This might be some kind of a weird requirement for a piece of art, but I would literally never expect a website to center a div according to the browser window instead of the viewport. It just looks wrong and feels wrong.
Actually, they do, sort of. At least, if you use GLSL shaders. I remember some demo project using it in a way that made it appear that the website "sees" another window with the same website, which blew my mind when I saw it first. Cannot recall the name or anything else to locate it.
Wait until they realize that on mobile they can use accelerometer data to keep the element in the same position in space across translations of the device.
The point of centering an element horizontally is to make sure that the content you’re viewing is directly in front of you. Browsers with a sidebar shift the content to the right, assuming the sidebar is on the left, which I’ve come to dislike! Others have expressed the same preference, hence this little snippet on my website.
> The point of centering an element horizontally is to make sure that the content you’re viewing is directly in front of you.
That's an awfully big assumption. For starters, you're assuming that the browser window itself is centered on the screen, and that the device is centered in front of the user.
I don't think this is the point of centering an element horizontally at all, and the result you have created here is not at all what I as a user want.
As a rule, you should not add functionality to a website to compensate for browser misfeatures. People who want the browser to work differently can get a different browser: that's why we call them "user agents". Making the web all complicated like this mainly serves to make it harder for people to use alternative browsers, or for browsers to change their misfeatures without breaking compatibility.
Screenshots would be helpful, because (you may be surprised to learn that) it is not entirely obvious which mode of behavior is supposed to be "wrong".
Anyway, I wouldn't say it currently behaves nicely (like something I would like to reuse anywhere whatsoever). Tested on Firefox opening Bookmarks on the left. First off, there is this ugly flicker, as browser first renders the "wrong" version, then your JS "fixes" it. Second, there is some concurrency problem, as by opening and closing Bookmarks repeatedly I somehow managed to render both versions: centered to viewport and covered by sidebar.
And, yeah, as others have said, I also think that allowing sidebar to cover your webpage content is absolutely bogus and don't foresee myself wanting this behavior, ever. But that's up to you.
I had no idea what this was talking about at first because I had JS blocked, so nothing special seemed to happen when I opened the bookmarks panel. This looks absolutely goofy. I don't know why you'd want the content potentially getting covered by unrelated UI elements.
> This looks absolutely goofy. I don't know why you'd want the content potentially getting covered by unrelated UI elements.
Here in Canada, the mobile website for anything related to Indian immigration (Indian passport, visa etc) is done via this absolutely goofy website with multiple levels of UI elements and popups covering the content. Have a look on mobile:
1) the sidebar covers the content, while the content has blank space to the right, or
2) the content moves off the right edge of the screen, leaving a large blank space to its left.
Both of these are wrong. If I have a sidebar open, the site is now narrower, stop trying to be clever.
My immediate reaction to this is why is the browser giving the site this information, and could we stop.
That's an awfully big assumption. For starters, you're assuming that the browser window itself is centered on the screen, and that the device is centered in front of the user.
I don't think this is the point of centering an element horizontally at all, and the result you have created here is not at all what I as a user want.
Anyway, I wouldn't say it currently behaves nicely (like something I would like to reuse anywhere whatsoever). Tested on Firefox opening Bookmarks on the left. First off, there is this ugly flicker, as browser first renders the "wrong" version, then your JS "fixes" it. Second, there is some concurrency problem, as by opening and closing Bookmarks repeatedly I somehow managed to render both versions: centered to viewport and covered by sidebar.
And, yeah, as others have said, I also think that allowing sidebar to cover your webpage content is absolutely bogus and don't foresee myself wanting this behavior, ever. But that's up to you.
Here in Canada, the mobile website for anything related to Indian immigration (Indian passport, visa etc) is done via this absolutely goofy website with multiple levels of UI elements and popups covering the content. Have a look on mobile:
https://www.blsindia-canada.com/ottawa-jurisdiction/index.ph...