how to stop floating (sliding) div at footer

Question

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/225843/how-can-i-have-a-sliding-menu-div-that-doesnt-move-unless-the-page-is-scrolled-d

i used the code from this link for a floating menu. it has how to stop the stop float at the header, but not at the footer. how can i modify this code to stop at the footer?

    //// CONFIGURATION VARIABLES:

var name    = "#sidebar";
var menu_top_limit   = 0;
var menu_top_margin  = 0;
var menu_shift_duration = 500;
var menuYloc = null;
///////////////////////////////////

$(window).scroll(function() 
{ 
 // Calculate the top offset, adding a limit
 offset = menuYloc + $(document).scrollTop() + menu_top_margin;

 // Limit the offset to 241 pixels...
 // This keeps the menu out of our header area:
 if(offset < menu_top_limit)
  offset = menu_top_limit;

 // Give it the PX for pixels:
 offset += "px";

 // Animate:
 $(name).animate({top:offset},{duration:menu_shift_duration,queue:false});
 });

I have another similar code that is supposed to stop at the footer, but it is not working:

var name = "#sidebar";  
var menuYloc = null;  
var footer = '#footer'; //Specify the ID for your footer.

 $(document).ready(
    function()
    {  
        menuYloc = parseInt($(name).css("top").substring(0,$(name).css("top").indexOf("px")))  
        $(window).scroll(
            function() 
            {   
                var offset = menuYloc + $(document).scrollTop();
                var anotherOffset = offset;

                var docTop = $(window).scrollTop();
                var footerTop = $(footer).offset().top;

                var maxOffset = footerTop - $(name).height() - 20;
                var minOffset = docTop;

                offset = offset > maxOffset ? maxOffset : offset;
                offset = offset < minOffset ? minOffset : offset;

                $(name).animate({top:offset + 'px'},{duration:500,queue:false});      
            }
        );  
    }
);

Answer 1

If you are looking for how to keep the footer on the bottom and a scrolling middle, I think I've got that done see my blog post below(under the section "On to the WebPage") Go to http://www.jimleo.com to see it in action.

http://jimleonardo.blogspot.com/2009/02/jimleocom-is-back-up-some-how-to.html

Answer 2

It sounds like you want a page footer that is always visible. Wouldn't it be a lot easier to create two absolute elements, one at the top of the page, and one at the bottom. And then add all of your content to a div which has 100% width/height (have to do this with javascript).

Then you don't have to hook stuff up to the body's scroll event (this never looks very good).

If you add an offset, or a few line breaks before and after your content it should work a lot better than what your attempting.

I've done it with my own page here.