Simple animated scroll for jQuery

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If you use links to navigate to other elements on the same page, it’s generally a good idea to animate the scrolling so you don’t disorientate your users. There are jQuery plugins (such as ScrollTo) that offer many different ways for handling this, but if you don’t want to mess about with all the features of a new plugin then this snippet will be very useful. It’s a simple function that will scroll your page to any DOM element that you specify:


function scrollToElement( target ) {
var topoffset = 30;
var speed = 800;
var destination = jQuery( target ).offset().top – topoffset;
jQuery( 'html:not(:animated),body:not(:animated)' ).animate( { scrollTop: destination}, speed, function() {
window.location.hash = target;
});
return false;
}

view raw

function.js

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As you can see you can also specify the speed and a top offset for the scroll (I find this top offset very useful as default behaviour puts the target element flush with the top of the browser, which can make things feel a bit cramped). An added bonus is that it appends the target string to the current URL, so if you are using a standard anchor reference (such as #element) then users will be able to grab the URL and it will point to the correct location on the page. If you are using other selectors to target an element then I would recommend removing the function inside the animate call.

9 Thoughts

  1. Pingback: Scroll Animado con jQuery ( Hugh Lashbrooke ) | mydevnotepad

  2. Awesome script. Just have an adjustment to prevent animating to a point on the page that you are already at

    if (jQuery( ‘html,body’ ).scrollTop() != destination) {
    jQuery( ‘html:not(:animated),body:not(:animated)’ ).animate( { scrollTop: destination}, speed, easing, function() {
    window.location.hash = target;
    });
    }

    Also made it into a direct click event listener

    jQuery(‘a’).click(function(e) {
    e.preventDefault();
    // Source – http://www.hughlashbrooke.com/simple-animated-scroll-for-jquery/
    var topoffset = 0;
    var speed = 1000;
    var easing = ‘easeOutQuart’;
    var target = jQuery(this).attr(‘href’);
    var destination = jQuery( target ).offset().top – topoffset;
    if (jQuery( ‘html,body’ ).scrollTop() != destination) {
    jQuery( ‘html:not(:animated),body:not(:animated)’ ).animate( { scrollTop: destination}, speed, easing, function() {
    window.location.hash = target;
    });
    }
    });

    Reply

        1. This should work.

          jQuery(‘a.hash’).click(function(e) {
          e.preventDefault();
          // Source – http://www.hughlashbrooke.com/simple-animated-scroll-for-jquery/
          var topoffset = 0;
          var speed = 1000;
          var easing = ‘easeOutQuart’;
          var target = jQuery(this).attr(‘href’);
          var destination = jQuery( target ).offset().top – topoffset;
          var current = jQuery( ‘html’ ).scrollTop() + jQuery( ‘body’ ).scrollTop();
          if (current != destination) {
          jQuery( ‘html:not(:animated),body:not(:animated)’ ).animate( { scrollTop: destination}, speed, easing, function() {
          window.location.hash = target;
          });
          }
          });

          Also made another version that stops previous animations and goes to the currently clicked location which negates the need to check the current location.

          jQuery(‘a.hash’).click(function(e) {
          e.preventDefault();
          var topoffset = 0;
          var speed = 1000;
          var easing = ‘easeOutQuart’;
          var target = jQuery(this).attr(‘href’);
          var destination = jQuery( target ).offset().top – topoffset;
          jQuery( ‘html,body’ ).stop(true).animate( { scrollTop: destination}, speed, easing, function() {
          window.location.hash = target;
          });
          });

  4. Pingback: Michael Kwon | Simple animated scroll for jQuery

  5. Great and helpful tutorial. I am using this , This is also simple
    $(document).ready(function(e) {
    var a = 400,
    t = 1200,
    l = 700,
    s = e(“.scrool-top”);
    e(window).scroll(function() {
    e(this).scrollTop() > a ? s.addClass(“scrool-is-visible”) : s.removeClass(“scrool-is-visible scrool-fade-out”), e(this).scrollTop() > t && s.addClass(“scrool-fade-out”)
    }), s.on(“click”, function(a) {
    a.preventDefault(), e(“body,html”).animate({
    scrollTop: 0
    }, l)
    })
    })

    Reply

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