How to disable scroll without hiding it?

I'm trying to disable the html/body scrollbar of the parent while I'm using a lightbox. The main word here is disable. I do not want to hide it with overflow: hidden;.

The reason for this is that overflow: hidden makes the site jump and take up the area where the scroll was.

I want to know if its possible to disable a scrollbar while still showing it.

If the page under the overlayer can be "fixed" at the top, when you open the overlay you can set

body { position: fixed; overflow-y:scroll }

you should still see the right scrollbar but the content is not scrollable. When you close the overlay just revert these properties with

body { position: static; overflow-y:auto }

I just proposed this way only because you wouldn't need to change any scroll event

Update

You could also do a slight improvement: if you get the document.documentElement.scrollTop property via javascript just before the layer opening, you could dynamically assign that value as top property of the body element: with this approach the page will stand in its place, no matter if you're on top or if you have already scrolled.

Css

.noscroll { position: fixed; overflow-y:scroll }

JS

$('body').css('top', -(document.documentElement.scrollTop) + 'px')
         .addClass('noscroll');

Four little additions to the accepted solution:

1. Apply 'noscroll' to html instead of to body to prevent double scroll bars in IE
2. To check if there's actually a scroll bar before adding the 'noscroll' class. Otherwise, the site will also jump pushed by the new non-scrolling scroll bar.
3. To keep any possible scrollTop so the entire page doesn't go back to the top (like Fabrizio's update, but you need to grab the value before adding the 'noscroll' class)
4. Not all browsers handle scrollTop the same way as documented at http://help.dottoro.com/ljnvjiow.php

Complete solution that seems to work for most browsers:

CSS

html.noscroll {
    position: fixed; 
    overflow-y: scroll;
    width: 100%;
}

Disable scroll

if ($(document).height() > $(window).height()) {
     var scrollTop = ($('html').scrollTop()) ? $('html').scrollTop() : $('body').scrollTop(); // Works for Chrome, Firefox, IE...
     $('html').addClass('noscroll').css('top',-scrollTop);         
}

Enable scroll

var scrollTop = parseInt($('html').css('top'));
$('html').removeClass('noscroll');
$('html,body').scrollTop(-scrollTop);

Thanks to Fabrizio and Dejan for putting me on the right track and to Brodingo for the solution to the double scroll bar

With jQuery inluded:

---

disable

$.fn.disableScroll = function() {
    window.oldScrollPos = $(window).scrollTop();

    $(window).on('scroll.scrolldisabler',function ( event ) {
       $(window).scrollTop( window.oldScrollPos );
       event.preventDefault();
    });
};

enable

$.fn.enableScroll = function() {
    $(window).off('scroll.scrolldisabler');
};

usage

//disable
$("#selector").disableScroll();
//enable
$("#selector").enableScroll();

I'm the OP

With the help of answer from fcalderan I was able to form a solution. I leave my solution here as it brings clarity to how to use it, and adds a very crucial detail, width: 100%;

I add this class

body.noscroll
{
    position: fixed; 
    overflow-y: scroll;
    width: 100%;
}

this worked for me and I was using Fancyapp.

This worked really well for me....

// disable scrolling
$('body').bind('mousewheel touchmove', lockScroll);

// enable scrolling
$('body').unbind('mousewheel touchmove', lockScroll);


// lock window scrolling
function lockScroll(e) {
    e.preventDefault();
}

just wrap those two lines of code with whatever decides when you are going to lock scrolling.

e.g.

$('button').on('click', function() {
     $('body').bind('mousewheel touchmove', lockScroll);
});

You cannot disable the scroll event, but you can disable the related actions that lead to a scroll, like mousewheel and touchmove:

$('body').on('mousewheel touchmove', function(e) {
      e.preventDefault();
});

You can hide the body's scrollbar with overflow: hidden and set a margin at the same time so that the content doesn't jump:

let marginRightPx = 0;
if(window.getComputedStyle) {
    let bodyStyle = window.getComputedStyle(document.body);
    if(bodyStyle) {
        marginRightPx = parseInt(bodyStyle.marginRight, 10);
    }
}

let scrollbarWidthPx = window.innerWidth - document.body.clientWidth;
Object.assign(document.body.style, {
    overflow: 'hidden',
    marginRight: `${marginRightPx + scrollbarWidthPx}px`
});

And then you can add a disabled scrollbar to the page to fill in the gap:

textarea {
  overflow-y: scroll;
  overflow-x: hidden;
  width: 11px;
  outline: none;
  resize: none;
  position: fixed;
  top: 0;
  right: 0;
  bottom: 0;
  border: 0;
}

<textarea></textarea>

I did exactly this for my own lightbox implementation. Seems to be working well so far.

Here is a working demo. This is how you can do this with pure JavaScript:

const { body, documentElement } = document;
let { scrollTop } = document.documentElement;

function disableScroll() {
  scrollTop = documentElement.scrollTop;
  body.style.top = `-${scrollTop}px`;
  body.classList.add("scroll-disabled");
}

function enableScroll() {
  body.classList.remove("scroll-disabled");
  documentElement.scrollTop = scrollTop;
  body.style.removeProperty("top");
}

And this is the CSS:

.scroll-disabled {
  position: fixed;
  width: 100%;
  overflow-y: scroll;
}

We use position: fixed on body to prevent it from being scrollable and we use overflow-y to show the scrollbar. We also need to set width because of how position: fixed works.

We keep track of the scroll position and update it when disabling scroll so that we can position body appropriately using top when scroll is disabled and restore the scroll position when it is enabled. Otherwise body will keep jumping to the top when disabling or enabling scroll.

When enabling scroll we remove the top style from body. This prevents it from breaking your layout if you have a different position than static on body.

If you are using scroll-behavior: smooth on html, you also need to modify the enableScroll function like this:

function enableScroll() {
  body.classList.remove("scroll-disabled");
  // Set "scroll-behavior" to "auto"
  documentElement.style.scrollBehavior = "auto";
  documentElement.scrollTop = scrollTop;
  // Remove "scroll-behavior: auto" after restoring scroll position
  documentElement.style.removeProperty("scroll-behavior");
  body.style.removeProperty("top");
}

We need to temporarily set scroll-behavior to auto so that there are no jumps.

This is the solution we went with. Simply save the scroll position when the overlay is opened, scroll back to the saved position any time the user attempted to scroll the page, and turn the listener off when the overlay is closed.

It's a bit jumpy on IE, but works like a charm on Firefox/Chrome.

var body = $("body"),
  overlay = $("#overlay"),
  overlayShown = false,
  overlayScrollListener = null,
  overlaySavedScrollTop = 0,
  overlaySavedScrollLeft = 0;

function showOverlay() {
  overlayShown = true;

  // Show overlay
  overlay.addClass("overlay-shown");

  // Save scroll position
  overlaySavedScrollTop = body.scrollTop();
  overlaySavedScrollLeft = body.scrollLeft();

  // Listen for scroll event
  overlayScrollListener = body.scroll(function() {
    // Scroll back to saved position
    body.scrollTop(overlaySavedScrollTop);
    body.scrollLeft(overlaySavedScrollLeft);
  });
}

function hideOverlay() {
  overlayShown = false;

  // Hide overlay
  overlay.removeClass("overlay-shown");

  // Turn scroll listener off
  if (overlayScrollListener) {
    overlayScrollListener.off();
    overlayScrollListener = null;
  }
}

// Click toggles overlay
$(window).click(function() {
  if (!overlayShown) {
    showOverlay();
  } else {
    hideOverlay();
  }
});

/* Required */
html, body { margin: 0; padding: 0; height: 100%; background: #fff; }
html { overflow: hidden; }
body { overflow-y: scroll; }

/* Just for looks */
.spacer { height: 300%; background: orange; background: linear-gradient(#ff0, #f0f); }
.overlay { position: fixed; top: 20px; bottom: 20px; left: 20px; right: 20px; z-index: -1; background: #fff; box-shadow: 0 0 5px rgba(0, 0, 0, .3); overflow: auto; }
.overlay .spacer { background: linear-gradient(#88f, #0ff); }
.overlay-shown { z-index: 1; }

<script src="https://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.11.1/jquery.min.js"></script>

<h1>Top of page</h1>
<p>Click to toggle overlay. (This is only scrollable when overlay is <em>not</em> open.)</p>
<div class="spacer"></div>
<h1>Bottom of page</h1>
<div id="overlay" class="overlay">
  <h1>Top of overlay</h1>
  <p>Click to toggle overlay. (Containing page is no longer scrollable, but this is.)</p>
  <div class="spacer"></div>
  <h1>Bottom of overlay</h1>
</div>

I like to stick to the "overflow: hidden" method and just add padding-right that's equal to the scrollbar width.

Get scrollbar width function, by lostsource.

function getScrollbarWidth() {
    var outer = document.createElement("div");
    outer.style.visibility = "hidden";
    outer.style.width = "100px";
    outer.style.msOverflowStyle = "scrollbar"; // needed for WinJS apps

    document.body.appendChild(outer);

    var widthNoScroll = outer.offsetWidth;
    // force scrollbars
    outer.style.overflow = "scroll";

    // add innerdiv
    var inner = document.createElement("div");
    inner.style.width = "100%";
    outer.appendChild(inner);        

    var widthWithScroll = inner.offsetWidth;

    // remove divs
    outer.parentNode.removeChild(outer);

    return widthNoScroll - widthWithScroll;
}

When showing the overlay, add "noscroll" class to html and add padding-right to body:

$(html).addClass("noscroll");
$(body).css("paddingRight", getScrollbarWidth() + "px");

When hiding, remove the class and padding:

$(html).removeClass("noscroll");
$(body).css("paddingRight", 0);

The noscroll style is just this:

.noscroll { overflow: hidden; }

Note that if you have any elements with position:fixed you need to add the padding to those elements too.

you can keep overflow:hidden but manage scroll position manually:

before showing keep trace of actual scroll position:

var scroll = [$(document).scrollTop(),$(document).scrollLeft()];
//show your lightbox and then reapply scroll position
$(document).scrollTop(scroll[0]).scrollLeft(scroll[1]);

it should work

<div id="lightbox"> is inside the <body> element, thus when you scroll the lightbox you also scroll the body. The solution is to not extend the <body> element over 100%, to place the long content inside another div element and to add a scrollbar if needed to this div element with overflow: auto.

html {
  height: 100%
}
body {
  margin: 0;
  height: 100%
}
#content {
  height: 100%;
  overflow: auto;
}
#lightbox {
  position: fixed;
  top: 0;
  left: 0;
  right: 0;
  bottom: 0;
}

<html>
  <body>
    <div id="content">much content</div>
    <div id="lightbox">lightbox<div>
  </body>
</html>

Now, scrolling over the lightbox (and the body as well) has no effect, because the body is no longer than 100% of the screen height.

I had a similar problem: a left-hand menu that, when it appears, prevents scrolling. As soon as height was set to 100vh, the scrollbar disappeared and the content jerked to the right.

So if you don't mind keeping the scrollbar enabled (but setting the window to full height so it won't actually scroll anywhere) then another possibility is setting a tiny bottom margin, which will keep the scroll bars showing:

body {
    height: 100vh;
    overflow: hidden;
    margin: 0 0 1px;
}

All modal/lightbox javascript-based systems use an overflow when displaying the modal/lightbox, on html tag or body tag.

When lightbox is show, the js push a overflow hidden on html or body tag. When lightbox is hidden, some remove the hidden other push a overflow auto on html or body tag.

Developers who work on Mac, do not see the problem of the scrollbar.

Just replace the hidden by an unset not to see the content slipping under the modal of the removal of the scrollbar.

Lightbox open/show:

<html style="overflow: unset;"></html>

Lightbox close/hide:

<html style="overflow: auto;"></html>

If the page under the overlayer can be "fixed" at the top, when you open the overlay you can set

.disableScroll { position: fixed; overflow-y:scroll }

provide this class to the scrollable body, you should still see the right scrollbar but the content is not scrollable.

To maintain the position of the page do this in jquery

$('body').css('top', - ($(window).scrollTop()) + 'px').addClass('disableScroll');

When you close the overlay just revert these properties with

var top = $('body').position().top;
$('body').removeClass('disableScroll').css('top', 0).scrollTop(Math.abs(top));

I just proposed this way only because you wouldn't need to change any scroll event

> This will stop the viewport jumping to the top by saving the scroll position and restoring it on enabling scrolling.

CSS

.no-scroll{
  position: fixed; 
  width:100%;
  min-height:100vh;
  top:0;
  left:0;
  overflow-y:scroll!important;
}

JS

var scrollTopPostion = 0;

function scroll_pause(){
  scrollTopPostion = $(window).scrollTop();
  $("body").addClass("no-scroll").css({"top":-1*scrollTopPostion+"px"});
}

function scroll_resume(){
  $("body").removeClass("no-scroll").removeAttr("style");
  $(window).scrollTop(scrollTopPostion);
}

Now all you need to do is to call the functions

$(document).on("click","#DISABLEelementID",function(){
   scroll_pause();
});

$(document).on("click","#ENABLEelementID",function(){
   scroll_resume();
});

Another solution to get rid of content jump on fixed modal, when removing body scroll is to normalize page width:

body {width: 100vw; overflow-x: hidden;}

Then you can play with fixed position or overflow:hidden for body when the modal is open. But it will hide horizontal scrollbars - usually they're not needed on responsive website.

The position: fixed; solution has a drawback - the page jumps to the top when this style is applied. Angular's Material Dialog has a nice solution, where they fake the scroll position by applying positioning to the html element.

Below is my revised algorithm for vertical scrolling only. Left scroll blocking is done in the exact same manner.

// This class applies the following styles:
// position: fixed;
// overflow-y: scroll;
// width: 100%;
const NO_SCROLL_CLASS = "bp-no-scroll";

const coerceCssPixelValue = value => {
  if (value == null) {
    return "";
  }

  return typeof value === "string" ? value : `${value}px`;
};

export const blockScroll = () => {
  const html = document.documentElement;
  const documentRect = html.getBoundingClientRect();
  const { body } = document;

  // Cache the current scroll position to be restored later.
  const cachedScrollPosition =
    -documentRect.top || body.scrollTop || window.scrollY || document.scrollTop || 0;

  // Cache the current inline `top` value in case the user has set it.
  const cachedHTMLTop = html.style.top || "";

  // Using `html` instead of `body`, because `body` may have a user agent margin,
  // whereas `html` is guaranteed not to have one.
  html.style.top = coerceCssPixelValue(-cachedScrollPosition);

  // Set the magic class.
  html.classList.add(NO_SCROLL_CLASS);

  // Return a function to remove the scroll block.
  return () => {
    const htmlStyle = html.style;
    const bodyStyle = body.style;

    // We will need to seamlessly restore the original scroll position using
    // `window.scroll`. To do that we will change the scroll behavior to `auto`.
    // Here we cache the current scroll behavior to restore it later.
    const previousHtmlScrollBehavior = htmlStyle.scrollBehavior || "";
    const previousBodyScrollBehavior = bodyStyle.scrollBehavior || "";

    // Restore the original inline `top` value.
    htmlStyle.top = cachedHTMLTop;

    // Remove the magic class.
    html.classList.remove(NO_SCROLL_CLASS);

    // Disable user-defined smooth scrolling temporarily while we restore the scroll position.
    htmlStyle.scrollBehavior = bodyStyle.scrollBehavior = "auto";

    // Restore the original scroll position.
    window.scroll({
      top: cachedScrollPosition.top
    });

    // Restore the original scroll behavior.
    htmlStyle.scrollBehavior = previousHtmlScrollBehavior;
    bodyStyle.scrollBehavior = previousBodyScrollBehavior;
  };
};

The logic is very simple and can be simplified even more if you don't care about certain edge cases. For example, this is what I use:

export const blockScroll = () => {
  const html = document.documentElement;
  const documentRect = html.getBoundingClientRect();
  const { body } = document;
  const screenHeight = window.innerHeight;

  // Only do the magic if document is scrollable
  if (documentRect.height > screenHeight) {
    const cachedScrollPosition =
      -documentRect.top || body.scrollTop || window.scrollY || document.scrollTop || 0;

    html.style.top = coerceCssPixelValue(-cachedScrollPosition);

    html.classList.add(NO_SCROLL_CLASS);

    return () => {
      html.classList.remove(NO_SCROLL_CLASS);

      window.scroll({
        top: cachedScrollPosition,
        behavior: "auto"
      });
    };
  }
};

I have made this one function, that solves this problem with JS. This principle can be easily extended and customized that is a big pro for me.

Using this js DOM API function:

const handleWheelScroll = (element) => (event) => {
  if (!element) {
    throw Error("Element for scroll was not found");
  }
  const { deltaY } = event;
  const { clientHeight, scrollTop, scrollHeight } = element;
  if (deltaY < 0) {
    if (-deltaY > scrollTop) {
      element.scrollBy({
        top: -scrollTop,
        behavior: "smooth",
      });
      event.stopPropagation();
      event.preventDefault();
    }
    return;
  }

  if (deltaY > scrollHeight - clientHeight - scrollTop) {
    element.scrollBy({
      top: scrollHeight - clientHeight - scrollTop,
      behavior: "smooth",
    });
    event.stopPropagation();
    event.preventDefault();
    return;
  }
};

In short, this function will stop event propagation and default behavior if the scroll would scroll something else then the given element (the one you want to scroll in).

Then you can hook and unhook this up like this:

const wheelEventHandler = handleWheelScroll(elementToScrollIn);

window.addEventListener("wheel", wheelEventHandler, {
    passive: false,
});

window.removeEventListener("wheel", wheelEventHandler);

Watch out for that it is a higher order function so you have to keep a reference to the given instance.

I hook the addEventListener part in mouse enter and unhook the removeEventListener in mouse leave events in jQuery, but you can use it as you like.

I’ve noticed that the YouTube website does exactly this. So by inspecting it a bit I’ve been able to determine that they’re using @polymer/iron-overlay-behavior and fortunately, it can be used rather unobtrusively outside of web components/Polymer:

import {
	pushScrollLock,
	removeScrollLock,
} from '@polymer/iron-overlay-behavior/iron-scroll-manager';

// lock scroll everywhere except scrollElement
pushScrollLock(scrollElement);

// restore scrolling
removeScrollLock(scrollElement);

• Allows scrolling in selected element
• Doesn't mess with styling in any way
• Is battle-tested on YouTube website

It seems like a mature solution and surely the best I was able to find. The package is a bit heavy but I guess much of it become unbundled, when importing just the iron-scroll-manager.

Cheers

I have some other fixed elements in the page and setting body's position to fixed caused a bunch of other problems, so I did it in a hacky way:

const scrollbarWidth = window.innerWidth - document.documentElement.clientWidth;

// on opening modal
document.body.style.overflow = "hidden"
document.body.style.paddingRight = `${scrollbarWidth}px`

// on closing modal
document.body.style.overflow = "unset",
document.body.style.paddingRight = "0px"

The idea is to add a padding-right with the same width as browser's scrollbar, to mimick a fake scrollbar and prevent the content shift.

Crude but working way will be to force the scroll back to top, thus effectively disabling scrolling:

var _stopScroll = false;
window.onload = function(event) {
    document.onscroll = function(ev) {
        if (_stopScroll) {
            document.body.scrollTop = "0px";
        }
    }
};

When you open the lightbox raise the flag and when closing it,lower the flag.

Live test case.

You can do it with Javascript:

// Classic JS
window.onscroll = function(ev) {
  ev.preventDefault();
}

// jQuery
$(window).scroll(function(ev) {
  ev.preventDefault();
}

And then disable it when your lightbox is closed.

But if your lightbox contains a scroll bar, you won't be able to scroll while it's open. This is because window contains both body and #lightbox. So you have to use an architecture like the following one:

<body>
  <div id="global"></div>
  <div id="lightbox"></div>
</body>

And then apply the onscroll event only on #global.