Let’s say we have a basic HTML layout: a container DIV and within it another DIV and an image:

<div id="xdivContainer">
   <div id="xdivMenu" style="position:absolute"></div>
   <img id="ximgIcon" src="icon.gif" />
</div>

Inner (child) div is positioned absolutely and we want to place it at the coordinates of the image (think popup menu appearing on icon click). A very basic JavaScript function obtains position of the image:

// Class placeholder for coordinates
function CTopLeft(i_nTop, i_nLeft) {
   this.nTop = i_nTop;
   this.nLeft = i_nLeft;
}

// obtain position of a DOM element
function GetTopLeft(i_oElem) {
   var cTL = new CTopLeft(0, 0);
   var oElem = i_oElem;

   while (oElem) {
      cTL.nLeft += oElem.offsetLeft;
      cTL.nTop += oElem.offsetTop;
      oElem = oElem.offsetParent;
   }
   
   return cTL;
}

As you can see it simple collects offset positions of the HTML element, combining them into absolute coordinates. So to absolutely position our child DIV at the coordinates of the image we can call it like this (I am using $() notation as a shortcut for document.getElementById)

var oPos = GetTopLeft($('ximgIcon'));
$('xdivMenu').style.top = oPos.nTop + 'px';
$('xdivMenu').style.left = oPos.nLeft + 'px'

And it works fine. Until container DIV is in turn absolutely positioned: Continue reading →