CSS overscroll-behavior-x Property

Posted in CSS Tutorial

Updated on Oct 07, 2024

By Mari Selvan

👁️ 14 - Views

⏳ 4 mins

💬 1 Comment

Photo Credit to CodeToFun

🙋 Introduction

The overscroll-behavior-x property in CSS controls the browser's behavior when the horizontal boundary of a scrolling area is reached.

This property is particularly useful for managing how users interact with elements that have overflow content, such as scrollable containers.

By customizing the overscroll behavior, developers can enhance the user experience by preventing unexpected scrolling actions, such as scrolling the entire page when reaching the end of a scrollable element.

💡 Syntax

The syntax for the overscroll-behavior-x property is as follows:

Syntax

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element {
  overscroll-behavior-x: value;
}

🎛️ Default Value

The default value of the overscroll-behavior-x property is auto. This means the default overscroll behavior is applied, allowing the browser to determine how to handle the overscroll interaction.

🏠 Property Values

Value	Description
auto	The default behavior where the scroll boundary event is handled normally.
contain	Prevents scroll chaining, meaning overscroll will not propagate to the parent container. The user will not be able to scroll past the boundaries of the element.
none	Prevents both scroll chaining and scroll boundary default actions, ensuring no overscroll effects, like pull-to-refresh, are triggered.

📄 Example

In this example, we'll prevent horizontal overscroll propagation when scrolling reaches the boundaries of a div element.

index.html

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<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
  <meta charset="UTF-8">
  <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0">
  <title>CSS overscroll-behavior-x Example</title>
  <style>
    .scrollable-container {
      width: 300px;
      height: 200px;
      overflow-x: auto;
      border: 1px solid #ccc;
      overscroll-behavior-x: contain;
    }
  </style>
</head>
<body>
  <h1>Horizontal Scroll with Controlled Overscroll Behavior</h1>
  <div class="scrollable-container">
    <div style="width: 600px;">
      This is a scrollable container with horizontal overflow. The overscroll behavior has been set to "contain," so when you reach the end of the scrollable content, the scrolling does not propagate to the parent container.
    </div>
  </div>
</body>
</html>

🖥️ Browser Compatibility

The overscroll-behavior-x property is supported in most modern browsers, including the latest versions of Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Edge, and Opera. However, it is always recommended to test your implementation across different browsers to ensure consistent behavior.

🎉 Conclusion

The overscroll-behavior-x property is a valuable tool for managing the user experience in scrollable containers.

By controlling how overscroll interactions are handled, developers can prevent undesired scroll chaining and other default browser actions. This property is particularly useful in applications where precise control over scrolling behavior is needed, such as in mobile applications or single-page web apps.