Using jQuery To Get Size of Viewport

Question

How do I use jQuery to determine the size of the browser viewport, and to redetect this if the page is resized? I need to make an IFRAME size into this space (coming in a little on each margin).

For those who don't know, the browser viewport is not the size of the document/page. It is the visible size of your window before the scroll.

Answer 1

Please note that CSS3 viewport units (vh,vw) wouldn't play well on iOS When you scroll the page, viewport size is somehow recalculated and your size of element which uses viewport units also increases. So, actually some javascript is required.

Answer 2

You can use $(window).resize() to detect if the viewport is resized.

jQuery does not have any function to consistently detect the correctly width and height of the viewport[1] when there is a scroll bar present.

I found a solution that uses the Modernizr library and specifically the mq function which opens media queries for javascript.

Here is my solution:

// A function for detecting the viewport minimum width.
// You could use a similar function for minimum height if you wish.
var min_width;
if (Modernizr.mq('(min-width: 0px)')) {
    // Browsers that support media queries
    min_width = function (width) {
        return Modernizr.mq('(min-width: ' + width + ')');
    };
}
else {
    // Fallback for browsers that does not support media queries
    min_width = function (width) {
        return $(window).width() >= width;
    };
}

var resize = function() {
    if (min_width('768px')) {
        // Do some magic
    }
};

$(window).resize(resize);
resize();

My answer will probably not help resizing a iframe to 100% viewport width with a margin on each side, but I hope it will provide solace for webdevelopers frustrated with browser incoherence of javascript viewport width and height calculation.

Maybe this could help with regards to the iframe:

$('iframe').css('width', '100%').wrap('<div style="margin:2em"></div>');

[1] You can use $(window).width() and $(window).height() to get a number which will be correct in some browsers, but incorrect in others. In those browsers you can try to use window.innerWidth and window.innerHeight to get the correct width and height, but i would advice against this method because it would rely on user agent sniffing.

Usually the different browsers are inconsistent about whether or not they include the scrollbar as part of the window width and height.

Note: Both $(window).width() and window.innerWidth vary between operating systems using the same browser. See: https://github.com/eddiemachado/bones/issues/468#issuecomment-23626238