hx-swap

The hx-swap attribute allows you to specify how the response will be swapped in relative to the target of an AJAX request. If you do not specify the option, the default is htmx.config.defaultSwapStyle (innerHTML).

The possible values of this attribute are:

• innerHTML - Replace the inner html of the target element
• outerHTML - Replace the entire target element with the response
• textContent - Replace the text content of the target element, without parsing the response as HTML
• beforebegin - Insert the response before the target element
• afterbegin - Insert the response before the first child of the target element
• beforeend - Insert the response after the last child of the target element
• afterend - Insert the response after the target element
• delete - Deletes the target element regardless of the response
• none- Does not append content from response (out of band items will still be processed).

These options are based on standard DOM naming and the Element.insertAdjacentHTML specification.

So in this code:

  <div hx-get="/example" hx-swap="afterend">Get Some HTML & Append It</div>

The div will issue a request to /example and append the returned content after the div

Modifiers

The hx-swap attributes supports modifiers for changing the behavior of the swap. They are outlined below.

Transition: transition

If you want to use the new View Transitions API when a swap occurs, you can use the transition:true option for your swap. You can also enable this feature globally by setting the htmx.config.globalViewTransitions config setting to true.

Timing: swap & settle

You can modify the amount of time that htmx will wait after receiving a response to swap the content by including a swap modifier:

  <!-- this will wait 1s before doing the swap after it is received -->
  <div hx-get="/example" hx-swap="innerHTML swap:1s">Get Some HTML & Append It</div>

Similarly, you can modify the time between the swap and the settle logic by including a settle modifier:

  <!-- this will wait 1s before doing the swap after it is received -->
  <div hx-get="/example" hx-swap="innerHTML settle:1s">Get Some HTML & Append It</div>

These attributes can be used to synchronize htmx with the timing of CSS transition effects.

Title: ignoreTitle

By default, htmx will update the title of the page if it finds a <title> tag in the response content. You can turn off this behavior by setting the ignoreTitle option to true.

Scrolling: scroll & show

You can also change the scrolling behavior of the target element by using the scroll and show modifiers, both of which take the values top and bottom:

  <!-- this fixed-height div will scroll to the bottom of the div after content is appended -->
  <div style="height:200px; overflow: scroll" 
       hx-get="/example" 
       hx-swap="beforeend scroll:bottom">
     Get Some HTML & Append It & Scroll To Bottom
  </div>

  <!-- this will get some content and add it to #another-div, then ensure that the top of #another-div is visible in the 
       viewport -->
  <div hx-get="/example" 
       hx-swap="innerHTML show:top"
       hx-target="#another-div">
    Get Some Content
  </div>

If you wish to target a different element for scrolling or showing, you may place a CSS selector after the scroll: or show:, followed by :top or :bottom:

  <!-- this will get some content and swap it into the current div, then ensure that the top of #another-div is visible in the 
       viewport -->
  <div hx-get="/example" 
       hx-swap="innerHTML show:#another-div:top">
    Get Some Content
  </div>

You may also use window:top and window:bottom to scroll to the top and bottom of the current window.

  <!-- this will get some content and swap it into the current div, then ensure that the viewport is scrolled to the
       very top -->
  <div hx-get="/example" 
       hx-swap="innerHTML show:window:top">
    Get Some Content
  </div>

For boosted links and forms the default behaviour is show:top. You can disable it globally with htmx.config.scrollIntoViewOnBoost or you can use hx-swap="show:none" on an element basis.

<form action="/example" hx-swap="show:none">
  ...
</form>

Focus scroll

htmx preserves focus between requests for inputs that have a defined id attribute. By default htmx prevents auto-scrolling to focused inputs between requests which can be unwanted behavior on longer requests when the user has already scrolled away. To enable focus scroll you can use focus-scroll:true.

  <input id="name" hx-get="/validation" 
       hx-swap="outerHTML focus-scroll:true"/>

Alternatively, if you want the page to automatically scroll to the focused element after each request you can change the htmx global configuration value htmx.config.defaultFocusScroll to true. Then disable it for specific requests using focus-scroll:false.

  <input id="name" hx-get="/validation" 
       hx-swap="outerHTML focus-scroll:false"/>

Notes

• hx-swap is inherited and can be placed on a parent element
• The default value of this attribute is innerHTML
• Due to DOM limitations, it’s not possible to use the outerHTML method on the <body> element. htmx will change outerHTML on <body> to use innerHTML.
• The default swap delay is 0ms
• The default settle delay is 20ms