Code Snippet

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Persistant Headers on Tables

When you scroll down a page with a long table on it, typically the header of the table scrolls away and becomes useless. This code clones the table header and applies it at the top of the page once you have scrolled beyond it, and disappears when you have scrolled past the table.

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function UpdateTableHeaders() {
   $("div.divTableWithFloatingHeader").each(function() {
       offset = $(this).offset();
       scrollTop = $(window).scrollTop();
       if ((scrollTop > offset.top) && (scrollTop < offset.top + $(this).height())) {
           $(".tableFloatingHeader", this).css("visibility", "visible");
           $(".tableFloatingHeader", this).css("top", Math.min(scrollTop - offset.top, $(this).height() - $(".tableFloatingHeader", this).height()) + "px");
       }
       else {
           $(".tableFloatingHeader", this).css("visibility", "hidden");
           $(".tableFloatingHeader", this).css("top", "0px");
       }
   })
}

$(document).ready(function() {
   $("table.tableWithFloatingHeader").each(function() {
       $(this).wrap("<div class="divTableWithFloatingHeader" style="position:relative"></div>");
       $("tr:first", this).before($("tr:first", this).clone());
       clonedHeaderRow = $("tr:first", this)
       clonedHeaderRow.addClass("tableFloatingHeader");
       clonedHeaderRow.css("position", "absolute");
       clonedHeaderRow.css("top", "0px");
       clonedHeaderRow.css("left", "0px");
       clonedHeaderRow.css("visibility", "hidden");
   });
   UpdateTableHeaders();
   $(window).scroll(UpdateTableHeaders);
});

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  1. Ben

    Nice idea, I think it needs some improvement. It’s rather jumpy.

    Reply ↓
  2. Fred

    Does not work in IE7, too bad :(

    Reply ↓
  3. Laxman Parmar

    it is something which is i am looking for thank you

    Laxman Parmar

    Reply ↓
  4. Sasha Bogdanovic

    The problem comes in of the table is wider than its container and horizontal scroll appears, which is very common in reports.

    In this case, cloned header should be able to scroll horizontally together with the table. So far I didn’t get a proper solution to that problem.

    Reply ↓

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