One Line - Sticky Header using CSS

How many times have we come across a situation where you want the header of a website to remain on top of everything even if you scroll past it.

Or, to have a navigation bar that is beneath a hero-banner to stick to the top once we scroll past it.

Or even for a navigation bar to stay at the bottom of a mobile website.

We have been in this sticky situation (pun intended) over and over. The time has come we solve this once and for all.

The best part is, we will do it in one-line 😎

CSS



nav {
    position: sticky; top: 0;
}

I know what you are thinking, that is two lines! OK I admit I got carried away with the one-line heading, but I assure you it is still awesome 😍

Let's see some demo's and understand how it works

Demo 1: The nav-bar that just sticks

Let's try and understand what is happening here.

The markup I have used is pretty simple

HTML



<body>
  <nav>
    <ul>
      <li><a href="#first">First</a></li>
      <li><a href="#second">Second</a></li>
      <li><a href="#third">Third</a></li>
    </ul>
  </nav>
  <section id="first">First Section</section>
  <section id="second">Second Section</section>
  <section id="third">Third Section</section>
</body>

CSS



html {
  margin: 0;
  padding: 0;
  scroll-behavior: smooth;
}

body {
  min-height: 100vh;
  font-family: 'Segoe UI', Tahoma, Geneva, Verdana, sans-serif;
  margin: 0;
  padding: 0;
  box-sizing: border-box;
}
body nav {
  position: sticky;
  top: 0;
}
ul {
  width: 100%;
  display: flex;
  justify-content: flex-end;
  box-sizing: border-box;
  padding: 20px;
  background: #fff;
}
li {
  list-style: none;
  margin-right: 20px;
  font-size: 25px;
  font-weight: bold;
}
li a {
  text-decoration: none;
  color: #1ac;
}
section {
  height: 100vh;
  display: grid;
  place-items: center;
  font-size: 50px;
  font-weight: bold;
  background: #eee;
}

Of all that mark-up the most important two lines where all the magic happens is



...
body nav{
    position: sticky;
    top: 0;
}
...

What it tells the browser is to stick this element to the viewport when its top position value is 0;

An element with position: sticky; is positioned based on the user's scroll position.

A sticky element toggles between relative and fixed, depending on the scroll position. It is positioned relative until a given offset position is met in the viewport - then it "sticks" in place (like position: fixed).

Now that we understood how it works let us see two more use-cases of sticky.

Demo 2: Nav-bar below a hero banner.

Here, the nav-bar is below the hero banner. So it acts relative until its offset from the top is not 0. The moment the offset value reaches 0 it sticks to the top of the viewport.

Demo 3: Application with a sticky header and footer

Notice how we have styled footer element.



footer {
    ...
    position: sticky;
    bottom: 0;
    ...
}

There you go! We are now officially sticky! 🐱‍👤✌

Do you know what else is sticky? Coffee spilled on a table! My days are fueled with coffees and only coffees. So I know, you know what we all should do 🤞

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One Line - Sticky Header using CSS

Akhil Arjun

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