Using Doctype let scrollTop return 0, why?

Question

When I put this Doctype in my documents document.body.scrollTop returns zero.

Answer 1

When you use that Doctype, you'll put every current browser in the so-called Almost Standards mode, without it you'll be in Quirks Mode.

As you can read on this page,

[m]ost browsers provide window.pageXOffset/pageYOffset. These are completely reliable. Once again, Internet Explorer is the odd one out, as it does not provide these properties. Internet Explorer and some other browsers will provide document.body.scrollLeft/Top. In strict mode, IE 6 and a few other browsers, provide document.documentElement.scrollLeft/Top.

A script provided there calculates the value you want:

function getScrollXY() {
  var scrOfX = 0, scrOfY = 0;
  if( typeof( window.pageYOffset ) == 'number' ) {
    //Netscape compliant
    scrOfY = window.pageYOffset;
    scrOfX = window.pageXOffset;
  } else if( document.body && ( document.body.scrollLeft || document.body.scrollTop ) ) {
    //DOM compliant
    scrOfY = document.body.scrollTop;
    scrOfX = document.body.scrollLeft;
  } else if( document.documentElement && ( document.documentElement.scrollLeft || document.documentElement.scrollTop ) ) {
    //IE6 standards compliant mode
    scrOfY = document.documentElement.scrollTop;
    scrOfX = document.documentElement.scrollLeft;
  }
  return [ scrOfX, scrOfY ];
}

Another interesting article appeared on QuirksMode, A tale of two viewports.