jQuery.scrollLeft() when direction is rtl - different values in different browsers

Question

The scrollLeft property of a div seems to return different values in different browsers when the body direction is rtl. An example can be seen here - http://jsfiddle.net/auVLZ/2/ ``` body { direction: rtl; } div.Container { border: 5px solid #F00; width: 500px; height: 400px; overflow: auto; } div.Content { background-color: #00F; width: 900px; height: 380px; }

$(document).ready(function() { $("#showScrollLeft").click(function(e) { alert($("div.Container").scrollLeft()); }); }); ``` Chrome - the initial value is 400, and when moving the scrollbar to the left it is 0. IE8 - 0 and 400. Firefox - 0 and -400. What is causing this difference and how can it be handled? Edit: note that this is happening with the "regular" scrollLeft as well - `document.getElementById("divContainer").scrollLeft` returns the same results.

Accepted Answer

Although I was hoping to avoid that, I ended up using browser detection:

```
function GetScrollLeft(elem)
{
    var scrollLeft = elem.scrollLeft();
    if ($("body").css("direction").toLowerCase() == "rtl")
    {
        // Absolute value - gets IE and FF to return the same values
        var scrollLeft = Math.abs(scrollLeft);

// Get Chrome and Safari to return the same value as well
        if ($.browser.webkit)
        {
            scrollLeft = elem[0].scrollWidth - elem[0].clientWidth - scrollLeft;
        }
    }
    return scrollLeft;
}
```

jQuery.scrollLeft() when direction is rtl - different values in different browsers

Solution

Problem