How to get the browser viewport dimensions?

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Cross-browser @media (width) and @media (height) values 

const vw = Math.max(document.documentElement.clientWidth || 0, window.innerWidth || 0)
const vh = Math.max(document.documentElement.clientHeight || 0, window.innerHeight || 0)

window.innerWidth and window.innerHeight

  • gets CSS viewport @media (width) and @media (height) which include scrollbars
  • initial-scale and zoom variations may cause mobile values to wrongly scale down to what PPK calls the visual viewport and be smaller than the @media values
  • zoom may cause values to be 1px off due to native rounding
  • undefined in IE8-

document.documentElement.clientWidth and .clientHeight

  • equals CSS viewport width minus scrollbar width
  • matches @media (width) and @media (height) when there is no scrollbar
  • same as jQuery(window).width() which jQuery calls the browser viewport
  • available cross-browser
  • inaccurate if doctype is missing

Resources

  • Live outputs for various dimensions
  • verge uses cross-browser viewport techniques
  • actual uses matchMedia to obtain precise dimensions in any unit

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