window.location.hash issue in IE7

Question

We have a javascript function that should "move" a page to a certain position using anchors. This function just does window.location.href = "#" + hashName. This works in FF, but not in IE. I tested this code using IE7 under Windows XP. I have tried using window.location.href, window.location.hash, window.location.replace and all these ways, but using document object. Does anyone know how to deal with this issue?

Answer 1

IE and most other browsers will scroll to an anchor with anchor.focus(), or to any element with an id with element.scrollIntoView(true)

Answer 2

I justed tested this in IE7 under Vista, maybe the issue only exsists in IE7 under XP? Because this works fine for me in IE7, Chrome and Firefox:

 window.location.hash = hashName;

If this really doesn't work then we could use scrollIntoView as Kennebec suggests.

 function scrollToAnchor(anchorName){
   //set the hash so people can bookmark
   window.location.hash = anchorName;
   //scroll the anchor into view
   document.getElementsByName(anchorName)[0].scrollIntoView(true);
 }

Use like this:

 <script type='text/javascript'>scrollIToAnchor('foo');</script>
 <a name='foo'></a>
 <p>I will be scrolled into view</p>

Answer 3

Have you tried changing just location.hash?

window.location.hash = "#" + hashName;