StickyTableHeaders

So what's it good for? Well, let's say you want to display a long list of fairly uniform tabluar data, like stock exchange listings or sport statistics but you don't want your users to get lost in the data as they scroll down on the page.

StickyTableHeaders to the rescue: By applying the StickyTableHeaders jQuery plugin to the table, the column headers will stick to the top of the viewport as you scroll down.

Go ahead and try out a demo.

The code is based on this proof of concept.

Installation

The best way to install is using Bower:

bower install StickyTableHeaders

Alternatively, you can download the latest version from jquery.stickytableheaders.min.js.

Usage

Initializing the plugin is pretty straight forward:

$('table').stickyTableHeaders();

###Tear down To remove the plugin:

$('table').stickyTableHeaders('destroy');

###Trigger an update manually

$(window).trigger('resize.stickyTableHeaders');

###Options You can initialize the plugin with an options map to tweak the behavior. The following options are supported:

####fixedOffset A number or jQuery object specifying how much the sticky header should be offset from the top of the page:

$('table').stickyTableHeaders({fixedOffset: $('#header')});

As described in pull request #33 responsive pages might need to re-initialize the plugin when the user resizes his browser. This is can be done by calling the plugin with the new options:

$('table').stickyTableHeaders({fixedOffset: [new-offset]});

####scrollableArea A DOM element or jQuery object. Allows you to overwrite which surrounding element is scrolling. Defaults to window. Check this demo for an example

$('table').stickyTableHeaders({scrollableArea: $('.container')});

####horizontalArea A DOM element or jQuery object. Allows you to specify a container which has horizontal scrolling. Ensures that the table header is properly positioned and contained when scrolling horizontally. Optional. Check this demo for an example

$('table').stickyTableHeaders({horizontalArea: $('.container-with-overflow-x')});

Confused?

If any of this is confusing, please check out the /demo folder. There are a couple of examples in there. E.g. you can see how to use it with Twitter Bootstrap.

Known Issues

• Internet Explorer: You need to set the padding of the <th>s explicitly in the css in order to make the plugin work
• Internet Explorer: Adding horizontal margin to the table causes the header to be misaligned when scrolling. (Issue #10)
• Using the plugin together with tablesorter breaks in Internet Explorer 8

Browser Support

The plugin has been verified to work in:

• Chrome 35
• Firefox 29
• Internet Explorer 8-11
• Safari 5

NOTE: It does not work in Internet Explorer 7 (but it degrades nicely)