How to Automatically Scroll Horizontally When Scrolling Vertically with Divi & GSAP

The more you explore websites on the web, the more you come across some really customized on-page experiences. You might have been wondering how to achieve certain advanced functionality and the answer is often this: by using an animation JavaScript library. A popular animation library nowadays is GSAP. But just because you want to use a JavaScript Library for something, doesn’t mean you have to manually go through the HTML and CSS part as well. Divi can take over the larger part of your web design process; building and designing, which leaves you with more time to focus on custom functionality and animation. In today’s tutorial, for instance, we’re going to show you how to scroll horizontally when actually scrolling vertically using Divi and GSAP. This results in an advanced animation effect that you can customize however you want. You’ll be able to download the JSON file for free as well!

Let’s get to it.

Preview

Before we dive into the tutorial, let’s take a quick look at the outcome across different screen sizes.

Desktop

Mobile

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Overview of Approach

What We’re Using

• Divi
• GSAP JavaScript Library
• ScrollTrigger Plugin for GSAP
• ScrollTrigger Demo

What We’re Creating

• Fake horizontal scrolling when scrolling vertically
• Pin effect
• Making the effect work on a number of sections of our choice (not necessarily the entire page)
• An effortless horizontal screen experience across all screen sizes

1. Add Placeholder Sections

Add Section #1

Start by adding a first section to the page you’re working on. This section will serve as a placeholder so we can watch the effect fall into place.

Sizing

Open the section settings and assign a height to the sizing settings.

• Height: 60vh

Clone Section #1

Then, clone the placeholder section once. This will help us generate some space at the top and bottom of our page, without it being part of the horizontal scrolling (see preview).

1. Build Section Design

Add New Section Between Sections

Now that we have the two placeholder sections in place, it’s time to create the first section that we’ll use inside our horizontal scrolling. Add this section right in between the two placeholder sections.

Sizing

Open the section settings and assign a max height in the sizing settings.

• Max Height: 100vh

Overflows

We’re also setting the vertical overflow to auto. This, in combination with the max height in the previous step, will help us automatically generate a scrollbar on certain screen sizes where the section elements exceed the viewport height.

• Vertical Overflow: Auto

Add New Row

Column Structure

Continue by adding a new row to the section using the following column structure:

Background Image

Without adding modules yet, open the row settings and use a background image.

• Background Image Size: Cover
• Background Image Position: Center

Sizing

Modify the sizing settings of the row next.

• Use Custom Gutter Width: Yes
• Gutter Width: 1
• Width:
  • Desktop: 70%
  • Tablet & Phone: 80%

Spacing

Along with the spacing settings.

• Top Padding:
  • Desktop: 30vh
  • Tablet & Phone: 20vh
• Bottom Padding: 0px

Column Settings

Then, open the column settings.

Background Color

Use a white background color for the column.

• Background Color: #ffffff

Spacing

Move on to the column’s design tab and apply some custom padding values.

• Top Padding: 5%
• Bottom Padding: 5%
• Left Padding: 5%
• Right Padding: 5%

Border

Use a border too.

• Border Width: 1px
• Border Color: #000000

Add Text Module #1 to Column

Add H4 Content

Time to add modules, starting with a first Text Module containing some H4 content.

H4 Text Settings

Move on to the module’s design tab and change the H4 text settings as follows:

• Heading 4 Font: Source Code Pro
• Heading 4 Text Color: #000000
• Heading 4 Text Size:
  • Desktop: 1.2vw
  • Tablet: 2.5vw
  • Phone: 3.5vw
• Heading 4 Letter Spacing: 1px

Add Text Module #2 to Column

Add H3 Content

Add another Text Module right below the previous one and use some H3 content in the content box.

H3 Text Settings

Move on to the module’s design tab and change the H3 text settings accordingly:

• Heading 3 Font: Alata
• Heading 3 Text Size:
  • Desktop: 2.5vw
  • Tablet: 4vw
  • Phone: 7vw

Add Text Module #3 to Column

Add Content

Add a last Text Module to the column with some description content of your choice.

Text Settings

Change the module’s text settings accordingly:

• Text Font: Source Code Pro
• Text Size:
  • Desktop: 0.8vw
  • Tablet: 2vw
  • Phone: 3vw
• Text Line Height: 1.5em

Sizing

Change the sizing settings next.

• Width:
  • Desktop: 67%
  • Tablet & Phone: 100%

Spacing

And complete the module settings by applying some responsive padding values to the spacing settings.

• Top Padding:
  • Desktop: 3vh
  • Tablet & Phone: 5vh
• Bottom Padding:
  • Desktop: 3vh
  • Tablet & Phone: 5vh

Add Button Module to Column

Add Copy

The last module we need to complete the row design is a Button Module. Add some copy of your choice.

Button Settings

Move on to the module’s design tab and change the button settings accordingly:

• Use Custom Styles For Button: Yes
• Button Text Size:
  • Desktop: 0.8vw
  • Tablet: 2vw
  • Phone: 3vw
• Button Text Color: #ffffff
• Button Background Color: #000000
• Button Border Width: 0px
• Button Border Radius: 0px
• Button Font: Source Code Pro
• Button Font Style: Uppercase

Spacing

Add some custom padding values next.

• Top Padding: 15px
• Bottom Padding: 15px
• Left Padding: 50px
• Right Padding: 50px

Position

And reposition the module in the advanced tab.

• Position: Absolute
• Location: Bottom Left Corner
• Vertical Offset: -5%
• Horizontal Offset: 5%

2. Reuse Section

Clone Section Twice

Once you’ve completed the first section, you can clone it twice.

Change Image & Copy & Link

Make sure you change the image, copy and link in each duplicate section.

2. Add Functionality

Add CSS Class to Each Section You Want to Include in Horizontal Scroll

Now that we have all elements in place, we can start focusing on the functionality of it all. The first step to accomplishing the outcome is assigning a custom CSS class to each section that you want to be part of the horizontal scrolling. In this case, that means the three sections between placeholder sections.

• CSS Class: horizontal-section

Add New Code Module Somewhere Inside Page

Next, add a Code Module to the page. This can be anywhere you want.

Add GSAP & ScrollTrigger Libraries First

Copy-paste the GSAP and ScrollTrigger libraries inside the Code Module. Use script tags for this with the following sources:

src="https://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/gsap/3.5.1/gsap.min.js"
src="https://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/gsap/3.5.1/ScrollTrigger.min.js"

Add New Script Tags for Custom Code

Right below the library script tags, we’ll add some new script tags.

Add JS Code

Prepare for JQuery Usage

Inside these script tags, we’ll start by loading JQuery.

jQuery(document).ready(function($){  
});

Register ScrollTrigger Plugin

Then, we’ll register the ScrollTrigger plugin.

gsap.registerPlugin(ScrollTrigger);

Wrap All Relevant Sections in a New Div

We’re also placing each one of the relevant sections inside a new div using the following code lines:

var allSections = $('.horizontal-section');
allSections.wrapAll('<div class="horizontal-container"/>');  

Create New GSAP Tween with ScrollTrigger

To make the fake horizontal scrolling work, we’re going to use a new tween with a scroll trigger. The code that makes this happen is the following:

gsap.to(allSections, {
  xPercent: -100 * (allSections.length - 1),
  ease: "none",
  scrollTrigger: {
    trigger: ".horizontal-container",
    pin: true,
    start: "top top",
    scrub: 1,
    snap: false,
    // base vertical scrolling on how wide the container is so it feels more natural.
    end: () => "+=" + document.querySelector(".horizontal-container").offsetWidth
  }
});

Add Style Tags for Custom CSS Code

Next, we’ll add some style tags to our Code Module.

Insert CSS Code Between Style Tags

And we’ll complete the tutorial, and the functionality, by adding the following lines of CSS code between the style tags:

.horizontal-container {
width: 300%;
height: 100%;
display: flex;
flex-wrap: nowrap;
max-width: none;
}

#page-container {
overflow: hidden;
}

.horizontal-section {
width: 100%;
will-change: transform;
}

Preview

Now that we’ve gone through all the steps, let’s take a final look at the outcome across different screen sizes.

Desktop

Mobile

Final Thoughts

In this post, we’ve shown you how to go the extra mile for your website with Divi and GSAP. More specifically, we’ve shown you how to scroll horizontally when actually scrolling vertically on your page. This is a custom type of animation that you might have come across at a certain point and wondered how you could do it with DIvi. You were able to download the JSON file for free as well! If you have any questions or suggestions, feel free to leave a comment in the comment section below.

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