Using scrollIntoView with a fixed position header

Question

I have a site with a header set to position: fixed. On one of my pages, I use scrollIntoView(true) on an element. My problem is that when scr

Answer 1

In case if someone has fixed navbar which hides Header\Title after scrolling, here is the solution (based on @coco puffs's answer and this one):

let anchorLinks = document.querySelectorAll('a[href^="#"]')

for (let item of anchorLinks) {
  item.addEventListener('click', (e) => {
    let hashVal = item.getAttribute('href')
    let topOfElement = document.querySelector(hashVal).offsetTop - 70

    window.scroll({ top: topOfElement, behavior: "smooth" })
    history.pushState(null, null, hashVal)
    e.preventDefault()
  })
}

In the code 70px are used.

Answer 2

Edit: Although less compatible (no Edge + IE compatibility), scroll-margin-top will also solve this, as mentioned in the answer from Arye Eidelman.

You can solve this with CSS, by applying a padding-top and a negative margin-top to the elements that you want to scroll to.

Demo

// For demo only, no JS needed for the solution
document.querySelector('.scroll-to-working-inline').addEventListener('click', function() {
  document.querySelector('.working-inline').scrollIntoView();
});

document.querySelector('.scroll-to-working-block').addEventListener('click', function() {
  document.querySelector('.working-block').scrollIntoView();
});

document.querySelector('.scroll-to-broken').addEventListener('click', function() {
  document.querySelector('.broken').scrollIntoView();
});

/* Relevant styles */
.working-inline {
  padding-top: 60px;
  margin-top: -60px;
}

.working-block {
  padding-top: 60px;
  margin-top: -60px;
}

/* Allow scrolling to the top */
body {
  padding-top: 60px;
}

/* Only for the demo */
body { margin: 0; }

header {
  position: fixed;
  top: 0;
  background-color: tomato;
  color: white;
  width: 100%;
  height: 60px;
  line-height: 60px;
  text-align: center;
}

[class^='working'],
[class^='broken'] {
  font-size: 3rem;
}

<header>
  scroll to...
  <button class="scroll-to-working-inline">working inline element</button>
  <button class="scroll-to-working-block">working block element</button>
  <button class="scroll-to-broken">broken element</button>
</header>

<main>
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  <a class="working-inline">Working inline</a>
  
  <p>Syn baz man pages unix vi crack leapfrog semaphore fail pwned afk null socket cd long leet emacs Donald Knuth bin grep todo pragma stdio.h January 1, 1970. Alloc gc system new finally sql stack trace syn mainframe cat machine code memory leak server salt flood tunnel in back door thread. Bytes fatal throw ctl-c Dennis Ritchie over clock eof tera perl regex.</p>
  
  <div class="working-block">Working block element</div>
  
  <p>Public injection class unix malloc error script kiddies packet less fail int I'm sorry Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that. Tarball memory leak double rsa pwned public all your base are belong to us. False bytes bang bar tarball semaphore warez cd port daemon exception mountain dew sql mainframe gcc ifdef chown private.</p>
  
  <div class="broken">Broken element</div>
  
  <p>Daemon bubble sort protected mutex overflow grep snarf crack warez I'm compiling bit if memory leak Starcraft nak script kiddies long it's a feature. Hello world public server James T. Kirk injection terminal wannabee race condition syn alloc. Gobble leapfrog finally bypass concurrently while irc gurfle do back door blob man pages sql over clock.</p>
  
  <p>Char hello world then man pages ascii long salt while char fatal do boolean tunnel in system else foo packet sniffer float terminal int default. Trojan horse ssh ifdef /dev/null chown cache error protocol afk todo rm -rf mainframe piggyback pwned regex xss warez Starcraft try catch stdio.h bubble sort. It's a feature I'm sorry Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that *.* port bypass ip.</p>
  
  <p>Stdio.h epoch mutex flood wannabee do race condition sql access exception. Bar pragma man pages dereference flush todo highjack while buffer bit nak big-endian syn xss salt for d00dz. Leslie Lamport linux server error hexadecimal snarf tunnel in rm -rf firewall then shell all your base are belong to us.</p>

  <p>Ascii gcc grep int flood kilo linux access mailbomb hash *.* fork semaphore frack else win bar ssh Leslie Lamport. Man pages strlen cache gnu segfault tarball race condition perl packet sniffer root cookie private chown d00dz January 1, 1970. Rsa public crack bit warez throw for void concurrently ip mutex.</p>
  
  <p>Char hello world then man pages ascii long salt while char fatal do boolean tunnel in system else foo packet sniffer float terminal int default. Trojan horse ssh ifdef /dev/null chown cache error protocol afk todo rm -rf mainframe piggyback pwned regex xss warez Starcraft try catch stdio.h bubble sort. It's a feature I'm sorry Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that *.* port bypass ip.</p>
  
  <p>Stdio.h epoch mutex flood wannabee do race condition sql access exception. Bar pragma man pages dereference flush todo highjack while buffer bit nak big-endian syn xss salt for d00dz. Leslie Lamport linux server error hexadecimal snarf tunnel in rm -rf firewall then shell all your base are belong to us.</p>

  <p>Ascii gcc grep int flood kilo linux access mailbomb hash *.* fork semaphore frack else win bar ssh Leslie Lamport. Man pages strlen cache gnu segfault tarball race condition perl packet sniffer root cookie private chown d00dz January 1, 1970. Rsa public crack bit warez throw for void concurrently ip mutex.</p>
  
  <p>Char hello world then man pages ascii long salt while char fatal do boolean tunnel in system else foo packet sniffer float terminal int default. Trojan horse ssh ifdef /dev/null chown cache error protocol afk todo rm -rf mainframe piggyback pwned regex xss warez Starcraft try catch stdio.h bubble sort. It's a feature I'm sorry Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that *.* port bypass ip.</p>
  
  <p>Stdio.h epoch mutex flood wannabee do race condition sql access exception. Bar pragma man pages dereference flush todo highjack while buffer bit nak big-endian syn xss salt for d00dz. Leslie Lamport linux server error hexadecimal snarf tunnel in rm -rf firewall then shell all your base are belong to us.</p>

  <p>Ascii gcc grep int flood kilo linux access mailbomb hash *.* fork semaphore frack else win bar ssh Leslie Lamport. Man pages strlen cache gnu segfault tarball race condition perl packet sniffer root cookie private chown d00dz January 1, 1970. Rsa public crack bit warez throw for void concurrently ip mutex.</p>
</main>

Answer 3

It's a bit hacky but here's a workaround.

var node = 'select your element';
var yourHeight = 'height of your fixed header';

// scroll to your element
node.scrollIntoView(true);

// now account for fixed header
var scrolledY = window.scrollY;

if(scrolledY){
  window.scroll(0, scrolledY - yourHeight);
}

Edit:

A modern workaround is to use the CSS scroll-margin-top property in combination with the :target selector. Described in detail: https://www.bram.us/2020/03/01/prevent-content-from-being-hidden-underneath-a-fixed-header-by-using-scroll-margin-top/

Answer 4

If anybody runs into issues with the top margin of your container div being ignored after a scrollIntoView, then instead of scrolling your element into view, just do a scrollTop relative to its parent scrolling container, as such:

var topOfElementToView= $('#elementToScroll').position().top;
$('#parentScrollingContainer').scrollTop(topOfElementToView);

Got the answer from user113716 on this thread: How to go to a specific element on page?

Answer 5

I suspect that what will work for the individual will greatly depend on their page layout, so this answer is intended as an additional option rather than to usurp anyone.

All I needed to do was pass false to scroll into view scrollIntoView(false)

it('should be able to click a button selector', function () {
    let EC = protractor.ExpectedConditions;
    let button = element(by.css('.my-button-css));

    browser.executeScript('arguments[0].scrollIntoView(false)', button.getWebElement()).then(function () {
        browser.wait(EC.elementToBeClickable(button), 3000).then(function () {
            expect(button.isDisplayed()).toBeTruthy();
            button.click();

            // more test logic here

        });
    });
});

Thanks to reboot jeff

Answer 6

scroll-margin-top: $header-height;

There is a new non-hacky way to achieve this that works for standard HTML links and js scrollIntoView. using the scroll-margin-top CSS property.

You can use the CSS property scroll-margin-top with the same height as the header.

This doesn't add any visible margin but adds spacing above an element when linking to it.

/*
  Add a scroll-margin-top to all elements that you want to be able to link to.
  (you may need to select items that don't have an id as well)
*/

*[id] {
  scroll-margin-top: 100px;
}

Can I use scroll-margin-top? this works in most modern browsers (not Sefari, IE, and the old edge).

MDN docs scroll-margin-top

---

I've added smooth scrolling to the demo below so it's apparent that this is using scrollIntoView.

Veiw in codepen

links = [ ...document.getElementsByClassName("js-link")]
links.map(element => {
  element.addEventListener("click", e => {
    e.preventDefault()
    document.getElementById(e.target.dataset.target).scrollIntoView({
      behavior: "smooth", block: "start", inline: "nearest"
    })
    // For safari, ie and edge (pre-2020)
    // document.getElementById(e.target.dataset.target).scrollIntoView(true)
  })
})

body {
  margin: 0;
}

header {
  position: sticky;
  top: 0;
  left: 0;
  right: 0;
  height: 100px;
  background: #eee;
  display: flex;
  align-items: center;
}
header a {
  padding: 0.5em;
}

h1 {
  padding: 0.7em;
}

*[id] {
  scroll-margin-top: 100px;
}

p {
  padding: 1em;
}

<header>
  <h1>page title</h1>
  <nav>
    <a href="#p1" class="js-link" data-target="p1">1</a>
    <a href="#p2" class="js-link" data-target="p2">2</a>
    <a href="#p3" class="js-link" data-target="p3">3</a>
    <a href="#p4" class="js-link" data-target="p4">4</a>
    <a href="#p5" class="js-link" data-target="p5">5</a>
  </nav>
</header>

<main>
  <p id="p1">
    paragraph 1.
    <br>
    Lorem Ipsum is simply dummy text of the printing and typesetting industry. Lorem Ipsum has been the industry's standard dummy text ever since the 1500s, when an unknown printer took a galley of type and scrambled it to make a type specimen book. It has survived not only five centuries, but also the leap into electronic typesetting, remaining essentially unchanged. It was popularised in the 1960s with the release of Letraset sheets containing Lorem Ipsum passages, and more recently with desktop publishing software like Aldus PageMaker including versions of Lorem Ipsu
  </p>
  <p id="p2">
    paragraph 2.
    <br>
    Lorem Ipsum is simply dummy text of the printing and typesetting industry. Lorem Ipsum has been the industry's standard dummy text ever since the 1500s, when an unknown printer took a galley of type and scrambled it to make a type specimen book. It has survived not only five centuries, but also the leap into electronic typesetting, remaining essentially unchanged. It was popularised in the 1960s with the release of Letraset sheets containing Lorem Ipsum passages, and more recently with desktop publishing software like Aldus PageMaker including versions of Lorem Ipsu
  </p>
  <p id="p3">
    paragraph 3.
    <br>
    Lorem Ipsum is simply dummy text of the printing and typesetting industry. Lorem Ipsum has been the industry's standard dummy text ever since the 1500s, when an unknown printer took a galley of type and scrambled it to make a type specimen book. It has survived not only five centuries, but also the leap into electronic typesetting, remaining essentially unchanged. It was popularised in the 1960s with the release of Letraset sheets containing Lorem Ipsum passages, and more recently with desktop publishing software like Aldus PageMaker including versions of Lorem Ipsu
  </p>
  <p id="p4">
    paragraph 4.
    <br>
    Lorem Ipsum is simply dummy text of the printing and typesetting industry. Lorem Ipsum has been the industry's standard dummy text ever since the 1500s, when an unknown printer took a galley of type and scrambled it to make a type specimen book. It has survived not only five centuries, but also the leap into electronic typesetting, remaining essentially unchanged. It was popularised in the 1960s with the release of Letraset sheets containing Lorem Ipsum passages, and more recently with desktop publishing software like Aldus PageMaker including versions of Lorem Ipsu
  </p>
  <p id="p5">
    paragraph 5.
    <br>
    Lorem Ipsum is simply dummy text of the printing and typesetting industry. Lorem Ipsum has been the industry's standard dummy text ever since the 1500s, when an unknown printer took a galley of type and scrambled it to make a type specimen book. It has survived not only five centuries, but also the leap into electronic typesetting, remaining essentially unchanged. It was popularised in the 1960s with the release of Letraset sheets containing Lorem Ipsum passages, and more recently with desktop publishing software like Aldus PageMaker including versions of Lorem Ipsu
  </p>
</main>