For both the Documentation theme and the newer default theme, Atlassian uses jQuery Splitter Plugin.
See line 355 onwards here and splitterDiv.splitter(splitterOptions);
here.
The splitter plugin handles the height of the page elements adding an inline style to the #splitter
div.
This means that the footer just sits below that element, hanging tight to the bottom of the page, rather than using the standard sticky footer CSS pattern
Note that on viewport resize, the resizeHandler
function here handles the footer formatting on window resize, like so:
var resizeHandler = function(e){
var top = splitter.offset().top;
//TODO: a quick hack to get the splitter to be the right height in ondemand due to the footer difference
var footer = $("#footer, #studio-footer").outerHeight(true);
if (!footer)
footer = 24;
var wh = $(window).height()-footer;
splitter.css("height", Math.max(wh-top-splitter._hadjust, splitter._hmin)+"px");
// ATLASSIAN - only resize components if the window has been resized, or this has been called directly.
if (!e || e.target == window) splitter.trigger("resize");
};
This means that the splitter element height is recalculated on resize resulting in the footer being relocated at the bottom of the page once more.