Table header to stay fixed at the top when user scrolls it out of view with jQuery

You would do something like this by tapping into the scroll event handler on window, and using another table with a fixed position to show the header at the top of the page.

HTML:

<table id="header-fixed"></table>

CSS:

#header-fixed {
    position: fixed;
    top: 0px; display:none;
    background-color:white;
}

JavaScript:

var tableOffset = $("#table-1").offset().top;
var $header = $("#table-1 > thead").clone();
var $fixedHeader = $("#header-fixed").append($header);

$(window).bind("scroll", function() {
    var offset = $(this).scrollTop();

    if (offset >= tableOffset && $fixedHeader.is(":hidden")) {
        $fixedHeader.show();
    }
    else if (offset < tableOffset) {
        $fixedHeader.hide();
    }
});

This will show the table head when the user scrolls down far enough to hide the original table head. It will hide again when the user has scrolled the page up far enough again.

Working example: http://jsfiddle.net/andrewwhitaker/fj8wM/

Pure CSS (without IE11 support):

table th {
    position: -webkit-sticky; // this is for all Safari (Desktop & iOS), not for Chrome
    position: sticky;
    top: 0;
    z-index: 1; // any positive value, layer order is global
    background: #fff; // any bg-color to overlap
}

Well, I was trying to obtain the same effect without resorting to fixed size columns or having a fixed height for the entire table.

The solution I came up with is a hack. It consists of duplicating the entire table then hiding everything but the header, and making that have a fixed position.

HTML

<div id="table-container">
<table id="maintable">
    <thead>
        <tr>
            <th>Col1</th>
            <th>Col2</th>
            <th>Col3</th>
        </tr>
    </thead>
    <tbody>
        <tr>
            <td>info</td>
            <td>info</td>
            <td>info</td>
        </tr>
        <tr>
            <td>info</td>
            <td>info</td>
            <td>info</td>
        </tr>
        <tr>
            <td>info</td>
            <td>some really long line here instead</td>
            <td>info</td>
        </tr>
        <tr>
            <td>info</td>
            <td>info</td>
            <td>info</td>
        </tr>
                <tr>
            <td>info</td>
            <td>info</td>
            <td>info</td>
        </tr>
                <tr>
            <td>info</td>
            <td>info</td>
            <td>info</td>
        </tr>
        <tr>
            <td>info</td>
            <td>info</td>
            <td>info</td>
        </tr>
    </tbody>
</table>
<div id="bottom_anchor"></div>
</div>

CSS

body { height: 1000px; }
thead{
    background-color:white;
}

javascript

function moveScroll(){
    var scroll = $(window).scrollTop();
    var anchor_top = $("#maintable").offset().top;
    var anchor_bottom = $("#bottom_anchor").offset().top;
    if (scroll>anchor_top && scroll<anchor_bottom) {
    clone_table = $("#clone");
    if(clone_table.length == 0){
        clone_table = $("#maintable").clone();
        clone_table.attr('id', 'clone');
        clone_table.css({position:'fixed',
                 'pointer-events': 'none',
                 top:0});
        clone_table.width($("#maintable").width());
        $("#table-container").append(clone_table);
        $("#clone").css({visibility:'hidden'});
        $("#clone thead").css({'visibility':'visible','pointer-events':'auto'});
    }
    } else {
    $("#clone").remove();
    }
}
$(window).scroll(moveScroll); 

See here: http://jsfiddle.net/QHQGF/7/

Edit: updated the code so that the thead can receive pointer events(so buttons and links in the header still work). This fixes the problem reported by luhfluh and Joe M.

New jsfiddle here: http://jsfiddle.net/cjKEx/

I wrote a plugin that does this. Ive been working on it for about a year now and I think it handles all the corner cases pretty well:

• scrolling within a container with overflow
• scrolling within a window
• taking care of what happens when you resize the window
• keeping your events bound to the header
• most importantly it doesn't force you to change your table's css to make it work

Here are some demos/docs:
http://mkoryak.github.io/floatThead/