[whatwg] scrollIntoView jarring?

[Jonas Sicking]

L. David Baron wrote:
> On Wednesday 2008-04-30 13:58 -0400, David Bolter wrote:
>> 1. scrollIntoView not do anything in the case that the element is already 
>> fully visible (possibly in the middle of the viewport), or
>> 2. ensureElementIsVisible to be added as described by Daniel Glazman 
>> (http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-html/2007Nov/0188.html)
> 
> It seems like authors might actually want different options here for
> different uses.  Aligning things with an edge of the viewport, or
> with the edge of some other scrollable container, might be useful in
> some cases, and just ensuring that it is visible might be useful in
> others.
> 
> Mozilla has an internal function used to implement a number of
> different scrolling APIs (including scrolling to named anchors) that
> has a bunch of options:
>  * scroll into view (no matter where)
>  * scroll to align with a particular edge of the page
>  * scroll only if it's not visible at all
> 
> I think in many cases these scrolling APIs are about making things
> that authors can already do (using scrollTop, offsetTop,
> offsetHeight, offsetParent, and similar properties) easier to do.
> So I think the main questions to consider for these APIs are:
> 
>  * what capabilities do they provide that can't already be done?
> 
>  * what are the common uses of the existing features for scrolling
>    things into view (perhaps adjusted by how hard it is to do the
>    different possibilities)?
> 

Another question is if the scrolling should be instant, or if smooth 
scrolling is allowed/desired.

/ Jonas