Window: screenLeft property

Baseline Widely available

This feature is well established and works across many devices and browser versions. It’s been available across browsers since July 2015.

The Window.screenLeft read-only property returns the horizontal distance, in CSS pixels, from the left border of the user's browser viewport to the left side of the screen.

Note: screenLeft is an alias of the older Window.screenX property. screenLeft was originally supported only in IE but was introduced everywhere due to popularity.

Value

A number equal to the number of CSS pixels from the left edge of the browser viewport to the left edge of the screen.

Examples

In our screenleft-screentop example, you'll see a canvas onto which has been drawn a circle. In this example we are using screenLeft/screenTop plus Window.requestAnimationFrame() to constantly redraw the circle in the same physical position on the screen, even if the window position is moved.

js
initialLeft = window.screenLeft + canvasElem.offsetLeft;
initialTop = window.screenTop + canvasElem.offsetTop;

function positionElem() {
  let newLeft = window.screenLeft + canvasElem.offsetLeft;
  let newTop = window.screenTop + canvasElem.offsetTop;

  let leftUpdate = initialLeft - newLeft;
  let topUpdate = initialTop - newTop;

  ctx.fillStyle = "rgb(0 0 0)";
  ctx.fillRect(0, 0, width, height);
  ctx.fillStyle = "rgb(0 0 255)";
  ctx.beginPath();
  ctx.arc(
    leftUpdate + width / 2,
    topUpdate + height / 2 + 35,
    50,
    degToRad(0),
    degToRad(360),
    false,
  );
  ctx.fill();

  pElem.textContent = `Window.screenLeft: ${window.screenLeft}, Window.screenTop: ${window.screenTop}`;

  window.requestAnimationFrame(positionElem);
}

window.requestAnimationFrame(positionElem);

Also in the code we include a snippet that detects whether screenLeft is supported, and if not, polyfills in screenLeft/screenTop using Window.screenX/Window.screenY.

js
if (!window.screenLeft) {
  window.screenLeft = window.screenX;
  window.screenTop = window.screenY;
}

Specifications

Specification
CSSOM View Module
# dom-window-screenleft

Browser compatibility

BCD tables only load in the browser

See also