Expected behavior:
setInterval calls getScreenWidth() every 2 sec.getScreenWidth() gets the current width of the (browser) screen.Output:
"1536"
The output is always a constant value. (in my case 1536)
I was trying this code on CodePen, and I've tried:
The HTML:
<div id="demo"></div>
The script:
"use strict";
console.clear();
function getScreenWidth() {
return screen.availWidth;
// I've also tried screen.width
}
const demo = document.getElementById("demo");
let count = 0;
const intervalId = setInterval(function () {
demo.innerHTML = getScreenWidth();
console.clear();
console.log(demo.innerHTML);
console.log(count);
count++;
if (count > 30) {
clearInterval(intervalId);
}
}, 2000);
Since setInterval is indirectly calling getScreenWidth() every 2 sec, shouldn't screen.width be a fresh value every time?
If I assume that it's a fresh value, then does that mean screen.width doesn't equal the current width of the browser window?
Note: The count variable in the code is just to stop setInterval from running indefinitely in the background.
I have the same screen width :)
Anyway, you don't need setInterval you can change it every time the browser is resized using the window onresize event:
window.onresize = function() {
screen.width; // 1536 / 1530 etc.
};
You also cannot get the browser width (with screen.width)
But you can easily get it using jQuery's .width() function:
$(window).width();
Here's a working example (using jQuery):
"use strict";
console.clear();
function getScreenWidth() {
return $(window).width();
}
const demo = document.getElementById("demo");
window.onresize = function() {
demo.textContent = getScreenWidth();
console.clear();
console.log(demo.textContent);
};<script src="https://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/jquery/3.3.1/jquery.min.js"></script>
<div id="demo"></div>Edit: You also cannot resize the browser window with JavaScript. This would be a huge security issue, and you should be glad it's not possible.
The Screen interface represents a screen, usually the one on which the current window is being rendered, and is obtained using window.screen.
Thus, the screen object here is represents the device output display, and not the browser window.
Again, from MDN:
The Screen.width read-only property returns the width of the screen in pixels.
Thus, screen.width (or window.screen.width) does not give us the browser window width, but it's rather the screen (device output screen) width, which obvious would not change.
To get the width of the browser window, we need to use Element.clientWidth.
From MDN once again:
The Element.clientWidth property is zero for inline elements and elements with no CSS; otherwise, it's the inner width of an element in pixels. It includes padding but excludes borders, margins, and vertical scrollbars (if present).
When clientWidth is used on the root element (the element), (or on if the document is in quirks mode), the viewport's width (excluding any scrollbar) is returned.
Just changing getScreenWidth() would do:
function getScreenWidth() {
return document.body.clientWidth;
}
Now the console output changes when the width of the browser window changes.