DOM Element Width before Appended to DOM

Question

I'm sure the answer is no, but is it possible to determine the width of an element before it is appended to the DOM?

Once it's appended, I know I can use offsetWidth and offsetHeight.

Thanks

Answer 1

The trick is to show the element (display:block) but also hide it (visibility:hidden) and to set it’s position to absolute so that it doesn’t affect the page flow.

The MooTools Element.Measure class does this, as Oscar mentioned.

Answer 2

The Mootools Element.Measure functionality that Oscar mentioned is awesome. For those that use jQuery, here's a quick plugin that accomplishes the same thing:

$.fn.measure = (fn)->   el = $(this).clone(false)   el.css     visibility: 'hidden'     position:   'absolute'   el.appendTo('body')   result = fn.apply(el)   el.remove()   return result 

You can call it like this, making sure to return the value (thanks Sam Fen for pointing that out!):

width = $('.my-class-name').measure( function(){ return this.width() } )