The CSS Podcast - 034: Overflow
When content extends beyond its parent, there are many options for how you can handle it. You can scroll to add additional space, clip the overflowing edges, indicate the cut-off with an ellipsis, and so much more. Overflow is especially important to consider when developing for phone applications and multiple screen sizes.
There are two different clipping options in CSS; text-overflow
will help with individual lines of text, and the overflow
properties will help control overflow in the box model.
Single line overflow with text-overflow
Use the text-overflow
property on any element that contains text node(s), for example a paragraph, <p>
. It specifies how the text appears when it doesn’t fit in the available space of the element. All viewable HTML text on a page is in text nodes. To use text-overflow
you need a single unwrapped line of text, so you must also set overflow
to hidden
and have a white-space
value that prevents wrapping.
p {
text-overflow: ellipsis;
overflow: hidden;
white-space: nowrap;
}
Using overflow properties
Overflow properties are set on an element to control what happens when its children need more space than it has available. This can be intentional, like in an interactive map like Google Maps, where a user pans around a large image clipped to a specific size. It can also be unintentional like in a chat application where the user types a lengthy message that doesn’t fit in the text bubble.
You can think of the overflow in two parts. The parent element has a firmly constrained space that will not change. You can think of this as a window. The child elements are content that want more space from the parent. You can think of this as what you are looking through the window at. Managing overflow will help guide how the window frames this content.
Scrolling on the vertical and horizontal axis
The overflow-y
property controls physical overflow along the vertical axis of the device viewport, therefore scrolling up and down.
The overflow-x
property controls overflow along the horizontal axis of the device viewport, therefore scrolling left and right.
Logical properties for scroll direction
The overflow-inline
and overflow-block
properties set the overflow based on the document direction and writing mode.
The overflow
shorthand
The overflow
shorthand sets both overflow-x
and overflow-y
styles in one line:
overflow: hidden scroll;
If two keywords are specified, the first applies to overflow-x
and the second to overflow-y
. Otherwise, both overflow-x
and overflow-y
use the same value.
Values
Let's take a closer look at the values and keywords available for the overflow
properties.
overflow: visible
(default)- Without setting the property,
overflow: visible
is the default value for the web. This ensures that content is never unintentionally hidden and follows the core tenets of "never hide content" or "safe layouts of precise layouts". overflow: hidden
- With
overflow: hidden
content is clipped in the specified direction, and no scrollbars are provided to show it. overflow: scroll
overflow: scroll
enables scrollbars to allow users to scroll through content. Even if content isn't currently overflowing, scrollbars will be present. This is a great way to reduce future layout shift if a container may be scrollable in the future based, for example, on resize, and visually prepare the user for scrollable areas.overflow: clip
- Like
overflow: hidden
, the content withoverflow: clip
is clipped to the element's padding box. The difference betweenclip
andhidden
is that theclip
keyword also forbids all scrolling, including programmatic scrolling. overflow: auto
- Finally, the value most commonly used,
overflow: auto
. This respects the user's preferences and shows scrollbars if needed, but hides them by default, and gives responsibility for scrolling to the user and browser.
Scrolling and overflow
Many of these overflow
behaviors introduce a scrollbar, but there’s a few specific scroll behaviors and properties that can help you control scrolling on your overflow container.
Scrolling and accessibility
It's important to make sure that the scrollable area can accept focus so that a keyboard user can tab to the box, then use the arrow keys to scroll.
To allow a scrolling box to accept focus add tabindex="0"
, a name with the aria-labelledby
attribute, and an appropriate role
attribute. For example:
<div tabindex="0" role="region" aria-labelledby="id-of-descriptive-text">
content
</div>
CSS can then be used to indicate that the box has focus, using the outline
property to give a visual clue that it will now be scrollable.
In Using CSS to Enforce Accessibility Adrian Roselli demonstrates how CSS can help prevent accessibility regressions. For example, to only turn on scrolling and add the focus indicator if the correct attributes are used. The following rules will only make the box scrollable if it has a tabindex
, aria-labelledby
, and role
attribute.
[role][aria-labelledby][tabindex] {
overflow: auto;
}
[role][aria-labelledby][tabindex]:focus {
outline: .1em solid blue;
}
Scrollbar positioning within the box model
Scroll bars take up space within the padding box and can compete for space if inline
and not overlaid
. The box model module expands more on this potential source of layout shift.
root-scroller vs implicit-scroller
You may notice that some scrollers have a pull-to-refresh behavior and other special behaviors, especially when developing for mobile and hybrid applications. This scroll behavior happens on the root scroller. There is only ever one root scroller on a page. By default, the documentElement is the page's root scroller, however, by changing which element is the root scroller, the special behaviors can be applied to scrollers other than the documentElement, we call this new scroller the implicit root scroller.
To create a root scroller, you can use something called scroller promotion by positioning a container as fixed, ensuring it covers the entire viewport and is z-index on top with a scroller. Experience a root scroller vs a nested implicit scroller here.
scroll-behavior
scroll-behavior
allows you to opt into browser-controlled scrolling to elements. This allows you to specify how in-page navigation like .scrollTo()
or links are handled.
This is especially useful when used with prefers-reduced-motion to specify scroll behavior based on user preference.
@media (prefers-reduced-motion: no-preference) {
.scroll-view {
scroll-behavior: auto;
}
}
overscroll-behavior
If you’ve ever reached the end of a modal overlay, then continued scrolling and had the page behind the overlay move, this is the scroll chaining, or bubbling up to the parent scroll container. The overscroll-behavior
property allows you to prevent overflow scrolling leaking into a parent container (called scroll chaining).
Check your understanding
Test your knowledge of overflow
Text overflow and element overflow are the same?
The overflow
property accepts 2 keywords, the first keyword is for which axis?
Which space in the box model do scrollbars consume when showing and inline?
To trap extra momentum from scrolling in a nested implicit scroller, which property would you use?
scroll-padding
overscroll-effect
scroll-hint
scroll-behavior
overscroll-behavior