jQuery: Get height of hidden element in jQuery

Question

I need to get height of an element that is within a div that is hidden. Right now I show the div, get the height, and hide the parent div. This seems a bit silly. Is there a

Answer 1

In my circumstance I also had a hidden element stopping me from getting the height value, but it wasn't the element itself but rather one of it's parents... so I just put in a check for one of my plugins to see if it's hidden, else find the closest hidden element. Here's an example:

var $content = $('.content'),
    contentHeight = $content.height(),
    contentWidth = $content.width(),
    $closestHidden,
    styleAttrValue,
    limit = 20; //failsafe

if (!contentHeight) {
    $closestHidden = $content;
    //if the main element itself isn't hidden then roll through the parents
    if ($closestHidden.css('display') !== 'none') { 
        while ($closestHidden.css('display') !== 'none' && $closestHidden.size() && limit) {
            $closestHidden = $closestHidden.parent().closest(':hidden');
            limit--;
        }
    }
    styleAttrValue = $closestHidden.attr('style');
    $closestHidden.css({
        position:   'absolute',
        visibility: 'hidden',
        display:    'block'
    });
    contentHeight = $content.height();
    contentWidth = $content.width();

    if (styleAttrValue) {
        $closestHidden.attr('style',styleAttrValue);
    } else {
        $closestHidden.removeAttr('style');
    }
}

In fact, this is an amalgamation of Nick, Gregory and Eyelidlessness's responses to give you the use of Gregory's improved method, but utilises both methods in case there is supposed to be something in the style attribute that you want to put back, and looks for a parent element.

My only gripe with my solution is that the loop through the parents isn't entirely efficient.

Answer 2

I try to find working function for hidden element but I realize that CSS is much complex than everyone think. There are a lot of new layout techniques in CSS3 that might not work for all previous answers like flexible box, grid, column or even element inside complex parent element.

flexibox example

I think the only sustainable & simple solution is real-time rendering. At that time, browser should give you that correct element size.

Sadly, JavaScript does not provide any direct event to notify when element is showed or hidden. However, I create some function based on DOM Attribute Modified API that will execute callback function when visibility of element is changed.

$('[selector]').onVisibleChanged(function(e, isVisible)
{
    var realWidth = $('[selector]').width();
    var realHeight = $('[selector]').height();

    // render or adjust something
});

For more information, Please visit at my project GitHub.

https://github.com/Soul-Master/visible.event.js

demo: http://jsbin.com/ETiGIre/7