#shortcut to javascript

document window has a “wheel” event. Nothing beats the practice of exploring the browser console to see what information is readily available. 

console logging the wheel event returns a lot of useful info, including direction via deltaY. This number either increases positively or decreases negatively.  

The code:

Add event listener (do something special for Internet Explorer because it’s special)

if(window.addEventListener){  addEventListener('wheel', whichDirection, false); } else if (window.attachEvent) { // ie  attachEvent('wheel', whichDirection, false); }

Create function (naming the parameter ‘event’ is good practice offering clarity)

function whichDirection(event){  console.log(event + ' WheelEvent has all kinds of good stuff to work with');  var scrollDirection = event.deltaY;  if(scrollDirection === 1){    console.log('meet me at the club, going down’, scrollDirection);  } else if(scrollDirection === -1) {    console.log('Going up, on a tuesday’, scrollDirection);  } }

Using jQuery (the function remains the same)

$(window).on('wheel', function(){  whichDirection(event); });

Throttle / Debounce:

Watch this in the console, you’ll see the WheelEvent firing over and over. Check out David Walsh’s article on creating a Debounce Function. You’ll be up and running with some hotness in short order. 

Tired of making those year updates? Add this where the year is in the footer and you won’t have to update those manually √ 

Example: © 2015 Company Name. == Static

Example: © <script>document.write(new Date().getFullYear())</script> Company Name. == Dynamic. Works on all browsers without additional libraries required.

<script>document.write(new Date().getFullYear())</script>

This is a simple pure JS oldie, but a huge time saver. I’m reminded/thankful for this single line of code a few months before the new year, because January (at least for our corporate sites) means tons of requests for copyright updates across thousands of websites, landing pages, digital files, etc.