ASWP – Sticky Headers And Full-Height Elements: A Tricky Combination

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Sticky Headers and Full-Height Elements: A Tricky Combination

This article explores the challenge of combining sticky headers with full-height elements, a seemingly simple problem with a surprisingly complex solution.

The Problem: Sticky Headers and 100vh Elements

The goal is to create a website where the hero section extends to fill the remaining vertical space in the viewport after a sticky header. This seems straightforward, but the sticky nature of the header introduces difficulties due to its positioning behavior.

Initial Attempts: Low-Hanging Fruit

The first attempt involves wrapping the header and hero section in a container with `height: 100vh` and using Flexbox to distribute the space. However, this results in the sticky header being trapped within the container, preventing it from sticking to the top of the viewport as intended.

Fixed Height Approach: Calc()

Another approach involves assigning a fixed height to the header and using `calc()` to set the hero section’s height based on the viewport height minus the header’s height. This works partially, but it introduces downsides: manual height adjustments become necessary, breaking the flexibility of CSS layout and leading to potential maintenance issues.

The Solution: Grid Alignment

The solution utilizes CSS Grid to overcome these limitations. An empty spacer element (`above-the-fold-spacer`) is added to the HTML. This spacer element has a `height: 100vh` and spans the entire width of the grid. The header and hero elements are then aligned to the appropriate grid rows, effectively creating two grid rows that together occupy 100vh of the viewport. This approach allows for flexible height adjustments and avoids the drawbacks of fixed height values.

Final Thoughts and Caveats

This solution offers a clean and adaptable method for handling sticky headers with full-height elements. However, the HTML order of elements matters, and additional adjustments may be needed for scenarios involving sidebars or other elements that impact the grid layout. For simpler cases, this grid-based approach is generally more manageable and reliable than manually managing element heights.

This article provides a summary of ‘Sticky Headers And Full-Height Elements: A Tricky Combination’, published on Smashing Magazine: https://smashingmagazine.com/2024/09/sticky-headers-full-height-elements-tricky-combination/

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