Which DOM property for determining vertical size?

[Gregor Kofler]

I want to do my own vertical (or whatever direction) smooth expand of a
block element. The simple approach so far: create and fill container
element. Set element.style.h eight to 0px, overflow hidden, and use a
timeout callback to increase element.style.h eight, until it matches
element.scrollH eight. However, scrollHeight is MSDOM. Is there a W3C
compliant alternative? Or a smarter approach altogether?

Gregor


--
http://photo.gregorkofler.at ::: Landschafts- und Reisefotografie
http://web.gregorkofler.com ::: meine JS-Spielwiese
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[Martin Honnen]

Re: Which DOM property for determining vertical size?

Gregor Kofler wrote:

I want to do my own vertical (or whatever direction) smooth expand of a
block element. The simple approach so far: create and fill container
element. Set element.style.h eight to 0px, overflow hidden, and use a
timeout callback to increase element.style.h eight, until it matches
element.scrollH eight. However, scrollHeight is MSDOM. Is there a W3C
compliant alternative?

Somewhere in the future it might be an W3C standard:

http://www.w3.org/TR/cssom-view/#scroll-attributes

--

Martin Honnen

http://JavaScript.FAQTs.com/

[Thomas 'PointedEars' Lahn]

Re: Which DOM property for determining vertical size?

Gregor Kofler wrote:

I want to do my own vertical (or whatever direction) smooth expand of a
block element. The simple approach so far: create and fill container
element. Set element.style.h eight to 0px, overflow hidden, and use a
timeout callback to increase element.style.h eight, until it matches
element.scrollH eight. However, scrollHeight is MSDOM. [...]

_MSHTML DOM_. Nevertheless, Gecko/20080404 also supports it in Standards
Compliance Mode, and so do Opera/9.27 and Apple WebKit/525.13.

But, since you would probably want an approach that degrades gracefully, you
could store the `offsetHeight' property value before you resize the element,
if supported. Not standards compliant either, but supposedly better supported.


HTH

PointedEars
--
realism: HTML 4.01 Strict
evangelism: XHTML 1.0 Strict
madness: XHTML 1.1 as application/xhtml+xml
-- Bjoern Hoehrmann

[Gregor Kofler]

Re: Which DOM property for determining vertical size?

Thomas 'PointedEars' Lahn meinte:

Gregor Kofler wrote:

>I want to do my own vertical (or whatever direction) smooth expand of a
>block element. The simple approach so far: create and fill container
>element. Set element.style.h eight to 0px, overflow hidden, and use a
>timeout callback to increase element.style.h eight, until it matches
>element.scroll Height. However, scrollHeight is MSDOM. [...]

>
_MSHTML DOM_.

Hmmm... I somehow anticipated this remark. (On developer.mozil la.org
they call it MSIE DHTML object model, MSDN calls it DHTML DOM.)

Nevertheless, Gecko/20080404 also supports it in Standards
Compliance Mode, and so do Opera/9.27 and Apple WebKit/525.13.

But, since you would probably want an approach that degrades gracefully, you
could store the `offsetHeight' property value before you resize the element,
if supported. Not standards compliant either, but supposedly better supported.

I would use offsetHeight, if the element is visible in the beginning.
But since the element gets inserted as an "invisible" (display = "none")
childnode, offsetHeight isn't available (unless I haven't overlooked
something). Showing the element, reading offsetHeight, and turning it
off again isn't an option either, because of the flicker. Hacks like
offscreen-rendering, reading, relocation, etc. is something I try to
avoid. Rather scrollHeight then.

Gregor



--
http://photo.gregorkofler.at ::: Landschafts- und Reisefotografie
http://web.gregorkofler.com ::: meine JS-Spielwiese
http://www.image2d.com ::: Bildagentur für den alpinen Raum