I am building a phonegap app that needs to scale to all resolutions, and am thus defining everything in terms of percentages. I'm also using a fixed header with a div I defined in Jquery as the contents.

The problem I have is that during the transition between pages, there is a 'stutter' because the page height changes during the transition. I'm trying to stop this from happening. Any thoughts?

I've created a sample below to really illustrate the point. /

<div id="pageContainer" style="position: relative !important; height: 100%;">
<div data-role="page" id="test1">

    <div data-role="header">
        <h1>Page Title</h1>
    </div><!-- /header -->

    <a id="page2link">To Page 2</a>

    <div data-role="content">    
        <p>Page content goes here.</p>        
    </div><!-- /content -->

    <div data-role="footer">
        <h4>Page Footer</h4>
    </div><!-- /footer -->
</div><!-- /page -->

<div data-role="page" id="test2" style="height: 568px">

<div data-role="header">
    <h1>Page 2</h1>
</div>

<a id="page1link">To Page 1</a>

<div data-role="content" style="height: 50%;">
    <p style="height: 80%; border: 1px solid black;">This is page 2</p>        
</div><!-- /content -->

<div data-role="footer">
    <h4>Page Footer</h4>
</div>

I am building a phonegap app that needs to scale to all resolutions, and am thus defining everything in terms of percentages. I'm also using a fixed header with a div I defined in Jquery as the contents.

The problem I have is that during the transition between pages, there is a 'stutter' because the page height changes during the transition. I'm trying to stop this from happening. Any thoughts?

I've created a sample below to really illustrate the point. http://jsfiddle.net/fz7qs/2/

<div id="pageContainer" style="position: relative !important; height: 100%;">
<div data-role="page" id="test1">

    <div data-role="header">
        <h1>Page Title</h1>
    </div><!-- /header -->

    <a id="page2link">To Page 2</a>

    <div data-role="content">    
        <p>Page content goes here.</p>        
    </div><!-- /content -->

    <div data-role="footer">
        <h4>Page Footer</h4>
    </div><!-- /footer -->
</div><!-- /page -->

<div data-role="page" id="test2" style="height: 568px">

<div data-role="header">
    <h1>Page 2</h1>
</div>

<a id="page1link">To Page 1</a>

<div data-role="content" style="height: 50%;">
    <p style="height: 80%; border: 1px solid black;">This is page 2</p>        
</div><!-- /content -->

<div data-role="footer">
    <h4>Page Footer</h4>
</div>

• javascript
• jquery
• cordova
• jquery-mobile

• You have a set height of 568px on #test2 .. is that intentional? – Explosion Pills Commented Dec 14, 2012 at 0:34
• 1 during transition hide everything...! maybe you can show a loading image in the middle of screen? – Luca Filosofi Commented Dec 14, 2012 at 3:19

2 Answers 2

The entire jsFiddle page jumps on the very first visit in Chrome desktop browser, so press the jsFiddle RUN Button to load correctly before use.

EDIT: Answer and jsFiddle revised per comment section developments.

EDIT 2: jsFiddles now use jQuery 1.7.2 with jQuery Mobile 1.2.0 to fix Chrome Browser Bug.

jsFiddle DEMO

The solution is to set your styles in a CSS file and not the HTML section since the jQuery Mobile UI has it's own style themes via a style sheet too.

Also, you have an extra closing div for page at the bottom in that HTML as well as not closing the webpage. The head section in your HTML is not necessary for jsFiddles, as the page is setup for HTML5 and you just need to import files (mobile jQuery) into jsFiddle using the Manage Resources button.

Although you listed in your Question as complete percentage units, I've keep the pixels units as shown in your example, but those can be percentages as well.

CSS Settings:

a {
 cursor: hand;
 cursor: pointer;    
}

.content1 {
  height: 268px;
}

.text1 {
  height: 50%;
  border: 1px solid black;
}

.content2 {
  height: 568px;
}

.text2 {
  height: 80%;
  border: 1px solid black;
}

In your HTML section, I've also pinned the footer to the bottom of the page using data-position:

<div data-role="footer" data-position="fixed">

Besides pinning the footer to the bottom of the page, you can also have it not animate by adding an extra setting of data-id for each page that has the same value.

<div data-role="footer" data-id="foo" data-position="fixed">

jsFiddle FOOTER.

EDIT 2: Per recent discovery of jQuery 1.8.2 and jQuery Mobile 1.2.0 bug seen in Chrome (hidden scrollbar still causes body elements to jump), here is a revised jsFiddle example:

jsFiddle Percentage Based with jQuery 1.7.2 and jQuery Mobile 1.2.0

About this bug:

I just discovered that using jsFiddle with jQuery 1.8.2 and jQuery Mobile 1.2.0 does not work as intended when overflow is set to hidden during use of a scrollBars function within that jsFiddle.

That function is to hide the browsers scrollbars during jQuery animations, preventing elements to briefly jump around during the animation period of page changes.

The browsers scrollbars are in fact hidden, but elements in the body section continue to "jump" as if the scrollbars are still present.

This does not happen when jsFiddle jQuery is set to 1.7.2.

If your curious how to have multiple psuedo pages on a single page, check out this jsFiddle for an unrelated SO Answer here.

Try to change this:

<div data-role="content" style="height: 50%;">

to that:

<div data-role="content" style="height: auto;">

example: http://jsfiddle.net/fz7qs/13/