Trigger event when user scroll to specific element - with jQuery

Question

I have an h1 that is far down a page..

<h1 id="scroll-to">TRIGGER EVENT WHEN SCROLLED TO.</h1>

and I want to trigger an alert when the user scrolls to the h1, or has it in it's browser's view.

$('#scroll-to').scroll(function() {
     alert('you have scrolled to the h1!');
});

how do I do this?

Answer 1

You can calculate the offset of the element and then compare that with the scroll value like:

$(window).scroll(function() {
   var hT = $('#scroll-to').offset().top,
       hH = $('#scroll-to').outerHeight(),
       wH = $(window).height(),
       wS = $(this).scrollTop();
   if (wS > (hT+hH-wH)){
       console.log('H1 on the view!');
   }
});

Check this Demo Fiddle

---

Updated Demo Fiddle no alert -- instead FadeIn() the element

---

Updated code to check if the element is inside the viewport or not. Thus this works whether you are scrolling up or down adding some rules to the if statement:

   if (wS > (hT+hH-wH) && (hT > wS) && (wS+wH > hT+hH)){
       //Do something
   }

Demo Fiddle

Answer 2

Combining this question with the best answer from jQuery trigger action when a user scrolls past a certain part of the page

var element_position = $('#scroll-to').offset().top;

$(window).on('scroll', function() {
    var y_scroll_pos = window.pageYOffset;
    var scroll_pos_test = element_position;

    if(y_scroll_pos > scroll_pos_test) {
        //do stuff
    }
});

UPDATE

I've improved the code so that it will trigger when the element is half way up the screen rather than at the very top. It will also trigger the code if the user hits the bottom of the screen and the function hasn't fired yet.

var element_position = $('#scroll-to').offset().top;
var screen_height = $(window).height();
var activation_offset = 0.5;//determines how far up the the page the element needs to be before triggering the function
var activation_point = element_position - (screen_height * activation_offset);
var max_scroll_height = $('body').height() - screen_height - 5;//-5 for a little bit of buffer

//Does something when user scrolls to it OR
//Does it when user has reached the bottom of the page and hasn't triggered the function yet
$(window).on('scroll', function() {
    var y_scroll_pos = window.pageYOffset;

    var element_in_view = y_scroll_pos > activation_point;
    var has_reached_bottom_of_page = max_scroll_height <= y_scroll_pos && !element_in_view;

    if(element_in_view || has_reached_bottom_of_page) {
        //Do something
    }
});

Answer 3

I think your best bet would be to leverage an existing library that does that very thing:

http://imakewebthings.com/waypoints/

You can add listeners to your elements that will fire off when your element hits the top of the viewport:

$('#scroll-to').waypoint(function() {
 alert('you have scrolled to the h1!');
});

For an amazing demo of it in use:

http://tympanus.net/codrops/2013/07/16/on-scroll-header-effects/