overlayscrollbars

What is overlayscrollbars?

OverlayScrollbars is a customizable scrollbar library for web applications. It allows developers to create custom scrollbars that can be styled and configured to match the design of their application. The library provides a variety of features including auto-hide scrollbars, native scrolling behavior, and support for both vertical and horizontal scrollbars.

What are overlayscrollbars's main functionalities?

Custom Scrollbars

This feature allows you to replace the default browser scrollbars with custom scrollbars. The code sample demonstrates how to apply OverlayScrollbars to the entire body of the document.

const OverlayScrollbars = require('overlayscrollbars');
OverlayScrollbars(document.querySelectorAll('body'), {});

Auto-Hide Scrollbars

This feature enables the scrollbars to automatically hide when not in use. The code sample shows how to configure OverlayScrollbars to auto-hide the scrollbars when the user is not scrolling.

const OverlayScrollbars = require('overlayscrollbars');
OverlayScrollbars(document.querySelectorAll('body'), { autoHide: 'scroll' });

Custom Styling

This feature allows you to apply custom styles to the scrollbars. The code sample demonstrates how to apply a dark theme to the scrollbars using a predefined class.

const OverlayScrollbars = require('overlayscrollbars');
OverlayScrollbars(document.querySelectorAll('body'), { className: 'os-theme-dark' });

Other packages similar to overlayscrollbars

simplebar

SimpleBar is a custom scrollbar library that aims to provide a simple and lightweight solution for custom scrollbars. It offers similar functionality to OverlayScrollbars, such as auto-hide scrollbars and custom styling. However, SimpleBar is designed to be more lightweight and easier to integrate.

perfect-scrollbar

Perfect Scrollbar is another library for creating custom scrollbars. It provides a minimalistic approach to custom scrollbars with a focus on performance and simplicity. Compared to OverlayScrollbars, Perfect Scrollbar offers fewer customization options but is easier to set up and use.

malihu-custom-scrollbar-plugin

Malihu Custom Scrollbar Plugin is a jQuery plugin for creating custom scrollbars. It offers a wide range of customization options and supports both vertical and horizontal scrollbars. While it provides similar functionality to OverlayScrollbars, it requires jQuery as a dependency, which may not be suitable for all projects.

README

OverlayScrollbars

OverlayScrollbars is a javascript scrollbar plugin that hides native scrollbars, provides custom styleable overlay scrollbars and keeps the native functionality and feeling.

Why

I created this plugin because I hate ugly and space consuming scrollbars. Similar plugins haven't met my requirements in terms of features, quality, simplicity, license or browser support.

Goals & Features

• Simple, powerful and well documented API
• High browser compatibility - Firefox 59+, Chrome 55+, Opera 42+, Edge 12+, Safari 10+ and IE 11
• Can be run on the server - SSR, SSG and ISR support
• Tested on various devices - Mobile, Desktop and Tablet
• Tested with various (and mixed) inputs - Mouse, Touch and Pen
• Treeshaking - bundle only what you really need
• Automatic update detection - no polling
• Usage of latest browser features - best performance in new browsers
• Bidirectional - LTR or RTL direction support
• Supports usage on the body element
• Supports all virtual scrolling libraries
• Simple and effective scrollbar styling
• Highly customizable
• TypeScript support - fully written in TypeScript
• Dependency free - 100% self written to ensure small size and best functionality
• High quality and fully typed framework versions for react, vue, angular, svelte and solid.

Choose your framework

Additionally to the vanilla JavaScript version you can use the official framework components & utilities:

Getting started

npm & nodejs

OverlayScrollbars can be downloaded from npm or the package manager of your choice:

npm install overlayscrollbars

After installation it can be imported:

import 'overlayscrollbars/overlayscrollbars.css';
import { 
  OverlayScrollbars, 
  ScrollbarsHidingPlugin, 
  SizeObserverPlugin, 
  ClickScrollPlugin 
} from 'overlayscrollbars';

Note: In older nodejs versions use 'overlayscrollbars/styles/overlayscrollbars.css' as the import path for the CSS file.

Manual download & embedding

You can use OverlayScrollbars without any bundler or package manager.
Simply download it from the Releases or use a CDN.

• Use the javascript files with the .browser extension.
• Use the javascript files with the .es5 extension if you need to support older browsers like IE11, otherwise use the .es6 files.
• For production use the javascript / stylesheet files with the .min extension.

Embedd OverlayScrollbars manually in your HTML:

<link type="text/css" href="path/to/overlayscrollbars.css" rel="stylesheet" />
<script type="text/javascript" src="path/to/overlayscrollbars.browser.es.js" defer></script>

You can then use the global variable OverlayScrollbarsGlobal to access the api similar to how you can do it in nodejs / modules:

var { 
  OverlayScrollbars, 
  ScrollbarsHidingPlugin, 
  SizeObserverPlugin, 
  ClickScrollPlugin  
} = OverlayScrollbarsGlobal;

The examples in this documentation will use the import syntax instead of the OverlayScrollbarsGlobal object. Both versions are equivalent though.

Initialization

Note: During initialization its expected that the CSS file is loaded and parsed by the browser.

You can initialize either directly with an Element or with an Object where you have more control over the initialization process.

// simple initialization with an element
const osInstance = OverlayScrollbars(document.querySelector('#myElement'), {});

Bridging initialization flickering

If you initialize OverlayScrollbars it needs a few milliseconds to create and append all the elements to the DOM. While this period the native scrollbars are still visible and are switched out after the initialization is finished. This is perceived as flickering.

To fix this behavior apply the data-overlayscrollbars-initialize attribute to the target element (and html element if the target element is body).

<!-- for the body element -->
<html data-overlayscrollbars-initialize>
  <head></head>
  <body data-overlayscrollbars-initialize></body>
</html>

<!-- for all other elements -->
<div data-overlayscrollbars-initialize>
  OverlayScrollbars is applied to this div
</div>

Initialization with an Object

This is a in depth topic. Click here to read it.

Note: For now please refer to the TypeScript definitions for a more detailed description of all possibilities.

The only required field is the target field. This is the field to which the plugin is applied to.
If you use the object initialization only with the target field, the outcome is equivalent to the element initialization:

// Both initializations have the same outcome

OverlayScrollbars(document.querySelector('#myElement'), {});
OverlayScrollbars({ target: document.querySelector('#myElement') }, {});

In the initialization object you can specify how the library is handling generated elements. For example you can appoint an existing element as the viewport element. Like this the library won't generate it but take the specified element instead:

OverlayScrollbars({ 
 target: document.querySelector('#target'),
 elements: {
   viewport: document.querySelector('#viewport'),
 },
}, {});

This is very useful if you have a fixed DOM structure and don't want OverlayScrollbars to generate its own elements. Those cases arise very often when you want an other library to work together with OverlayScrollbars.

---

You can also decide to which element the scrollbars should be applied to:

OverlayScrollbars({ 
 target: document.querySelector('#target'),
 scrollbars: {
   slot: document.querySelector('#target').parentElement,
 },
}, {});

---

And last but not least you can decide when the initialization should be canceled:

OverlayScrollbars({ 
 target: document.querySelector('#target'),
 cancel: {
   nativeScrollbarsOverlaid: true,
   body: null,
 }
}, {});

In the above example the initialization is canceled when the native scrollbars are overlaid or when your target is a body element and the plugin determined that a initialization to the body element would affect native functionality like window.scrollTo.

Options

You can initialize OverlayScrollbars with an initial set of options, which can be changed at any time with the options method:

OverlayScrollbars(document.querySelector('#myElement'), {
  overflow: {
    x: 'hidden',
  },
});

Options in depth

This is a in depth topic. Click here to read it.

The default options are:

const defaultOptions = {
  paddingAbsolute: false,
  showNativeOverlaidScrollbars: false,
  update: {
    elementEvents: [['img', 'load']],
    debounce: [0, 33],
    attributes: null,
    ignoreMutation: null,
  },
  overflow: {
    x: 'scroll',
    y: 'scroll',
  },
  scrollbars: {
    theme: 'os-theme-dark',
    visibility: 'auto',
    autoHide: 'never',
    autoHideDelay: 1300,
    dragScroll: true,
    clickScroll: false,
    pointers: ['mouse', 'touch', 'pen'],
  },
};

paddingAbsolute

type	default
boolean	false

Indicates whether the padding for the content shall be absolute.

showNativeOverlaidScrollbars

type	default
boolean	false

Indicates whether the native overlaid scrollbars shall be visible.

update.elementEvents

type	default
Array<[string, string]> | null	[['img', 'load']]

An array of tuples. The first value in the tuple is an selector and the second value are event names. The plugin will update itself if any of the elements with the specified selector will emit any specified event. The default value can be interpreted as "The plugin will update itself if any img element emits an load event."

update.debounce

type	default
[number, number] | number | null	[0, 33]

Note: If 0 is used for the timeout, requestAnimationFrame instead of setTimeout is used for the debounce.

Debounces the MutationObserver which tracks changes to the content. If a tuple is passed, the first value is the timeout and second is the max wait. If only a number is passed you specify only the timeout and there is no max wait. With null there is no debounce. Usefull to fine-tune performance.

update.attributes

type	default
string[] | null	null

Note: There is a base array of attributes that the MutationObserver always observes, even if this option is null.

An array of additional attributes that the MutationObserver should observe for the content.

update.ignoreMutation

type	default
((mutation) => any) | null	null

A function which receives a MutationRecord as an argument. If the function returns a truthy value the mutation will be ignored and the plugin won't update. Usefull to fine-tune performance.

overflow.x

type	default
string	'scroll'

Note: Valid values are: 'hidden', 'scroll', 'visible', 'visible-hidden' and 'visible-scroll'.

The overflow behavior for the horizontal (x) axis.

overflow.y

type	default
string	'scroll'

Note: Valid values are: 'hidden', 'scroll', 'visible', 'visible-hidden' and 'visible-scroll'.

The overflow behavior for the vertical (y) axis.

scrollbars.theme

type	default
string | null	'os-theme-dark'

Applies the specified theme (classname) to the scrollbars.

scrollbars.visibility

type	default
string	'auto'

Note: Valid values are: 'visible', 'hidden', and 'auto'.

The base visibility of the scrollbars.

scrollbars.autoHide

type	default
string	'never'

Note: Valid values are: 'never', 'scroll', 'leave' and 'move'.

The possibility to hide visible scrollbars automatically after a certain user action.

scrollbars.autoHideDelay

type	default
number	1300

The delay in milliseconds before the scrollbars are hidden automatically.

scrollbars.dragScroll

type	default
boolean	true

Indicates whether you can drag the scrollbar handles for scrolling.

scrollbars.clickScroll

type	default
boolean	false

Note: This options requires the ClickScrollPlugin to work.

Indicates whether you can click on the scrollbar track for scrolling.

scrollbars.pointers

type	default
string[] | null	['mouse', 'touch', 'pen']

The PointerTypes the plugin should react to.

Events

You can initialize OverlayScrollbars with an initial set of events, which can be managed at any time with the on and off methods:

OverlayScrollbars(document.querySelector('#myElement'), {}, {
  updated(osInstance, onUpdatedArgs) {
    // ...
  }
});

Events in depth

This is a in depth topic. Click here to read it.

Note: Every event receives the instance from which it was invoked as the first argument. Always.

initialized

arguments	description
instance	The instance which invoked the event.

Is invoked after all generated elements, observers and events were appended to the DOM.

updated

arguments	description
instance	The instance which invoked the event.
onUpdatedArgs	An object which describes the update in detail.

Note: If an update was triggered but nothing changed, the event won't be invoked.

Is invoked after the instace was updated.

destroyed

arguments	description
instance	The instance which invoked the event.
canceled	An boolean which indicates whether the initialization was canceled and thus destroyed.

Is invoked after all generated elements, observers and events were removed from the DOM.

scroll

arguments	description
instance	The instance which invoked the event.
event	The original event argument of the DOM event.

Is invoked by scrolling the viewport.

Instance

Note: For now please refer to the TypeScript definitions for a more detailed description.

interface OverlayScrollbars {
  options(): Options;
  options(newOptions: PartialOptions, pure?: boolean): Options;

  on(eventListeners: EventListeners, pure?: boolean): () => void;
  on<N extends keyof EventListenerArgs>(name: N, listener: EventListener<N>): () => void;
  on<N extends keyof EventListenerArgs>(name: N, listener: EventListener<N>[]): () => void;

  off<N extends keyof EventListenerArgs>(name: N, listener: EventListener<N>): void;
  off<N extends keyof EventListenerArgs>(name: N, listener: EventListener<N>[]): void;

  update(force?: boolean): boolean;

  state(): State;

  elements(): Elements;

  destroy(): void;
}

Static Methods

Note: For now please refer to the TypeScript definitions for a more detailed description.

interface OverlayScrollbarsStatic {
  (target: InitializationTarget): OverlayScrollbars | undefined;
  (target: InitializationTarget, options: PartialOptions, eventListeners?: EventListeners): OverlayScrollbars;

  plugin(plugin: Plugin | Plugin[]): void;

  valid(osInstance: any): osInstance is OverlayScrollbars;

  env(): Environment;
}

Styling

OverlayScrollbars comes with two themes called os-theme-dark and os-theme-light. You can use the scrollbars.theme option to change the theme.

Custom themes can be done in multiple ways. The easiest and fastest is to use the predefined set of CSS Custom Properties aka. CSS variables. In case those aren't enought you can add custom class names or add custom styling to the existing class names.

Styling in depth

This is a in depth topic. Click here to read it.

CSS Custom properties

OverlayScrollbars provides a set of CSS Custom Properties which makes scrollbar styling easy and fast:

.os-scrollbar {
  // The size of the scrollbar
  --os-size: 0;
  // The axis-perpedicular padding of the scrollbar (horizontal: padding-y, vertical: padding-x)
  --os-padding-perpendicular: 0;
  // The axis padding of the scrollbar (horizontal: padding-x, vertical: padding-y)
  --os-padding-axis: 0;
  // The border radius of the scrollbar track
  --os-track-border-radius: 0;
  // The background of the scrollbar track
  --os-track-bg: none;
  // The :hover background of the scrollbar track
  --os-track-bg-hover: none;
  // The :active background of the scrollbar track
  --os-track-bg-active: none;
  // The border of the scrollbar track
  --os-track-border: none;
  // The :hover background of the scrollbar track
  --os-track-border-hover: none;
  // The :active background of the scrollbar track
  --os-track-border-active: none;
  // The border radius of the scrollbar handle
  --os-handle-border-radius: 0;
  // The background of the scrollbar handle
  --os-handle-bg: none;
  // The :hover background of the scrollbar handle
  --os-handle-bg-hover: none;
  // The :active background of the scrollbar handle
  --os-handle-bg-active: none;
  // The border of the scrollbar handle
  --os-handle-border: none;
  // The :hover border of the scrollbar handle
  --os-handle-border-hover: none;
  // The :active border of the scrollbar handle
  --os-handle-border-active: none;
  // The min size of the scrollbar handle
  --os-handle-min-size: 33px;
  // The max size of the scrollbar handle
  --os-handle-max-size: none;
  // The axis-perpedicular size of the scrollbar handle (horizontal: height, vertical: width)
  --os-handle-perpendicular-size: 100%;
  // The :hover axis-perpedicular size of the scrollbar handle (horizontal: height, vertical: width)
  --os-handle-perpendicular-size-hover: 100%;
  // The :active axis-perpedicular size of the scrollbar handle (horizontal: height, vertical: width)
  --os-handle-perpendicular-size-active: 100%;
  // Increases the interactive area of the scrollbar handle.
  --os-handle-interactive-area-offset: 0;
}

You can alter the properties either for both scrollbars at once or per scrollbar axis. In the example below I've chosen os-theme-custom as the theme name:

// horizontal and vertical scrollbar are 10px 
.os-theme-custom {
  --os-size: 10px;
}

// horizontal scrollbar is 10px
.os-theme-custom.os-scrollbar-horizontal {
  --os-size: 10px;
}
// vertical scrollbar is 20px
.os-theme-custom.os-scrollbar-vertical {
  --os-size: 20px;
}

You can then use your theme by assigning it via the scrollbars.theme option:

OverlayScrollbars(document.body, {
  scrollbars: {
    theme: 'os-theme-custom'
  }
});

Since scrollbar styles are usually simple, this set of options should be enough to get your desired styling. In case you need more freedom you can create your own styles by adding styling to the base class names described in the next section.

Scrollbars structure and CSS class names

The scrollbars HTML markup looks like:

<div class="os-scrollbar os-scrollbar-horizontal">
    <div class="os-scrollbar-track">
        <div class="os-scrollbar-handle">
        </div>
    </div>
</div>
<div class="os-scrollbar os-scrollbar-vertical">
    <div class="os-scrollbar-track">
        <div class="os-scrollbar-handle">
        </div>
    </div>
</div>

The class names are simplified, in a real application the .os-scrollbar element can have additional class names which modify the appearance (mostly visibility and alignment).

Below is a list of the most important class names you will encounter:

CSS class name	description
.os-scrollbar	The root element of a scrollbar.
.os-scrollbar-rtl	Indicates a RTL direction of the host element the scrollbar belongs to.
.os-scrollbar-horizontal	The root element of a horizontal scrollbar.
.os-scrollbar-vertical	The root element of a vertical scrollbar.
.os-scrollbar-handle-interactive	Indicates that the handle inside the scrollbar is interactive (scrollbars.dragScroll is true).
.os-scrollbar-track-interactive	Indicates that the track inside the scrollbar is interactive (scrollbars.clickScroll is true).
.os-scrollbar-track	The track element. This is the track of the nested handle element. If scrollbars.clickScroll is true this is the element users can click to change the scroll offset.
.os-scrollbar-handle	The handle element. If scrollbars.dragScroll is true this is the handle users can drag to change the scroll offset.

If you create your own theme, please only use the classes listed above. All other classes are modifier classes used to change visibility, alignment and pointer-events of the scrollbars.

Gotchas

Its important that the chosen theme class name in your CSS file matches the assigned theme name in the options. If the CSS class name is .my-theme the scrollbars.theme has to be 'my-theme'.

Please be aware of your stack. css-modules for example will alter your class names to prevent naming collisions. Always double check if your CSS is really what you expect it to be.

Plugins

Everything thats considered not core functionality or old browser compatibility is exposed via a plugin. This is done because all unused plugins are treeshaken and thus won't end up in your final bundle. OverlayScrollbars comes with the following plugins:

• ScrollbarsHidingPlugin: Is needed for old browsers which aren't supporting native scrollbar styling features. You can find the list of browsers where you need this plugin here (note that even though iOS Safari >= 14 is marked as unsupported you only need this plugin for iOS < 7.1).
• SizeObserverPlugin: Is needed for old browsers which aren't supporting the ResizeObserver api. You can find the list of browsers where you need this plugin here
• ClickScrollPlugin: If you want to use the option scrollbars: { clickScroll: true }.

Consuming Plugins

Plugins are consumed like:

import { 
  OverlayScrollbars, 
  ScrollbarsHidingPlugin, 
  SizeObserverPlugin, 
  ClickScrollPlugin 
} from 'overlayscrollbars';

// single plugin
OverlayScrollbars.plugin(ScrollbarsHidingPlugin);

// multiple plugins
OverlayScrollbars.plugin([SizeObserverPlugin, ClickScrollPlugin]);

Writing Plugins

Note: For now please refer to the TypeScript definitions for a more detailed description.

You can write and publish your own Plugins. This section is a work in progress.

FAQ

How do I get / set the scroll position of an element I applied OverlayScrollbars to?

If you applied OverlayScrollbars to the body element you can use window.scrollX, window.scrollY, window.scroll, window.scrollTo, window.scrollBy or any other native api.

If the plugin was applied to any other element you have to get the viewport element with the instance.elements() function first. With this element you can use element.scrollTop, element.scrollLeft, element.scroll, element.scrollTo, element.scrollBy or any other native api.

const { viewport } = osInstance.elements();
const { scrollLeft, scrollTop } = viewport; // get scroll offset
viewport.scrollTo({ top: 0 }); // set scroll offset

Is it possible to limit / adjust the scrollbar handle length?

You can adjust a scrollbars handle length by setting a min-width / min-height and max-width / max-height style:

/* horizontal boundaries */
.os-scrollbar-horizontal .os-scrollbar-handle {
  min-width: 50px;
  max-width: 200px;
}
/* vertical boundaries */
.os-scrollbar-vertical .os-scrollbar-handle {
  min-height: 40px;
  max-height: 40px;
}

You can assign the same value to both properties to force the scrollbar to be always the same size.
Setting the width and height properties won't work since those are set by the plugin automatically.

Feature comparison to v1

• The scroll function is missing. Planned as a plugin. (WIP)
• Initialization to the textarea element isn't supported yet. Planned as a plugin. (WIP)

Sponsors

Thanks to BrowserStack for sponsoring open source projects and letting me test OverlayScrollbars for free.

Future Plans

• Provide plugin based support for missing features. (treeshakeable)
• Frequent updates in terms of bug-fixes and enhancements. (always use latest browser features)
• Improve tests. (unit & browser tests)

License

MIT