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Create a Vertical, Horizontal and Diagonal Sliding Content Website with jQuery
14 Jul 2009 - 129 Comments
Create a content sliding website that slide vertically, horizontally or diagonally. This is one of the famous techniques used by most of the porfolio websites.
Author: kevin | Source: queness

Scroll Horizontally

Demonstration

Scroll Vertically

Demonstration

Scroll Diagonally

Demonstration

Download

Introduction

Content Sliding website is one of the famous and creative design techniques for portfolio website. One thing, please make sure you put the menu on every single page to avoid confusion/dizziness.

  • You should put the navigation menu in every single page
  • Or, fix the position of the menu
  • Let your visitors know exactly what section they're reading, like highlight the selected menu item and have a clear title

In this tutorial, we will learn to scroll your web content vertically, horizontally and plus diagonally! Don't worry, we won't rely on javascript too much, we will use css/html for the layout and javascript only do the scrolling. And hey, it will still work even if your browser doesn't support javascript.

And, thanks to Ariel Flesler, his scrollTo plugin is simply amazing!

1. HTML

Depend on which direction you want to scroll your website, each of them have slightly different layout. For the horizontal and vertical, they use the same layout, whereas for diagonal, you have to add extra div to create the "diagonal". It sounds like a dirty trick, but hey, it works! :)

I put <a name="name"></a>, just in case some of the browsers out there don't support javascript.

Structure for jQuery share it toolbox

Scroll Horizontally & Vertically

<div id="wrapper">
	<div id="mask">

		<div id="item1" class="item">
			<a name="item1"></a>
			<div class="content">item1 
				<a href="#item1" class="panel">1</a> | 
				<a href="#item2" class="panel">2</a> | 
				<a href="#item3" class="panel">3</a> | 
				<a href="#item4" class="panel">4</a> | 
				<a href="#item5" class="panel">5</a>
			</div>
		</div>
		
		<div id="item2" class="item">
			<a name="item2"></a>
			<div class="content">item2 <a href="#item1" class="panel">back</a></div>
		</div>
		
		<div id="item3" class="item">
			<a name="item3"></a>
			<div class="content">item3 <a href="#item1" class="panel">back</a></div>
		</div>

		<div id="item4" class="item">
			<a name="item4"></a>
			<div class="content">item4 <a href="#item1" class="panel">back</a></div>
		</div>
		
		<div id="item5" class="item">
			<a name="item5"></a>
			<div class="content">item5 <a href="#item1" class="panel">back</a></div>
		</div>

	</div>
</div>

Scroll Diagonally

<div id="wrapper">
	<div id="mask">

		<!-- first row -->

		<div id="item1" class="item">
			<a name="item1"></a>
			<div class="content">item1 
				<a href="#item1" class="panel">1</a> | 
				<a href="#item2" class="panel">2</a> | 
				<a href="#item3" class="panel">3</a>
			</div>
		</div>
		
		<div class="item"></div>
		<div class="item"></div>
		<div class="clear"></div>

		<!-- second row -->		
		
		<div class="item"></div>

		<div id="item2" class="item">
			<a name="item2"></a>
			<div class="content">item2 <a href="#item1" class="panel">back</a></div>
		</div>

		<div class="item"></div>
		<div class="clear"></div>
		
		<!-- third row -->

		<div class="item"></div>
		<div class="item"></div>

		<div id="item3" class="item">
			<a name="item3"></a>
			<div class="content">item3 <a href="#item1" class="panel">back</a></div>
		</div>
		
		<div class="clear"></div>

	</div>
</div>

2. CSS

The CSS is basically almost the same with the tabbed based content slider tutorial. I have illustrated how it works in that tutorial, so you might wanna check that out as well.

Scroll Horizontally & Diagonally

  • #mask : height=100%, width = 100% * total of items
  • .item : height=100%, width = 100% / total of items
body {
	height:100%;
	width:100%;
	margin:0;padding:0;
}

#wrapper {
	width:100%;
	height:100%;
	position:absolute;
	top:0;left:0;
	background-color:#ccc;
	overflow:hidden;
}

	#mask {
		width:500%;
		height:100%;

		background-color:#eee;
	}

	.item {
		width:20%;
		height:100%;
		float:left;
		background-color:#ddd;
	}
	
	
	.content {
		width:400px;
		height:300px;
		top:20%;
		margin:0 auto;
		background-color:#aaa;
		position:relative;
	}
	
	.selected {
		background:#fff;
		font-weight:700;
	}

	.clear {
		clear:both;
	}

Scroll Vertically

The width and height are opposite from scrolling horizontally. Calculations are:

  • #mask : width=100%, height = 100% * total of items
  • .item : width=100%, height = 100% / total of items

	#mask {
		width:100%;
		height:500%;
		background-color:#eee;
	}

	.item {
		width:100%;
		height:20%;
		float:left;
		background-color:#ddd;
	}

3. Javascript

So, you must be thinking how complicated the javascript would be. You'll be surprise! its only a line of code to make the scrolling effect. Thanks to jquery.scrollTo Plugin. What we have to do is solve the layout using css/html, and the plugin will do the rest.

$(document).ready(function() {

	//get all link with class panel
	$('a.panel').click(function () {

                //reset and highlight the clicked link
		$('a.panel').removeClass('selected');
		$(this).addClass('selected');
		
		//grab the current item, to be used in resize function
		current = $(this);
		
                //scroll it to the destination
		$('#wrapper').scrollTo($(this).attr('href'), 800);		
		
                //cancel the link default behavior
		return false;
	});


	//resize all the items according to the new browser size
	$(window).resize(function () {
		
		//call the resizePanel function
		resizePanel();
	});
	
});

This resize function have 2 versions. One for vertical and another for both horizontal and diagonal. The only difference is the mask_height and mask_width.

Vertical
function resizePanel() {

	//get the browser width and height
	width = $(window).width();
	height = $(window).height();

	//get the mask height: height * total of items
	mask_height = height * $('.item').length;
		
	//set the dimension		
	$('#wrapper, .item').css({width: width, height: height});
	$('#mask').css({width: width, height: mask_height});

	//if the item is displayed incorrectly, set it to the corrent pos
	$('#wrapper').scrollTo($('a.selected').attr('href'), 0);
		
}
Horizontal & Diagonal
function resizePanel() {

	//get the browser width and height
	width = $(window).width();
	height = $(window).height();

	//get the mask width: width * total of items
	mask_width = width * $('.item').length;
		
	//set the dimension	
	$('#wrapper, .item').css({width: width, height: height});
	$('#mask').css({width: mask_width, height: height});
	
	//if the item is displayed incorrectly, set it to the corrent pos
	$('#wrapper').scrollTo($('a.selected').attr('href'), 0);
		
}

Conclusion

That's it, simple and easy! I hope you all will enjoy it.

Last but not least, I need your support :) If you like this article, please help me to promote it by adding this post into your bookmark. You can subscribe to my RSS for more jQuery tutorial posts! Or go to my website footer to follow me on twitter, and buy me a drink! Thanks!

Update

31 Aug 2009 : Due to popular demand, and something I should have created. I have added window resize function.

Scroll Horizontally

Demonstration

Scroll Vertically

Demonstration

Scroll Diagonally

Demonstration

Download

Copyright & Usage

The effects and techniques demonstrated in tutorials on Queness can be used in whatever manner you wish without attribution. You cannot copy whole tutorials (unless permission is given), either in English or translated to another language.

Share This Post to Support Me! :)


Comments

staystylish on 31 Jul 2010 says:
Great script. I'm trying to have the menu position fix without sliding in the item frames all the time. How does one do that?
Eivind on 30 Jul 2010 says:
I can`t get it to work in Opera.(http://www.opera.com) Nothing happens when the link is pressed...
Matt on 26 Jul 2010 says:
Ive Implemented the Horizontal method, but on the page I display multiple items rather than one at a time. everything works fine except when I resize the window it for some reason causes the content to jump radically to the right (spacing them out) while the current item remains. This doesnt affect any aspect of the functionality, just the positon.

Any fix?
discounted puma shoes on 20 Jul 2010 says:
I was very pleased to find this site.I wanted to thank you for this great read!! I definitely enjoying every little bit of it and I have you bookmarked to check out new stuff you post.
Robert on 17 Jul 2010 says:
I'm finding the ie7 bug as well (using ie tester).

Just as a temp fix I tried adding these which made the window taller for ie7 (along with the other wrapper styles).

#wrapper {
height:800px;
}

or

#wrapper {
*min-height:600px;
}

I'd stil be up for finding a better fix :)
designer-n on 12 Jul 2010 says:
Thank you so much Kevin! That worked perfectly well!

I seem to be having a problem in IE7...only the top 20% of the page shows up (height of my wrapper is set as 100%).

curious to know if anyone else is facing the same problem in IE7.

Thank you
Josh on 11 Jul 2010 says:
Never mind I should have just kept on trying!

Fixed it by using:

<div class="item"></div>
<div class="clear"></div>

from your diagonal example.

Thanks!
Josh
Josh on 11 Jul 2010 says:
Hi Kevin,

Great article, its exactly what I need for a site I'm working on.

I am having a little problem with laying the panels out however. I have 8 panels and would like them to be 2 rows of 4, but using the default settings they are set as 5 across the top and 3 along the bottom - this leaves 2 panels worth of grey space in the bottom right.

I've messed with the settings but can't seem to get it to do what I want!

Any help would be massively appreciated!
Cheers
Josh
kevin on 9 Jul 2010 says:
hey designer-n... put it here

$(document).ready(function () {

//put it here here

$('a.panel').click(function () {
..........
}
designer-n on 7 Jul 2010 says:
now that I managed to get the rest to work. I have the same question as Rome - but where in the document ready do I put this?

$('#wrapper').scrollTo($('#item2'), 0);

I placed it just before $(document).ready....script starts and it did not work.


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About the Author

A web designer and developer who is passionate and keen on contributing to the web development industry. Feel free to say hi to me, or follow me on twitter.

Kevin Liew