Retrieve the position (X,Y) of an HTML element relative to the browser window

Question

I want to know how to get the X and Y position of HTML elements such as img and div in JavaScript relative to the browser window.

Answer 1

I did it like this so it was cross-compatible with old browsers.

// For really old browser's or incompatible ones
    function getOffsetSum(elem) {
        var top = 0,
            left = 0,
            bottom = 0,
            right = 0

         var width = elem.offsetWidth;
         var height = elem.offsetHeight;

        while (elem) {
            top += elem.offsetTop;
            left += elem.offsetLeft;
            elem = elem.offsetParent;
        }

         right = left + width;
         bottom = top + height;

        return {
            top: top,
            left: left,
            bottom: bottom,
            right: right,
        }
    }

    function getOffsetRect(elem) {
        var box = elem.getBoundingClientRect();

        var body = document.body;
        var docElem = document.documentElement;

        var scrollTop = window.pageYOffset || docElem.scrollTop || body.scrollTop;
        var scrollLeft = window.pageXOffset || docElem.scrollLeft || body.scrollLeft;

        var clientTop = docElem.clientTop;
        var clientLeft = docElem.clientLeft;


        var top = box.top + scrollTop - clientTop;
        var left = box.left + scrollLeft - clientLeft;
        var bottom = top + (box.bottom - box.top);
        var right = left + (box.right - box.left);

        return {
            top: Math.round(top),
            left: Math.round(left),
            bottom: Math.round(bottom),
            right: Math.round(right),
        }
    }

    function getOffset(elem) {
        if (elem) {
            if (elem.getBoundingClientRect) {
                return getOffsetRect(elem);
            } else { // old browser
                return getOffsetSum(elem);
            }
        } else
            return null;
    }

More about coordinates in JavaScript here: http://javascript.info/tutorial/coordinates