Getting the Scrollbar Width

May 9th, 2008

I've been asked a few times if Dimensions would provide a method for getting the scrollbar width. In Dimensions 1.0 I created an internal method for finding the scrollbar width to hack around some browser limitations. I eventually found other ways around those limitations and that code is no longer in Dimensions. I know that in some unusual cases it can be useful, so I want to go ahead and provide that code as one of my jQuery snippets. It is just a single method added to the jQuery namespace called getScrollbarWidth.

  1. $.getScrollbarWidth();

Here is an example of it and here is the small script.

  • Posted in jQuery by Brandon Aaron

3 Responses to “Getting the Scrollbar Width”

  1. Aleksandr Sugard Says:
    May 11th, 2008 at 2:24 am

    In IE 7.0 your example shows no scroll and text says that "The scrollbar width is 0" =)

  2. Brandon Aaron Says:
    May 11th, 2008 at 11:48 am

    Thanks Aleksandr. My original need for the scrollbar width was not in IE. Silly me ... I forgot about that. After trying a few things I had to end up using a textarea to get the scrollbar width in IE. I've updated the snippet and example. :)

  3. N. Can KIRIK Says:
    May 13th, 2008 at 8:27 am

    intelligent way to get the width. nice job.

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