Create a Vertical, Horizontal and Diagonal Sliding Content Website with jQuery

Written by Kevin Liew on 14 Jul 2009 •
709,871 Views • Tutorials

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.

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>

<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>
<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>

<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>

Scroll Diagonally

<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>

<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>
<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>

<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!

Jump to Certain Item on Page Load

This is one of the most popular request. A lot of people want this content slider to display certain item on page load. It's simple, you need to use this:

$(document).ready(function () {

   $('#wrapper').scrollTo('ITEM-ID-HERE', 0); 

   ......
   ......
   ...... 
}

With that line of code, the slider will jump to the item on page load.

Update

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

Demo 1 Demo 2 Demo 3

By Kevin Liew

Kevin Liew is a web designer and developer and keen on contributing to the web development industry. He loves frontend development and absolutely amazed by jQuery. Feel free to say hi to me, or follow @quenesswebblog on twitter.

Join the discussion

Comments will be moderated and rel="nofollow" will be added to all links. You can wrap your coding with [code][/code] to make use of built-in syntax highlighter.

792 comments

Nina 15 years ago

Beautiful use of JQuery...Well done!!
I just have a slight problem: I get a JS error in FF saying that F is null.
I noticed on you JS file that the scrollTo function accepts 3 parameters, but only is sent 2. Could that be the problem?
Also, I have another issue that in IE the slides aren't positioned properly. can you help with that too?

Thanks again for your amazing work!

Kevin Liew Admin 15 years ago

It's fine with two parameters. Does the error generated happen in my demo version?

Kelly 15 years ago

Hi! Great tut, got it to work well. However I'm wondering if it's possible, for the Horizontal Sliding, to have the vertical scrollbar when there's content overflowing? Here's a site that illustrates what I mean: http://www.incub.ro/

Thanks in advance!

Kevin Liew Admin 15 years ago

i think you just need to change the value of overflow:hidden

Nigel 15 years ago

Complete Newbie to this, but would appreciate your assistance in this. I have downloaded the latest zip file and am trying to get 7 items horizontally. I've tried all sorts, changing percentages, but with no success, the items 6 and 7 become diagonal (the other 5 are ok). I guess I should also point out that I've changed the size of the content div to 850px by 550px, although even if I change it back to the original size, items 6 & 7 still act in a diagonal mode...
Can you please assist....

Nigel 15 years ago

Managed to sort it out myself.....

Toni Massaar 15 years ago

How did you do it? I'm stuck on the same thingie here! :)

Kevin Liew Admin 15 years ago

You have to make sure you have set the width of #mask and .item correctly... you can check the layout but disabling the #wrapper overflow to auto, and put border to #mask, .item to see the exact layout. Then tune it accordingly.

Toni Massaar 15 years ago

hi there... I'm just asking if there's a slight possibility if I could mix up your horizontal sliding website and your background scrolling effect. And what if I want to have a image in front of the background scrolling effect? Amazing tuts by the way, dude! :)

Kevin Liew Admin 15 years ago

Possible, but I afraid it will be too intensive to slow computer.

zaza4k 15 years ago

Hey Kevin !
Thanks alot for your work.

Do you know how to center each content ? Margin: 0, auto doesn't work for me :(

Thanks !

Kevin Liew Admin 15 years ago

Each of the content is already centered.

stephanie 15 years ago

is it possible to use the vertical code so that it opens from item5 and not item 1

Kevin Liew Admin 15 years ago

Just put this on window load:

$('#wrapper').scrollTo('#item5'), 0);

Djaaaay 15 years ago

Hey Kevin,

This is great thanks. I am using the horizontal version and am trying to get the slider to start from item2, but can't seem to get it to work. Any advice would be very helpful.

Here is the code I was using:

$(window).load(function() {
$('#wrapper').scrollTo('#item2'), 0);
});

Thanks

Dante 15 years ago

Give this a try. I'm not sure if it is the best solution but it works for me.
// Reset all scrollable panes to (0,0) on browser refresh
$('#wrapper').scrollTo( "#item2", { margin: true } );
// Reset the screen to (0,0)
$.scrollTo( "#item2", { margin: true } );
$('#item2').toggleClass('selected');

MS. 15 years ago

Hi, Kevin!

I'm having a compatibility issue with Vertical Scroll Effect and Lightbox 2. They do not want to work together on the same page. Is there any quick fix to it? Thanks in advance.

Nigel 15 years ago

Newbie to this... Trying to place a fixed menu over 7 items, have tried using the same width as the items (800px), but it then drops the Contact to the next line, any chance you could have a look at this for me, would really appreciate it.
If it cannot be the same width, can the menu be centered above?

Nigel 15 years ago

Forgot to mention, its at: http://www.brettyeatman.com/test/index.html

Tosh 15 years ago

Hi there Nigel,
I think i am having the same issue that you may have been.

Actually I am trying to create 6 items but one is dropping down a line and making the line of blocks scroll in a funny way when I click on the 6th option.

It seems like i need to increase a width of something but I just cant work it out :(

Any words of wisdom would be greatly appreciated.

Jiggs 15 years ago

Hi Kevin,

Properly one the most sillest questions, but if you size-up the width & height of the .content i.e. W:1100 H:1100, then you end up not seeing the remainer of the height content. Is there a css tweak which enables scrolling down to view the missing height content; or would I need to apply an additional jquery plugin like 'jScrollPane' to the .content class (in order to view the missing height content)?

Thanks in advanced and appreciate the tutorial

Kevin Liew Admin 15 years ago

in the wrapper id, #wrapper change the overflow:hidden to overflow:auto;

Tam 15 years ago

Hello, first...awesome tutorial. One question...how do I fix my width scrolling so that when resizing my browser window from a full 1920x1200 (screen size) to a small compact say...400x700 something, the content from the left 'item' DOES NOT get "squeezed" or "cropped" into the currently selected 'item.'? This happens with both horizontal (left) and vertical (top) and occurs in provided zip file (after increasing the width larger than default settings). I'm thinking it has something to do with the percentages? Thank you in advance for the solution.

Ed 15 years ago

Dude, thanks a lot for this tutorial!

Marc 15 years ago

Thanks for the tutorial, I'm wondering if it's possible to use vertical and horizontal at the same time (I'm tryin to build some kind of grid navigation).

Thanks for your help and awesome tutorial :)

M.

Kevin Liew Admin 15 years ago

Yes, please have a look at the diagonal layout... instead of filling the content diagonally, you fill the content in all of the items. Don't have to worry about the scrolling part, it will work by default.

Dante 15 years ago

Sorry about answering a bunch of questions. I was just looking for a solution to my problem and couldn't help myself. My apologies if what I said was wrong.

I'm wondering how you would go about setting a large image as the background of a 3x3 array like you have in the diagonal example. For some reason even if I comment out all the background-colour attributes in the css and set the image as the body background it does not show up. Am I crazy?

Kevin Liew Admin 15 years ago

for one, i thought someone was spamming.. but then when i look at the comments... they are proper answer! haha :) thanks for helping out.

first, make sure there isn't background color... remove all the background attribute. Set a background color to body, to ensure that... so if you can see the color of your body, it means you have removed them all.

for the large background, I think you need to create another div to wrap around all the items, then set the background on that div. Let me know if it work.

Dante 15 years ago

That works but I forgot to mention that I would like the background to slide with the content divs.
I figure I could just cut one big image into 9 smaller ones and set them as the item backgrounds but that would need different item classes for each div. There might be a better way but I don't know what it is.

dav0r 15 years ago

Just asign a big long Bg to your mask. I split up my bg, and made a php-code to assign it, but the problem there is, that on different resolutions the transition won't be smooth.

Previous 1 2...171819...35 36 Next

Create a Vertical, Horizontal and Diagonal Sliding Content Website with jQuery

Introduction

1. HTML

Scroll Horizontally & Vertically

Scroll Diagonally

2. CSS

Scroll Horizontally & Diagonally

Scroll Vertically

3. Javascript

Conclusion

Jump to Certain Item on Page Load

Update

TRENDING Post

Javascript Library