Adding items

If your application dynamically adds new content, Isotope provides several methods to add items.

addItems method

The addItems method adds new content to an Isotope container. This applies the proper styles to the items so they can be positioned and any sorting data is retrieved. But that’s it. The new content will not be filtered, sorted, or positioned properly, nor will it be appended to the container element.

var $newItems = $('<div class="item" /><div class="item" /><div class="item" />');
$('#container').append( $newItems ).isotope( 'addItems', $newItems );

insert method

More likely, you want to use the insert method, which does everything that addItems misses. insert will append the content to the container, filter the new content, sort all the content, then trigger a reLayout so all item elements are properly laid out.

var $newItems = $('<div class="item" /><div class="item" /><div class="item" />');
$('#container').isotope( 'insert', $newItems );

appended method

The appended method is a convenience method triggers addItems on new content, then lays out only the new content at the end of the layout. This method is useful if you know you only want to add new content to the end, and not use filtering or sorting. appended is the best method to use with Infinite Scroll.

See Demo: Infinite Scroll.

Prepending

Because of Isotope’s sorting functionality, prepending isn’t as straight forward as might expect. However, it can be replicated fairly easy. After prepending new content to the container, you can re-collect all the item elements and update their sorting order with the reloadItems method. Then trigger a re-layout, with the original DOM order.

var $newItems = $('<div class="item" /><div class="item" /><div class="item" />');
$('#container').prepend( $newItems)
  .isotope( 'reloadItems' ).isotope({ sortBy: 'original-order' });

Recommended CSS

You’ll need these styles in your CSS for the reveal animation when adding items.

/**** disabling Isotope CSS3 transitions ****/

.isotope.no-transition,
.isotope.no-transition .isotope-item,
.isotope .isotope-item.no-transition {
  -webkit-transition-duration: 0s;
     -moz-transition-duration: 0s;
          transition-duration: 0s;
}