The problems with viewport units

Conquering Responsive Layouts (free course): courses.kevinpowell.co/conque...
Join the Discord: kevinpowell.co/discord
Viewport units often feel like this cheat code that makes things so much easier when you first discover them, but they actually are problematic for a number of reasons, from creating horizontal scrolling to accessibility issues and more, so in this video I look at the problems that people run into by using them and offer up some alternatives.
🔗 Links
✅ Discord: kevinpowell.co/discord
✅ Dynamic viewport unit browser support: caniuse.com/mdn-css_types_len...
✅ Codepen: codepen.io/kevinpowell/pen/Po...
✅ Conquering Responsive Layouts: courses.kevinpowell.co/conque...
⌚ Timestamps
00:00 - Introduction
00:22 - Issue 1: Using 100vw
02:00 - Issue 2: The problem with 100vh
07:28 - Issue 3: Fluid layouts
#css
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And whatever you do, don't forget to keep on making your corner of the internet just a little bit more awesome!

[@Brunoenribeiro]

Liking the new format, Kevin! No logo splash, faster intro, going straight to the juicy content. Hope it doesn't hurt your channel's metrics! Thank you for giving it a go ❤️

[@bobwilkinsonguitar6142]

Devs watch KZbin on 2x speed, angrily scrolling until they find the code that fixes their bug, I'm /sure/ this is helping😂

[@potrosanjuan]

I didn't know why that annoying horizontal scroll appeared, I don't know what I'd do without your videos, thank you Kevin!!!!

[@jasonoconner7863]

Wow, I was just the other night ranting about the vw units causing horizontal scroll and ChatGPT being unable to help me. Thank you!

[@NotJayG]

you can use overflow-x: hidden; or width: 100%; instead

[@FeresVocalArts]

Man, these were the most productive 13 minutes I've been into since so long! Thank you so much!

[@developerpranav]

100vh has been problematic for me! never had to use 100vw, but it's good to see that dvh and svh are getting support! Thanks for covering this! :D

[@VivekTR]

I've faced many of these problems. A lot has been clarified in this video. Thank you, Kevin!

[@timseguine2]

I used to do full-stack dev but quit back when IE7 support was still a thing that people sometimes had to do. I enjoy how much better things have gotten with decent html5 and css features, but my "oldschool" brain sometimes has trouble with the stuff we could never really use like this. It is great to have videos like this that distill the quirks down into manageable chunks without hours of experimentation.

[@cerealrakist7360]

Same!!

[@ongke3655]

IE should be excluded from the world. Even IE10 or 11

[@timseguine2]

@@ongke3655 support these days is completely unnecessary. But this was coming from back in the day when it still had 10%-20% market share. Not supporting that was basically just bad business back then.

[@yarrrno]

This exact header 100vh issue on mobile. arghhhh. I think i asked about it like 6 months back on your discord channel. There was so little info on web about the new units. Was super happy to see this video. Now its way more clear how to make use of the new units. Truely appreciate your work, thanks in behalf of the whole world :D

[@andrewc95]

Couldn't fall back to sleep so I've been flipping back and forth between you and Web Dev Simplified. You guys make great videos. I'll definitely have to come back to this one when I'm working on my projects.

[@youngun550]

This is awesome. Good job Kevin. I'm very grateful for all of your excellent content!

[@FernLovebond]

Damn! You always teach me fascinating things, and make me want to tinker and play. Thank you for giving such clear ideas about how the various rules work. You're so awesome at this.

[@danielguzman8607]

This is the first video I watch from your channel and I can say, with absolutely no doubt, that I just became your fan, man! Thanks!

[@grymmjack]

Thanks for the video. Subbed. I used to do a lot of web design, but haven't in ages. While things have definitely improved since those days, it's a little crazy to see the struggles with the same old problems on new tech. Will use your channel to get back up to speed. Appreciate your approach/method/sharing/pace/explanation/allthethings.

[@fiddle_n]

I've started web dev this year (through the Odin Project, which is how I found your channel incidentally!) and Issue 2 was the bane of my life last week. What's worse is that most Google results don't include svh at all - I had to *really* look to find it. But wow is it a great unit to use.

[@urbanpuma9136]

Straight to the point and well presented - perfect 👌

[@melissabazany2363]

Perfect timing for this, thank you, as always

[@haxmero4413]

Love the video 👍 A good summary of the issues and solutions that everyone should be aware of

[@hruthikg6735]

Wow 2 days back i was searching for this !!! 😂❤️ Great one

[@boheeatelier6681]

Great! I have just enrolled for the free course. I learn so much from your videos and I just love playing with CSS, so fun!

[@juliapaulucci]

I JUST WANNA SAY... I LOVE YOU......... IVE BEEN SEEKING FOR THE SOLUTION OF THIS PROBLEM FOR A LONG TIME WHEN I SAW YOUR VIDEO AND BAMM!!! SOLVED!!! THANK YOU!!!!!

[@christian-schubert]

Now, haven't been excited about a CSS topic probably since CSS grid came up - since when have 'svh' units been a thing?! (Also, how could I ever miss this?!) This LITERALLY IS a gamechanger - developing for those collapsing addressbars has always been SUCH a nuisance - thanks Kevin! 👍

[@KevinPowell]

They're relatively new, so do keep an eye on browser support, though it is pretty decent!

[@qzbnyv]

Thank you KZbin algorithm for bringing me to this amazingly useful channel 👏👏 And thanks Kevin 👏

[@qzbnyv]

oops though that was a top-level comment. oh well

[@thedigitalceo]

It’s so sad that there’s still no real solution for 100vh on mobile. svh also doesn’t seem supported by iPhone Safari which is what our clients complain about the most.

[@heyjakeay]

@@thedigitalceo It works on 15.4 onwards according to CanIUse, so you could set it to 100svh and then also declare 100vh as a fallback if it isn't supported by the browser (with a padding hack as well)

[@ClashRoyale-pt9zj]

wow, i've never known anything about that "svh" unity, it's an incredible solution for a lot of projects that could have problems like the showed on the video, thx kevin!

[@GroovyMMA]

Thank you! Love your professionalism

[@proffelipesilva]

Once again bringing accessibility issues. Thank you so much for this. Respect + 🤟🏻

[@greedyboi011]

Absolutely game changing!

[@JPNK13]

Are you using something like Nvidia's Eye Contact feature? Around 1:40 your eyes suddenly change and it stood out to me. I appreciate the content either way! Thanks for uploading.

[@vokhactri]

i also spot that weirdness

[@trubnikov]

That was scary as shit!

[@muhamadsarhad6566]

wonderful video as always

[@Sanguine830]

Exactly what I needed! Thanks for this video, it’s the best

[@corydhmiller]

Hey Kevin! Nice shirt 😁🤘 just wanted to say thanks for the clearness of your videos, always find myself learning new things every time.

[@pertreyu9579]

Man this was extremely informative. I definitely have used view port values a lot in the past..

[@fredbcruz]

Pretty on point. I liked this style

[@lolitukas89]

Kevin, you are a golden find

[@joshuaheathcote2116]

I was wrestling with this the other days, so happy to hear this because now it makes sense.

[@ichiroutakashima4503]

I thought this was a contradictory post from one of your contents, glad to learn this was kind of a continuation about dynamic viewports. I stopped using viewports and started using dynamic viewports because of your videos.

[@dandejy6520]

Your videos are always very helpful. 👍

[@neoweiter]

Very good video ! Thanks for your always great work

[@CoryTheSimmons]

Super helpful. Great channel!

[@woodrunsdeep]

I don't use vw for everything but sometimes I see people doing so. Now I'll give these people the link to this video :) Thanks Kevin!

[@electronicmusicartcollective]

MY CSS GURU!!! THANK YOU!

[@DaleRogers]

Great video. I'm investigating CSS functions now. Thanks.

[@dariokartal9453]

Hella good video. Subscribed.

[@erfanvatanparasti2949]

You are number 1 and my best teacher! 👍

[@g-pg]

Earlier today I was wondering how to fix a problem with an element not showing properly on mobile because of the 100vh differences between devices. Thank you very much Kevin!

[@karlo2116]

Hi kevin , its really amazing that I have a problem in my code and in the NEXT DAY you make a video about my problem, happened already like 7 times

[@obsessedprogrammer700]

Thanks to Kevin, now everything I say or do has 'awesome' in it.

[@mr_possible6197]

Loved it !

[@cabezachumbosampedro8038]

This is useful. Thanks.

[@johanneswijaya5384]

Thanks man! dvh saved my life

[@gwnima1]

Awesome video. Thank you.

[@frankroos1167]

So far I have only used viewport units on pages that fill the viewport exactly on regular screens, either landscape or portrait. For that use-case it works pretty well. For other use-cases I have never considered them, not because of the problems it may cause, but because the alternatives I did use came more natural. min/max/clamp are so good. And combining them with container-query-units is awesome.

[@nevyanplamenov5409]

Thank you for sharing about container query units, i study responsive design right now and i had no idea those even existed...

[@pazdyyy]

Thank you sir for the SVH value trick 👌🏻😊

[@mkontent]

Oh wow, you only just uploaded. Great video!

[@skyvibe1818]

Oh using AI eye tracking are we? 😆 Great content as always!

[@Ultrajuiced]

1:40?

[@James-zr1lu]

Nice mate, keep it up.

[@ardasevinc4]

Very helpful tips especially with 100vw. One of the points I tackle through with every project...

[@jasonhowells7974]

@kevinpowell although the footer is not sticky "stays at the bottom" I use flex: 0 auto in the first div bellow the body, then once the content inside goes beyond the height it can initially display the footer will be at the bottom of the content. to me it's not good design to keep a footer in view, as it's taking up space all the time. Always appreciate your work Kevin.

[@natarajanraju4198]

Love your content

[@sweethomes674]

Excellent 😊

[@clebsgaming92]

omg thank you so much for the "100svh" tip. In my case it's a sidebar which must have the exact same height as the viewport but on tablets it was having that same issue.

[@nocodekevin]

I build with a mix of units and than run a PX to REM convertor before running final checks on my responsiveness. I've found that's working for me as I get more involved with Accessibility and working with multiple developers.

[@uimonk]

ur a superhero!!

[@emmavdev]

omg thank you so much, I have the problem with 100vh height in my project and the svh is probably gonna fix it!! Thank you!

[@kieranbarker1902]

Loving the Nathan Barry shirt! 👕

[@utekk]

Thx for another usefull info :)

[@zoirjonabduvohidov2897]

very very usefull info nj

[@stokeley4l]

needed this

[@dabbopabblo]

That 100vh part was very useful because I want the comment section on videos on my site to be off screen until scrolled so the comments don’t need to be loaded unless a user scrolls to see them

[@francescapizzighini3014]

THANKS. I think I just found a great problem in my project

[@mdibrahimkhalil2847]

Thank you my dear sir

[@diegoavendanohernandez9908]

you're the man

[@Kleyguy7]

1:41 there is an eye glitch on Kevin face. Pretty interesting times we live in :)

[@charlestonmiszczak5009]

Excellent. I always want to know some solution to this problems

[@VasilyPavlik]

Thanks a lot! As usual I found your video awesome. (Gone to remove all 100vh from style.css files) :)

[@dimitridovgan6364]

Great 👍 Thank you!

[@mike5904]

Hi Kevin, You now have around 600k more subscribers since writing the sign up page for the course 👍. Thanks for the relatable, real world content.

[@TheTirailleur]

I like those analytics vidéos !

[@ankurpathak108]

Hey Kevin , thanks for the detailed information about View ports 😊 By the way can please explain the clamp() function in detail in a video ?

[@KevinPowell]

Already have one :D - kzbin.info/www/bejne/i2q5d2BqmtqsiNE

[@dariokartal9453]

What clamp() does, I used to do with calc() combined with css variables for min and max.

[@lawryyXD]

This was amazing to learn about, I've just been using the h-full (100%) trick, will try out the svh way! Thanks

[@keaton718]

Thanks, I didn't know about dvh or svh. It's scary that Google/KZbin knew I needed to see this video...

[@code.cracking]

Thank you very much

[@handsome_man69]

Happy birthday belinda!!

[@aoe2geek]

This was a roller coaster of emotions for me. “Yeah this thing has problems but you can use this to fix it. But actually it has problems too so maybe try this. And actually…” 😂

[@vasyaqwe2087]

thanks Kevin for another great video. Good to know you're telling people about your courses here too now. More people should learn from you, I feel like there's no one better in this field than you

[@AbbassyProductions]

I can see the NVIDIA Broadcast! Amazing content by the way. I do web design on the side and you have helped me so much! Thanks alot

[@kdmadej]

For a moment I thought I was going crazy 😅

[@atheisttttt]

GOAT CSS Master

[@shubhamsaini4871]

KZbin recommend me this today. And I can't stop my finger to subscribe him.

[@dienazty8820]

Great video as always! QQ - do you use any software for eye contact? There are some weird artifacts in the video ~1:36 and ~1:42 where your pupils shift noticeably.

[@user-lq7xz1th4x]

You are spectacular

[@brandonwhite5139]

Hello Professor KP! 😇 I am studying UX Design. Longtime artist trying to figure out front-end development. I liked your videos right away as soon as I noticed have you kept your profile in a circle frame. Plus you kept looking back towards the camera. You must be a writer. Funny thing. I watched/listened to a couple of your videos on 1.5 and 2 playback speed.

[@keviincosmos]

svh! What a life saver ❤️

[@serychristianrenaud]

Thank 👍

[@larisapetrovna5987]

very cool

[@rproctor83]

I always set my body elements to flexbox column with a min-height: 100vh, then align my footer to the bottom with the content area set as flex grow. Seems to work well.

[@Akimb321]

Regarding the 100vw producing scrollbar - I think it's not because the vw does not take into the account the scrollbar, but because (in case of body) there is already some margin applied on it. The scrollbar disappears when the margin is removed

[@nervousstate]

This exactly too.

[@calyodelphi124]

Yeah, this. Exactly this. When sizing elements, the default behavior is to apply the sizing only to the content area, which only includes the content itself and ignores padding, borders, and margins. You can include the padding and borders in your element sizing by declaring "box-sizing: border-box;" but then that still leaves the margins left over. You have to also set "margin: 0;" and then things should work.

[@alv1137]

You're right, i used to follow and i got better results.

[@andrefig822]

This is only true for mobile browser/devices. Desktop 100vw DOES produce a scrollbar as of 2023. Chrome is in the works to provide a solution for that, it had a custom flag to enable overlay scrollbar until a few time ago. There's one hacky solution though: "width: calc(100vw - (100vw - 100%))", but I can see a case where you would want a 100vw instead of 100% through parent-child elements.

[@albuslrc]

Thanks!

[@ricardohernandez2771]

Gracias!

[@Londonesify]

Are you using the AI tool for eye contact?

[@tHeplAyiER]

Haha I looked for this comment - had the same feeling xD

[@KevinPowell]

Was testing it out, but I've stopped cause it's a bit glitchy :D

[@anuvette]

Now that u said it, it's so uncanny and I can't unsee it anymore 😭

[@harshbhardwaj6060]

It was distracting me a lot

[@lessons3141]

usefull video

[@igor5379]

great!

[@michaelanthony4750]

Holy cow this video is interesting