Page Refresh

[The Little Guy]

Just an out of the blue question.

 

I noticed that on my sites, that when I refresh the page, the page starts at the very top, and isn't automatically scrolled down to where I was when I refreshed the page. It only happens when I add php to the site, such as some mysql stuff, and dynamic info.

 

Unlike on this board, if you refresh the page, it remembers how far you were scrolled down.

 

Why do my sites do that?

[Zane]

if you look in the URL

http://www.phpfreaks.com/forums/index.php/topic,214242.html#msg978053

 

this part right here ....#msg978053 tells the page how far to go down

 

What is it? Well, if you know CSS you don't need that answer, but that's the id of one particular area on the page.

You'll have to use id's to do what you're looking for.

[kratsg]

This is more of a javascript question, but I've got a piece that I've posted somewhere before as a solution that's helped me on some of my pages that needed it (forms, etc)

 

function getScrollXY() {
 var scrOfX = 0, scrOfY = 0;
 if( typeof( window.pageYOffset ) == 'number' ) {
   //Netscape compliant
   scrOfY = window.pageYOffset;
   scrOfX = window.pageXOffset;
 } else if( document.body && ( document.body.scrollLeft || document.body.scrollTop ) ) {
   //DOM compliant
   scrOfY = document.body.scrollTop;
   scrOfX = document.body.scrollLeft;
 } else if( document.documentElement && ( document.documentElement.scrollLeft || document.documentElement.scrollTop ) ) {
   //IE6 standards compliant mode
   scrOfY = document.documentElement.scrollTop;
   scrOfX = document.documentElement.scrollLeft;
 }
 return [ scrOfX, scrOfY ];
}

 

This function, when called, will return the current "scroll" position. Then, set cookies in javascript when the user leaves the page (or something) so when they refresh, they go back to where they were.... You can check the page the browser is leaving to navigate to, see if it matches with the current page, and use that as a conditional for setting/reading cookies.

[DarkWater]

if you look in the URL

http://www.phpfreaks.com/forums/index.php/topic,214242.html#msg978053

 

this part right here ....#msg978053 tells the page how far to go down

 

What is it? Well, if you know CSS you don't need that answer, but that id of one particular area.

You'll have to use id's to do what you're looking for.

 

Yeah, except for the fact that there's no hash on the URL when clicking the topic, scrolling to a point, then refreshing.  If you provide someone with a link to a certain post, then yeah, you're right, but that's not the case here.

[Fadion]

What is it? Well, if you know CSS you don't need that answer, but that's the id of one particular area on the page.

You'll have to use id's to do what you're looking for.

 

Actually CSS comes to no help in this. Instead of the ID attribute, one can use the "name" attribute, that shares the same name space as the former. Even though, those are html attributes. The CSS selectors (id, class, etc) are a different matter.

[kratsg]

if you look in the URL

http://www.phpfreaks.com/forums/index.php/topic,214242.html#msg978053

 

this part right here ....#msg978053 tells the page how far to go down

 

What is it? Well, if you know CSS you don't need that answer, but that id of one particular area.

You'll have to use id's to do what you're looking for.

 

Yeah, except for the fact that there's no hash on the URL when clicking the topic, scrolling to a point, then refreshing.  If you provide someone with a link to a certain post, then yeah, you're right, but that's not the case here.

 

Yes, that would work... But if you just go to this topic, scroll down, then refresh, it does bring you back to that same point, regardless of whether or not you clicked on an anchor tag o_o

[DarkWater]

if you look in the URL

http://www.phpfreaks.com/forums/index.php/topic,214242.html#msg978053

 

this part right here ....#msg978053 tells the page how far to go down

 

What is it? Well, if you know CSS you don't need that answer, but that id of one particular area.

You'll have to use id's to do what you're looking for.

 

Yeah, except for the fact that there's no hash on the URL when clicking the topic, scrolling to a point, then refreshing.  If you provide someone with a link to a certain post, then yeah, you're right, but that's not the case here.

 

Yes, that would work... But if you just go to this topic, scroll down, then refresh, it does bring you back to that same point, regardless of whether or not you clicked on an anchor tag o_o

 

Yeah, I know, that's what I said.

[The Little Guy]

I believe that this has nothing to do with CSS, or JavaScript.

 

 

Here are my examples (go to both sites)

Example 1 (go here):

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=free&btnG=Google+Search&aq=f&oq=

Scroll down the page, then refresh it.

 

Example 2 (go here):

http://phpsnips.com/snippet.php?id=16

Scroll down the page, then refresh it.

 

 

As you can see, in example one the browser remembered how far down the page you were when you refreshed the page, where as in example 2, it started you back at the top of the page after you refreshed the page.

 

Why does this happen on all my sites?

[Zane]

This may help you

http://patrickfoley.com/2005/01/21/scroll-saver/

[kratsg]

I believe that this has nothing to do with CSS, or JavaScript.

 

 

Here are my examples (go to both sites)

Example 1 (go here):

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=free&btnG=Google+Search&aq=f&oq=

Scroll down the page, then refresh it.

 

Example 2 (go here):

http://phpsnips.com/snippet.php?id=16

Scroll down the page, then refresh it.

 

 

As you can see, in example one the browser remembered how far down the page you were when you refreshed the page, where as in example 2, it started you back at the top of the page after you refreshed the page.

 

Why does this happen on all my sites?

 

Javascript is almost literally the only way to do it buddy... All those fancy web applications made use SOME javascript. Google Suggest uses javascript to communicate with its servers to bring results to your browser as you type... Flash uses actionscript (which is quite similar to javascript). Javascript is the kind of code that works ONLY client side (but it can communicate with other pages though). This is why you need javascript, because scrolling/scroll position is a client-side action.

[The Little Guy]

Why when you take a static HTML page, and refresh (F5), the browser know exactly how far down it was scrolled, and when you make a dynamic php page, and refresh (F5) the browser no longer know how far down the page it was scrolled, so it starts at the top?

[kratsg]

These forums are a dynamic PHP page, yet it remembers where you were because of javascript. Not all .html pages are static. They could still parse PHP (if set in .htaccess to do so) and quite simply, this is never true. Javascript is the only tested-tried-true method of actually doing this.

[The Little Guy]

Could you show me the JavaScript code that does this?

[kratsg]

Could you show me the JavaScript code that does this?

 

function getScrollXY() {
  var scrOfX = 0, scrOfY = 0;
  if( typeof( window.pageYOffset ) == 'number' ) {
    //Netscape compliant
    scrOfY = window.pageYOffset;
    scrOfX = window.pageXOffset;
  } else if( document.body && ( document.body.scrollLeft || document.body.scrollTop ) ) {
    //DOM compliant
    scrOfY = document.body.scrollTop;
    scrOfX = document.body.scrollLeft;
  } else if( document.documentElement && ( document.documentElement.scrollLeft || document.documentElement.scrollTop ) ) {
    //IE6 standards compliant mode
    scrOfY = document.documentElement.scrollTop;
    scrOfX = document.documentElement.scrollLeft;
  }
  return [ scrOfX, scrOfY ];
}

 

This is part of what I found in the forum's files. It's integrated into the forum. But I'm sure that on page load, it will recall the scroll positions and automatically scroll you down to that point.

 

**Just checked the processes run on page load, there are some functions being called to this extent, so my suspicion is confirmed.