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Stop Using Fixed Headers and Start Using Sticky Ones

Luis Augusto on June 25, 2020

Like them or not, headers that stay visible at the top of the page are a very popular UI and will likely not be going away anytime. Many sites make...

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mark l chaves • Jun 25 '20

Hi Luis,

Thanks for the article. Do you have a live code sample? I tried this a few times and I couldn't get it to work for me.

For example, in this pen, I disabled the CSS that compensates for my previous fixed header. Then, I changed my header to position sticky. No luck. All my anchors get hidden under the sticky header.

codepen.io/marklchaves/full/XWXgQJM

I checked to make sure my JS wasn't doing anything funky. I added the plain vanillla HTML anchor also just to make sure it wasn't my JavaScript.

What am I doing wrong?

Thanks!

Luis Augusto • Jun 25 '20

Hey Mark, thanks for reading! I took a look at the code and the sticky position does seem to be working, but are you referring to the tabs hiding under the header when you click on the anchor links? That is because anchor links will always bring that particular element to the very top of the page view, so regardless of whether you have a fixed or sticky header, it will always appear underneath when using an anchor link.

To get around anchor links jumping elements to the top of the page, you can add an offset to your #tabstrip element, like so:

#tabstrip {
  margin-top: -100px;
  padding-top: 100px;
}

I hope that helps!

mark l chaves • Jun 25 '20

Got it. It's also my (mis)understanding of how sticky is supposed to work then. I appreciate that.

BTW, I use this snippet from SE to automatically compensate for fixed headers when using anchors.

:target::before {
    content: "";
    display: block;
    height: 6rem; 
    margin: -6rem 0 0; 
}

Thanks again!

Luis Augusto • Jun 25 '20

Awesome thanks for that, either way works!

Waylon Walker • Jul 15 '20

I've been using headroom for a few months and like the simplicity (on my behalf) that it provides to make the nave hop in and out kinda like a more native mobile app.

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Here it is on waylonwalker.com

Luis Augusto • Jul 15 '20

Yea I also think this is a great approach, hiding the header when scrolling down and bringing it back when scrolling up. Easy to access and while still preserving screen real estate, and pretty easy to implement!

Shareque • Jun 26 '20

I recently face this issue for a sidebar header,
the position:sticky act as draggable content on iPad where as position: fixed stick to given position, works normal.

Dor Shinar • Jun 26 '20

To be honest, I'm not a fan of either. I find it much simpler to use overflow-y: scroll on the element actually being scrolled (in DEV's case the articles), instead of fiddling with header position.

Paweł Kowalski • Jun 25 '20

TBH on my computer DEV headers are not sticked/fixed/anything else.

Luis Augusto • Jun 25 '20

Sorry I didn't realize this when I wrote it, but looks like it's a setting in the UX options:

Paweł Kowalski • Jun 26 '20

Ouh, that must be it :) I dont like things taking up vertical space so i probably turned it off long time ago and forgot :))

Oscar González • Mar 17 '21

Does anyone notice the extra space(~1px) above the header when scrolling down. I can see it in Chrome only, other browsers works perfectly.
Any idea how to fix it?
dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/up...

Charlie • Jun 10 '22

A case for sticking with fixed header positioning involves headers that condense vertically when scrolling down the page, then expand again when user scrolls to top again (say, 100px threshold). Since sticky header is within document flow, when that animation occurs, it tweaks the scrollY value. The listener can get stuck performing the condense/expand animation in infinity loop. For example, user scrolls up and scrollY = 95px so the header expands by 10px. ScrollY is now 105px so header collapses and now scrollY = 95px again, and so on. It looks like the frenetic stutter step a squirrel makes when hesitating which way to run out of the road, not pleasant!

Paweł Kowalski • Aug 3 '20

I decided to write a post that adds on top of yours: dev.to/platformos/scrolling-to-the... :)

Luis Augusto • Aug 3 '20

Nice, thanks!

Quodline • Jun 27 '20

I prefer to hide the header when the user scrolls down and show it when the user scrolls up even slightly. I think it manages space better for small mobile phones.

Luis Augusto • Jun 27 '20

That's also a great option, and I'm done that for a few sites as well. You can also use sticky header in that situation and just animate its position with transform: translateY(-100%)