<table><tbody> scrollable?

Solution 1:

You have taken on a task that, if you succeed, will make you a hero. I tried this and the straightforward thing -- to position:fixed; the <thead> -- is impossible. I had to copy all of the <thead> into a new object. But when you do that, the horizontal spacing of the <th> elements all goes away so the headings don't line up with the <td>s anymore. I ended up doing something like this:

First of all, abandon ie6 and ie7. There's no hope for those guys.

  1. Make two copies of the table, one where the body is invisible and the <thead> is visible, and the other where it's vice-versa.

  2. Give z-index:1; to the table with the visible <thead>.

  3. Give z-index:0; to the table with the visible <tbody>.

  4. Deal with horizontal scrolling, but not until after you find that onScroll isn't an ie8 event (not to mention ie6), so that you have to take a setInterval break every tenth of a second or so just to handle scrolling the <thead> left and right in ie8.

This will give you a table body of infinite scroll in both axes, with a table head that scrolls in the x axis only. Pretty much works in FF, Chrome, and Safari. But is shaky in ie8. A real pita.

Good luck, and please write if you get this to work!

Solution 2:

Only the Firefox and IE6-7 browsers support the built-in <tbody> scrolling:

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" >
<head>
    <title>Scrolling</title>
    <style type="text/css">
        div.content
        {
            border: #000000 1px solid;
            height: 400px;
            overflow-y: auto;
            width: 800px;
        }

        .fixedHeader 
        {
            white-space: nowrap;
        }

        .fixedHeader tr 
        {
            height: auto;
            position: relative;
        }

        .fixedHeader tr td 
        {
            background-color: #778899;
            border: #000000 1px solid;
            text-align: center;
        }

        tbody.scrollContent 
        {
            overflow-x: hidden;
            overflow-y: auto;
            height: 370px;
        }

        .scrollContent tr td 
        {
            background-color: #C0C0C0;
            border: #000000 1px solid;
            padding-right: 22px;
            vertical-align: top;
        }
    </style>
    <!--[if IE]>
    <style type=text/css>
        div.content 
        {
            overflow-x: hidden;
            overflow-y: auto;
        }
    </style>
    <![endif]-->
</head>
<body>
<div>
    <div class="content">
        <table cellspacing="0">
            <thead class="fixedHeader">
                <tr>
                    <td>Cell 1</td>
                    <td>Cell 2</td>
                    <td>Cell 3</td>
                    <td>Cell 4</td>
                </tr>
            </thead>
            <tbody class="scrollContent">
                <tr>
                    <td>Pages can be displayed either with or without tabs. Pages can be displayed either with or without tabs. Pages can be displayed either with or without tabs.  Pages can be displayed either with or without tabs. Pages with tabs are preferred for a standard user interface, and pages without tabs are preferred for a wizard. If tabs are omitted, you must provide a way of moving through the pages. For instance, Back and Next buttons can be implemented. Pages can be displayed either with or without tabs. Pages with tabs are preferred for a standard user interface, and pages without tabs are preferred for a wizard. If tabs are omitted, you must provide a way of moving through the pages. For instance, Back and Next buttons can be implemented. Pages can be displayed either with or without tabs. Pages with tabs are preferred for a standard user interface, and pages without tabs are preferred for a wizard. If tabs are omitted, you must provide a way of moving through the pages. For instance, Back and Next buttons can be implemented.</td>
                    <td>Pages can be displayed either with or without tabs. Pages can be displayed either with or without tabs. </td>
                    <td>Pages can be displayed either with or without tabs. </td>
                    <td>Pages can be displayed either with or without tabs. Pages can be displayed either with or without tabs. Pages can be displayed either with or without tabs.  Pages can be displayed either with or without tabs. Pages with tabs are preferred for a standard user interface, and pages without tabs are preferred for a wizard. If tabs are omitted, you must provide a way of moving through the pages. For instance, Back and Next buttons can be implemented. Pages can be displayed either with or without tabs. Pages with tabs are preferred for a standard user interface, and pages without tabs are preferred for a wizard. If tabs are omitted, you must provide a way of moving through the pages. For instance, Back and Next buttons can be implemented. Pages can be displayed either with or without tabs. Pages with tabs are preferred for a standard user interface, and pages without tabs are preferred for a wizard. If tabs are omitted, you must provide a way of moving through the pages. For instance, Back and Next buttons can be implemented.</td>
                </tr>
            </tbody>
        </table>
    </div>
</div>            
</body>
</html>