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Create Scrollable Div for Angular Chat

I am creating a chat application in Angular and I am trying to set up the UI for it. I need to create a div that will be housing the chat messages and as more messages fill the div I do not want the div to expand but just stay the same size and show a scroll bar. This div should be 100% the size of the parent div. As you click the button to add data the div grows. Even if I set a height in px or percent format the div still grows.

The page you link won't load but here are the basics to make a scrollable element:
HTML / JS Structure
Make an outer container div
Make an inner container div (this will be the "scroll wrapper")
Append the inner container to the outer container
Insert whatever you need into the inner container (you can use something like insertAdjacentHtml or whatever works for your specific situation)
This order of steps in particular will work well for a scenario where the contents are dynamically changing.
CSS
For the outer container
Set a fixed value for width and set height: auto
Set a border-radius if you want circular edges
Set overflow: hidden to keep the scroll wrapper's corners from popping out
You will probably want some padding
For the inner container
Set position: relative
Set overflow-y: auto and overflow-x: hidden so that you can scroll up and down, but not side to side
For the desired overflow behavior, you need to set width: 100% and set fixed values for max-height and min-height. (max-height decides when things will start to overflow ie. make a scroll bar)
You will want max-height and min-height to be less than the outer container's fixed width + any padding, etc. it may have.

Fixed side menu inside wrapper

So I have a site that is contained in a wrapper that has a max width. This site also has a fixed side menu that is toggled with a button.
My issue is having the fixed side menu to stay inside the page wrapper as fixed elements are relative to the window not the parent element.
Here is an example using position: fixed: https://jsfiddle.net/okavp4p1/
As you can see the menu is coming out from the side of the viewport, not the wrapper (grey area).
I have found away around this using position: absolute: https://jsfiddle.net/5q3hn1fq/
Here you can see the menu is coming out of the wrapper. (correct)
But I had to write some extra jQuery to spoof fixed positioning on scroll.
// Fix menu
$(window).on('load scroll resize', function() {
navigation.find('ul').css('top', $(window).scrollTop());
});
But doing it this way causes glitches/lag on most web browsers. Though the example isn't to bad when scrolling but when implementing this on an actual site with tons more elements/code it becomes very obvious.
Here is what it looks like in use when scrolling down the page:
I have thought of disabling scrolling when the menu is open but I was just wondering if anyone can help?

there is a work-around for this. you need to create a bar at the top with position:fixed. This bar should have height: 1px and no background-color so you can't see it.
then you can add your navigation inside of there, and float:right. when you float right, it will show up, but will be pinned to the invisible fixed bar at the top. also, you have to give the nav a width of 0 so its invisible. then you can transition its width to 100px or whatever you want on button click.
finally, use jQuery to set its height to the height of the window on resizing of the window, and when you show it.
here's the fiddle: https://jsfiddle.net/ahmadabdul3/pptggn6v/1/
since the bar is inside a position:relative bar, it shouldn't jump around as much (or at all)
do NOT add right or left padding to the navigation though, this will break the effect. instead, you can put a container around the nav, and make the nav width: 90% or something so it appears to have some padding.
here's an updated fiddle with how the padding should be: https://jsfiddle.net/ahmadabdul3/pptggn6v/2/

If performance accross all browsers is the issue, you could re-write your function using plain .js instead of jquery.
I couldn't replicate the jittery movement in chrome, but the below should be put less strain on the browser.
$(window).on('load scroll resize', function() {
document.getElementById('nav-list').style.top = window.scrollY + 'px';
});
https://jsfiddle.net/hb4zsL6g/

Style an element based on other element's attribute

I have a position:fixed div that serves as a container for a top menu. I want the following div, which is the container for the rest of the contents, to be placed exactly after the fixed div, to avoid content being hidden under the top div, but also avoid some sort of "blank space" between them.
The basic workaround this is setting a fixed "margin-top" value, but i was wondering if it's possible to set the contents container "margin-top" value to the height of the fixed top menu div using CSS, or is it preferable to do it with JavaScript?
Here's the basic layout example:
<div id="divTopFixed" style="width: 100%; position: fixed; top: 0px;">Some DIVs<br>That create variable height</div>
<div style="margin-top: 40px; width:100%;">CONTENTS<br>...</div>
And a JSFiddle: http://jsfiddle.net/zzcbajtz/

Setting margin-top to a fixed value is usually the right way to go about this.
If you're not sure about the height of the fixed top menu or it changes dynamically based on contents, you can use JavaScript/DOM events to adapt the margin value dynamically (e.g. in case the menu changes height when you resize the window, you could watch for the resize event and adjust the margin value).
I've updated the JSFiddle to show an example of how to tap into the resize event and set the margin by querying the offsetHeight of the fixed element: http://jsfiddle.net/zzcbajtz/2/
window.addEventListener('resize', (function resize(){
document.getElementById('the_div').style.marginTop =
document.getElementById('divTopFixed').offsetHeight + 'px';
return resize;
})());
This code fires when the document is loaded and then again whenever the window is resized.
CSS can't calculate complex layouts like this for you, unfortunately. There's some better support for layouts coming in the future (but I think even that doesn't solve the problem you're experiencing here).

Can I expand a div so the overflow-y:auto scrollbar doesn't clip the div content?

Similar question, without a great answer:
How can I include the width of "overflow: auto;" scrollbars in a dynamically sized absolute div?
I have a <div> of fixed height that acts as a menu of buttons of uniform width. Users can add/remove buttons from the menu. When there are more buttons than can fit vertically in the <div>, I want it to become scrollable - so I'm using overflow-y:auto, which indeed adds a scrollbar when the content is too large in y. Unfortunately, when the scrollbar shows up it overlaps the menu buttons, and adds a horizontal scroll bar as a result - the big problem is it just looks horrible.
Is there a "right" way to fix this? I'd love to learn some style trick to make it work right (i.e. the scrollbar sits outside the div rather than inside, or the div automatically expands to accommodate the scroll bar when necessary). If javascript is necessary, that's fine - I'm already using jQuery - in that case, what are the right events are to detect the scrollbar being added/removed, and how do I make sure to use the correct width in a cross-browser/cross-style way?
JSFiddle: http://jsfiddle.net/vAsdJ/
HTML:
<button type="button" id="add">Add a button!</button>
<div id="menu">
</div>
CSS:
#menu{
background:grey;
height:150px;
overflow-y:auto;
float:left;
}
Script:
$('#add').button().click(function(){
var d = $('<div/>');
var b = $('<button type="button">Test</button>');
d.appendTo($('#menu'));
b.button().appendTo(d);
});

First: To remove the horizontal scrollbar set overflow-x: hidden; as Trent Stewart has already mentioned in another answer.
CSS Approach:
One thing I have done in the past is to add a wider wrapping div around the content div to make room for the scrollbar. This, however, only works if your container width is fixed... and may need to be adjusted (by serving different styles) in various browsers due to variable rendering of scrollbars.
Here a jsfiddle for your case. Note the new wrapper <div id="menu-wrap"> and its fixed width width: 95px;. In this case the wrapper div is doing the scrolling.
You could probably also solve this by giving the wrapper some padding on the right, and thereby avoid the fixed width problem.
jQuery Approach:
Another option is to detect the overflow using jquery as described here, and then increasing the width or padding of the div to make space. You may still have to make browser-specific adjustments though.
Here a jsfiddle with a simplified version for your example. This uses your click function to check the div height after every click, and then adds some padding to make room for the scrollbar; a basic comparison between innerHeight and scrollHeight:
if($('#menu').innerHeight() < $('#menu')[0].scrollHeight){
$('#menu').css( "padding", "0 15px 0 0" );
}
To make this more cross-browser friendly you could check for the scrollbar width (as outlined here) and then add the returned value instead of the fixed padding. Here another jsfiddle to demonstrate.
There are probably many other methods, but this is how I would go about it.

Have you tried simply using overflow-x: visible; or hidden

width of dynamically inserted div containing text

I have a script that dynamically inserts a div containing text in the dom. The text content is not known in advance.
I need to know the width of this div, but it seems that that the return value of document.defaultView.getComputedStyle(node, "").getPropertyValue("width") or node.offsetWidth cannot be trusted.
I used setInterval to log it, and the value changes over time. For instance, in my case it starts with 929px and then changes to 908px.
This div is in position absolute, it has whitespace nowrap, so I don't think it is being "pushed" by other dom elements or that it somehow changes once inserted.
Is there an elegant way to retrieve the width, or do I have to use an ugly setTimeout to retrieve it once the return value is stable ?

Try:
yourDOMElement.getClientBoundingRect()
This will return an object with top, left, right, bottom, height and width attributes. This should be cross-browser.
Note: If you are going to work with the position attributes (top, left, right, bottom, height) of the returned, take into account scroll offset if necessary.
Update: To ensure this works on older browsers that don't have the width/height attribute, calculate it subtracting right/bottom from left/top.

The viewport can change its size because of the scrollbar. Once the scrollbar appears, its width can no longer be used by the document. Force the scrollbar to exist before you measure the size by adding overflow: scroll or overflow-y:scroll to the <html> element.
The size of a block-level element is, by default, its container width minus margins and padding (even if it's positioned absolutely), which is ultimately the wiewport width unless you set a fixed width somewhere along the way.

Using jQuery, you should be able to do this:
var width = $("div-selector").width();

this is fairly easy?
open the page in a browser and press f12. With firefox there is a button "inspect element" on top and in chrome it's on the bottom. Click it and hover your mouse over it. This should give you the height and width in px. Never been wrong for me.
if it still doesn't show, click it and you can see it in the css panel of the console.