be changed in the code to get a performance boost?
That's the part of the code that takes care of parallaxing. On every mousemove a each loop is executed which I think is the reason for the performance beeing so laggy:
var dragging = false;
var clickMouseX;
//Our object for the layers
//each layer has a different scrolling speed
var movingObjects = {
'#header-l1' : {'speed': 1},
'#header-l2' : {'speed': 1.4},
'#header-l3' : {'speed': 1.85},
'#header-l4' : {'speed': 2.2},
};
$('#header-wrapper').mousedown(function(e){
dragging = true;
//Get initial mouse position when clicked
clickMouseX = e.pageX;
$(this).mousemove(function(mme){
//execute only if mousedown
if(dragging){
//iterate through all layers which have to be parallaxed
$.each(movingObjects, function(el, opt){
var element = $(el);
//get difference of initial mouse position and current mouse position
var diff = clickMouseX - mme.pageX;
//scroll-position left speed 1
if(diff < 0) diff = -1;
//scroll position right speed 1
if(diff >= 0) diff = 1;
//get current position of layer
currLeft = parseInt(element.css('left'));
//get current layer width
elWidth = element.width();
//if right border is reached don't scroll further
if(currLeft < -(elWidth - 810)){
element.css('left', -(elWidth - 810));
}
//so do with left border
if(currLeft > 0){
element.css('left', 0);
}
//parallax it! Subtract the scroll position speed multiplied by the speed of the desired
//layer from the current left property
element.css('left', parseInt(element.css('left')) - diff*opt.speed);
});
}
});
/* Cursor */
$(this).css('cursor', 'pointer');
return false;
});
I also put a fiddle up:
http://jsfiddle.net/yWGDz/
Thanks in advance,
Thomas
P.S. maybe someone even finds out why layer two and three have the same scroll speed while having different speeds defined.

I worked at this a bit, and came up with this: http://jsfiddle.net/amqER/2/
This works a lot faster than the original (especially in firefox, where it performs a whole lot better, chrome it's still pretty slow). I also changed up some of the logic in your code, to make it make more sense.
A list of things that I did:
Minify your pngs
2 of your png files were over 2 megs, so I threw them into a png compressor (tinypng) and that reduced the size a lot. This helps with loading time and overall snappiness.
Re-use values as much as possible
In your original code, you wrote to and then subsequently read from the css left property a couple times in your code. Doing this is going to make it a lot slower. Instead, I kept an left property, and would only touch $.css when I absolutely needed to. Likewise for reading each element's width each update.
Also, like I said, I modified your logic to (I think) make more sense, given what you were trying to accomplish. It calculates a new diff each update, and tries to move according to that. Also, it doesn't try to keep moving once one of the images falls off (which yours does if you move all the way to the right, and it looks really weird). You can also look at this: http://jsfiddle.net/amqER/5/, which maybe is more like the control scheme you wanted.

Just some quick performance tips.
Try not to use $(this).mousemove instead save $(this) into a variable and use that.
var th = $(this);
th.mousemove...
Try to avoid using $.each. This is probably the part that's slowing your code down.
You can replace it with a for loop, but I would suggest, in this case, sending in each element one by one.
var parallax = function(img){
};
parallax(img1);
parallax(img2);
instantly-increase-your-jquery-performance

Whilst Xymostech's answer does greatly improve upon the original poster's original code; the performance is hardly improved for me in Chrome.
Whilst inspecting the page FPS, the solution posted here runs at 15FPS for me on a Retina MacBook Pro.
I made a very simple change to the code, altering it to use translate3d properties instead of left. Now, it runs at 55-60 FPS for me. I'd call that a massive performance boost.
If 'show paint rectangles' are turned on in Chrome, you'll see the previously posted solution is continually painting changes to the dom whilst the parallax is in motion. With the translate3d solution, there's simply zero painting done the whole time the parallax is in motion.
http://jsfiddle.net/LG47e/

Related

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.

Scroll snapping to a page section

So I have two sections of content near the top of my page and I’d like for users who have scrolled down to near the top of the second section to get “scroll snapped” to the top of the second one once they have stopped scrolling.
I think it should be possible using jQuery but I haven’t been able to figure it out. Here are my examples:
Without my attempt: http://codepen.io/jifarris/pen/gaVgBp
With my broken attempt: http://codepen.io/jifarris/pen/gaVgQp
Basically I can’t figure out how to make it try scrolling to the spot only once, after scrolling has stopped. It’s kind of just freaking out.
I love how the recently introduced scroll snap points CSS feature handles scroll snapping and I’d almost prefer to use it – for the browsers that support it, at least – but it seems like it only works for items that take up 100% of the viewport height or width, and it seems like it’s for scrolling within an element, not the page itself.
The top section has a fixed height, so this really can be handled with pixel numbers.
And for reference, here’s the heart of the code from my attempt:
$(function() {
$(document).on('scroll', function() {
var top = $(document).scrollTop();
if (top > 255 && top < 455) {
$('html, body').animate({scrollTop: '356'}, 500);
$('body').addClass('hotzone');
} else {
$('body').removeClass('hotzone');
}
});
});
KQI's answer contains most of the steps required to create a well functioning section-scroll for use in your application/webpage.
However, if you'd just want to experiment yourself, developing your script further, the first thing you'll have to do is add a timeout handler. Otherwise your logic, and therefor scrollAnimation, will trigger every single pixel scrolled and create a buggy bouncing effect.
I have provided a working example based on your script here:
http://codepen.io/anon/pen/QjepRZ?editors=001
$(function() {
var timeout;
$(document).on('scroll', function() {
clearTimeout(timeout);
timeout = setTimeout(function() {
var top = $(document).scrollTop();
if (top > 255 && top < 455) {
$('body').animate({
scrollTop: '356'
}, 500);
$('body').addClass('hotzone');
} else {
$('body').removeClass('hotzone');
}
}, 50);
});
});
Good luck!
All right, there are couple of things you gonna have to deal with to get a good result: which are performance, call stack queue, easing.
Performance wise you should drop jQuery animate and use VelocityJs which gives a smoother transition, better frame per second (fps) to avoid screen glitches especially on mobiles.
Call stack: you should wrap whatever logic you have to animate the scrolltop with 'debounce' function, set the delay for let say 500mm and check the scrolling behavior. Just so you know, the 'scroll' listener your using is firing on each pixel change and your script will go crazy and erratic. (It is just gonna be a moment of so many calc at the same time. Debounce will fix that for you)
Easing: make the transition looks cool not just dry snappy movement.
Remember, 'easing' with Velocity starts with 'mina.' i.e.
'Mina.easingFnName'
Finally, your logic could be right, i am in my phone now cannot debug it but try to simplify it and work with a single problem at once, be like i.e.
If ( top > 380 ) // debounce(...)

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).

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 solve element flicker while scrolling with parallax effect in JavaScript?

I am trying to re-create website with parallax effect using JavaScript. That means that I have two or more layers, that are moving different speeds while scrolling.
In my case I'm moving only one layer, the other one remains static:
layer 1 = website text;
layer 2 = element background;
for this I'm using simple source code (with jQuery 1.6.4):
var docwindow = $(window);
function newpos(pos, adjust, ratio){
return ((pos - adjust) * ratio) + "px";
}
function move(){
var pos = docwindow.scrollTop();
element.css({'top' : newpos(pos, 0, 0.5)});
}
$(window).scroll(function(){
move();
});
The Problem:
- All calculations are done right and the effect "works" as expected. But there is some performance glitch under some browsers (Chrome MAC/Windows, Opera MAC, IE, paradoxically not Safari).
What do I see during scrolling?
- While scrolling the background moves in one direction together with scroll, but it seems to occasionally jump few pixels back and then forth, which creates very disturbing effect (not fluid).
Solutions that I tried:
- adding a timer to limit scroll events
- using .animate() method with short duration instead of .css() method.
I've also observed, that the animation is smooth when using .scrollTo method (scrollTo jQuery plugin). So I suspect that there is something wrong with firing scroll events (too fast).
Have you observed the same behavior?
Do you know, how to fix it?
Can you post a better solution?
Thanks for all responses
EDIT #1:
Here you can find jsfiddle demonstration (with timer): http://jsfiddle.net/4h9Ye/1/
I think you should be using scrollTop() instead and change the background position to fixed. The problem is that setting it to absolute will make it move by default when you scroll up or down.
The flicker occurs because the position is updated as part of the default browser scroll and updated again as part of your script. This will render both positions instead of just the one you want. With fixed, the background will never move unless you tell it so.
I've created a demo for you at http://jsfiddle.net/4h9Ye/2/ .

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