Event listener for when element becomes visible?

I am building a toolbar that is going to be included into a page. the div it is going to be included in will default to display:none. Is there a way i can put an event listener on my toolbar to listen for when it becomes visible so it can initialize? or will I have to pass it a variable from the containing page?

Thanks

Going forward, the new HTML Intersection Observer API is the thing you're looking for. It allows you to configure a callback that is called whenever one element, called the target, intersects either the device viewport or a specified element. It's available in latest versions of Chrome, Firefox and Edge. See https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Intersection_Observer_API for more info.

Simple code example for observing display:none switching:

// Start observing visbility of element. On change, the
//   the callback is called with Boolean visibility as
//   argument:

function respondToVisibility(element, callback) {
  var options = {
    root: document.documentElement,
  };

  var observer = new IntersectionObserver((entries, observer) => {
    entries.forEach(entry => {
      callback(entry.intersectionRatio > 0);
    });
  }, options);

  observer.observe(element);
}

In action: https://jsfiddle.net/elmarj/u35tez5n/5/

var targetNode = document.getElementById('elementId');
var observer = new MutationObserver(function(){
    if(targetNode.style.display != 'none'){
        // doSomething
    }
});
observer.observe(targetNode, { attributes: true, childList: true });

I might be a little late, but you could just use the MutationObserver to observe any changes on the desired element. If any change occurs, you'll just have to check if the element is displayed.

If you just want to run some code when an element becomes visible in the viewport:

function onVisible(element, callback) {
  new IntersectionObserver((entries, observer) => {
    entries.forEach(entry => {
      if(entry.intersectionRatio > 0) {
        callback(element);
        observer.disconnect();
      }
    });
  }).observe(element);
}

When the element has become visible the intersection observer calls callback and then destroys itself with .disconnect().

Use it like this:

onVisible(document.querySelector("#myElement"), () => console.log("it's visible"));

There is at least one way, but it's not a very good one. You could just poll the element for changes like this:

var previous_style,
    poll = window.setInterval(function()
{
    var current_style = document.getElementById('target').style.display;
    if (previous_style != current_style) {
        alert('style changed');
        window.clearInterval(poll);
    } else {
        previous_style = current_style;
    }
}, 100);

The DOM standard also specifies mutation events, but I've never had the chance to use them, and I'm not sure how well they're supported. You'd use them like this:

target.addEventListener('DOMAttrModified', function()
{
    if (e.attrName == 'style') {
        alert('style changed');
    }
}, false);

This code is off the top of my head, so I'm not sure if it'd work.

The best and easiest solution would be to have a callback in the function displaying your target.

I had this same problem and created a jQuery plugin to solve it for our site.

https://github.com/shaunbowe/jquery.visibilityChanged

Here is how you would use it based on your example:

$('#contentDiv').visibilityChanged(function(element, visible) {
    alert("do something");
});

As @figha says, if this is your own web page, you should just run whatever you need to run after you make the element visible.

However, for the purposes of answering the question (and anybody making Chrome or Firefox Extensions, where this is a common use case), Mutation Summary and Mutation Observer will allow DOM changes to trigger events.

For example, triggering an event for a elements with data-widget attribute being added to the DOM. Borrowing this excellent example from David Walsh's blog:

var observer = new MutationObserver(function(mutations) {
	// For the sake of...observation...let's output the mutation to console to see how this all works
	mutations.forEach(function(mutation) {
		console.log(mutation.type);
	});    
});

// Notify me of everything!
var observerConfig = {
	attributes: true, 
	childList: true, 
	characterData: true 
};

// Node, config
// In this case we'll listen to all changes to body and child nodes
var targetNode = document.body;
observer.observe(targetNode, observerConfig);

Responses include added, removed, valueChanged and more. valueChanged includes all attributes, including display etc.

You may also try this jQuery plugin: https://github.com/morr/jquery.appear

Just to comment on the DOMAttrModified event listener browser support:

Cross-browser support

These events are not implemented consistently across different browsers, for example:

• IE prior to version 9 didn't support the mutation events at all and does not implement some of them correctly in version 9 (for example, DOMNodeInserted)

• WebKit doesn't support DOMAttrModified (see webkit bug 8191 and the workaround)

• "mutation name events", i.e. DOMElementNameChanged and DOMAttributeNameChanged are not supported in Firefox (as of version 11), and probably in other browsers as well.

Source: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/Guide/Events/Mutation_events

Expanding on Elmar's earlier answer, I used this to put focus on an input box in a Bootstrap navbar submenu.

I wanted the focus to go on the search box when the menu was expanded. .onfocus() wasn't working, I think because the element isn't visible at the time the event is triggered (even with the mouseup event). This worked perfectly though:

<ul class="navbar-nav ms-auto me-0 ps-3 ps-md-0">
    <li class="nav-item dropdown">
        <a class="nav-link dropdown-toggle" title="Search" id="navbardrop" data-bs-toggle="dropdown" role="button" aria-haspopup="true" aria-expanded="false">
            <i class="fas fa-search"></i>
        </a>
        <div class="dropdown-menu dropdown-menu-end search-menu">
            <form action="{% url 'search' %}" method="get">
                <div class="form-group row g-1 my-1 pb-1">
                    <div class="col">
                        <input type="text" name="query" id="searchbox" class="form-control py-1 ps-2" value="{% if search_query %}{{ search_query }}{% endif %}">
                    </div>
                    <div class="col-auto">
                        <input type="submit" value="Search" class="btn-primary form-control py-1">
                    </div>
                </div>
            </form>
        </div>
    </li>
</ul>

Then in the js:

respondToVisibility = function (element, callback) {
  var options = {
    root: document.documentElement,
  };

  var observer = new IntersectionObserver((entries, observer) => {
    entries.forEach((entry) => {
      callback(entry.intersectionRatio > 0);
    });
  }, options);

  observer.observe(element);
};

respondToVisibility(document.getElementById("searchbox"), (visible) => {
  if (visible) {
    document.getElementById("searchbox").focus();
  }
});

A simple solution to this which works even for nested elements is to use the ResizeObserver.

It should work in all modern browsers (https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Resize_Observer_API)

When an element has css rule display:none applied to it (whether directly or via an ancestor element) then all of its dimensions will be zero. So in order to detect becoming visible we just need an element with non-zero dimensions when visible.

const block=document.querySelector("#the-block")
const resizewatcher=new ResizeObserver(entries => {
  for (const entry of entries){
    console.log("Element",entry.target, 
      (entry.contentRect.width == 0) ? 
      "is now hidden" : 
      "is now visible"
    )
  }
})
resizewatcher.observe(block)

Javascript events deal with User Interaction, if your code is organised enough you should be able to call the initialising function in the same place where the visibility changes (i.e. you shouldn't change myElement.style.display on many places, instead, call a function/method that does this and anything else you might want).

my solution:

; (function ($) {
$.each([ "toggle", "show", "hide" ], function( i, name ) {
	var cssFn = $.fn[ name ];
	$.fn[ name ] = function( speed, easing, callback ) {
        if(speed == null || typeof speed === "boolean"){
            var ret=cssFn.apply( this, arguments )
            $.fn.triggerVisibleEvent.apply(this,arguments)
            return ret
        }else{
            var that=this
            var new_callback=function(){
                callback.call(this)
                $.fn.triggerVisibleEvent.apply(that,arguments)
            }
            var ret=this.animate( genFx( name, true ), speed, easing, new_callback )
            return ret
        }
	};
});

$.fn.triggerVisibleEvent=function(){
    this.each(function(){
        if($(this).is(':visible')){
            $(this).trigger('visible')
            $(this).find('[data-trigger-visible-event]').triggerVisibleEvent()
        }
    })
}
})(jQuery);

for example:

if(!$info_center.is(':visible')){
    $info_center.attr('data-trigger-visible-event','true').one('visible',processMoreLessButton)
}else{
    processMoreLessButton()
}

function processMoreLessButton(){
//some logic
}