Seamless FRAME/IFRAMEs (with reasonable scrollbars)? - html

Summary:
I'd like to display a shopping cart from another domain underneath my fixed content in my page - and have the scrollbars come out properly.
Details:
I need to display a shopping cart from a vendor within a page on "my" site with "my" header on top. (Eventually the shopping will all be in a subdomain but not now, sigh.) The header is a fixed height. The shopping cart pages vary in height as you navigate within that frame.
I've tried frames and iframes and had cross-browser issues with the iframes. I'm only testing four configurations, Windows/IE, Windows/Firefox, Mac/Safari and Mac/Firefox.
Right now I am using a frameset with two frames, one containing my fixed-height header page, the other containing the external page. This does work - the one issue is that when a scrollbar appears it (of course) only appears on the bottom frame.
This will do and the client isn't very sophisticated but it bugs me.
If I use IFRAMES, I find I need to sprinkle height: 100% and overflow-y: auto in various places - and yet I still cannot avoid either one of two unacceptable issues that appear in at least one of the browser/OS combinations...
The combined content is larger than the window, but no scrollbar appears.
An inner scrollbar and an outer scrollbar both appear.
Any hints appreciated!
EDIT:
Thanks for the work - but I don't think I conveyed the issue correctly.
I'm not using frames for layout - I wish simply to make a page framing something on another site (that hosts the shopping cart and whose URL should not be exposed).
Frames "work" - BUT having an interior scrollbar on the second frame and no scrollbar on the whole page is definitely wrong behavior. My client won't know this but it'll look amateurish to people seeing the page.
I don't see quite how a server-side include or CSS would do it and I know both fairly well. If I used the server side include, how would links internal to the shopping cart work? I'd leave my site, correct?
Summary: A shopping cart hosted on another site, embedded on my content page.

Don't use frames, if the user does command + click then the product will open in new window and your frame will disappear.
One feasible solution I see here is with Javascript:
Load the page via $.ajax
redirect all clicks so that it loads in ajax window by
$('iframe a').on('click',function(){
// load the product via AJAX
});
make sure height of Div is not fixed so that it expands automatically and scrollbars are there only on window.
This is best way I could think of keeping the integration seamless while hiding the url

Related

Frameset Alternative HTML5 to change certain div content

I couple of years ago I paid a simple HTML pages with a side bar and a 'main frame'. The Main Frame would auto refresh into another page using: meta http-equiv="refresh" content="5; URL='/target.html'"
Now I want to update it to HTML5. I still want the sidebar to stay 24/7 in place and the main frame content to refresh or change into another page/content (being it videos, paragraphs of text or images).
I found out that framesets don't work anymore. Cause I had it set up to: Sidebar = a frame and Main Frame = a frame and just refresh the source of the main frame into the next page of content.
Any alternatives?
The kind of solution you are looking for, was described here by the author himself.
He needed a sidebar fixed, while changing the content fo the main screen.
He used before the framesets, then he found the solution described, in order to be able do not use them, but HTML5.
HTML5 alternative for frames with 1 fixed (menu) column
The modern way to do this would be with AJAX. See the answer to this question:
How to fire AJAX request Periodically?

Overlay one iframe on top of another, scroll them together

Following up on How to rewrite URLs referenced by Javascript code? I'd like to overlay a button on top of someone else's website (e.g. overlay a Paypal button alongside Stackoverflow's bounty button) and have the two <iframe>s scroll together. The button would reside in the top layer. The website would reside in the bottom layer.
I understand that transparent <iframe>s were/are abused for clickjacking but the browser security mechanism seems to block legitimate use-cases. In my case the user is seeing the same button he/she is clicking. It's even possible that this is a browser bug.
Here is what I see under Chrome:
The top <iframe> intercepts all mouse clicks, even for areas that do not contain any components. Meaning, users cannot interact with the bottom layer at all.
If I style the top <iframe> with pointer-events: none the opposite problem occurs: users are able to see the top layer but all mouse clicks go to the bottom layer. Applying pointer-events: auto to child components does not help (clicks still pass through to the bottom layer).
If I size and position the top <iframe> so its area is equal precisely to the button I am trying to overlay, then mouse clicks go to the right layer but the top layer fails to scroll alongside the bottom layer. Meaning, the button always remains in the same absolute position as the bottom layer scrolls.
Is it possible for me to position a button in the top layer so that it always aligns with a certain position in the bottom layer? In the example where I position a Paypal button alongside the Stackoverflow bounty, I expect the Paypal button to scroll off the page as the user scrolls down the question.
https://stackoverflow.com/a/4087397/14731 leads me to believe this is not possible. Is there another way to implement this?
UPDATE: Here is a jsfiddle for you to play with. The test button is found to the right of "NEWS & VIEWS" in the middle of the page.
Update: New approach
Following discussion with Gili below, the requirement for the solution to work across multiple pages made me rethink my solution.
The new approach:
Doesn't require any code changes or specific features on the target site.
Works on every page while the user navigates (as long as they stay on the same domain)
Could be tweaked to inject any HTML/JS into any DOM element within any target page
My solution works as follows:
Send the person you want to demonstrate Widget X to an email with a link to your instructions page
That instructions page contains a bookmarklet which they add to their bookmarks bar
They visit their own site and click your bookmarklet
Your bookmarklet injects javascript into their page
That javascript creates a pop-up window with content that appears to belong to the target domain, since that domain generated the popup
That pop-up window then monitors the DOM on the target browser window (window.opener) and injects our arbitrary HTML whenever the current page doesn't contain our target node ID.
It seems to work well in my testing (perfect in Chrome, haven't tested across all browsers yet) and seems to work on every target site from StackOverflow to Twitter.
Live demo here: How to demo an web widget on a third party site without having access to their code
Sample code below, expanded for readability:
s = "<script type='text/javascript'>setInterval(function() { if(!window.opener.document.getElementById('gctrlPixelator')) {var i=document.createElement('IMG');i.src='//lorempixel.com/400/200/';i.id='gctrlPixelator';i.style.cssText='top:20;right:20;position:absolute;z-index: 9999;';window.opener.document.getElementsByTagName('body')[0].appendChild(i);}},500);</script>";
t = "<div style='text-align: center; font-family: Arial, Helvetica;'><h1 style='font-size: 18px;'>Demo running!</h1> Keep this window open and return to the main site window to continue the demo.</div>";
w = window.open('','name','height=200,width=400');
w.document.write(s);
w.document.write(t);
The above should be converted into a bookmarklet before deploying to an 'instructions' landing page for a potential client.
Original solution
First, sorry for posting this as an answer rather than as a comment. I've been thinking about this for half an hour, and only just realised I need 50 reputation to comment. So, apologies, but I wanted to share...
I agree that it's unlikely there is a cross browser way to do this double iframe trick. I read your other question about javascript URL rewriting and it lead me to an idea: Rather than trying to embed/hijack their site on another URL, how about creating a bookmarklet that allows you to inject your Javascript into their page?
It could work like this:
Direct them to your site where you host the custom bookmarklet link. Ask them to add it to their favorites.
Ask them to go to their own site, then click your bookmarklet in their bookmarks.
This would inject your JS into their page, allowing you to edit the DOM any way you wanted (e.g. changing styles, adding DOM elements, etc.)
Code something like this, converted to a bookmarklet (i.e. wrapped in a function with a javascript: at the start) could do the trick...
var script = document.createElement("script");
script.setAttribute("type", "text/javascript");
script.setAttribute("src", "http://www.example.com/file.js");
document.getElementsByTagName("head")[0].appendChild(script);
I've tested that in Chrome and it seems happy to load the JS cross-domain. The only rule seems to be that the protocols must match (http or https).
Not quite what you asked for, but a possible solution.

display overflow html content outside browser

This may be the dumbest question ever but our customer really wants this. I am asking this silly question just to be sure that it cannot be done.
We have a popup window which has opened by window.showModalDialog (img 1)
In this window there is a custom autocomplete control which displays an html table. The problem is autocomplete table is wider than the modal dialog. So user is unable to see the contents of this table. (img 2)
Then we made initial size of the modal dialog wider enough to see table contents but customer did not want the initial empty area and did not want the content to be wider also. (img 3)
The customer wants to see the thing as in img 4 which i could only made by paint.
Is it possible to display overflowed html content outside the browser. At least for the ones which has opened by window.showModalDialog.
Note: This is about a 10 years old project and it is totally based on window.open and window.showModailDialog. So using a custom jquery dialog or something similar is not an option.
Within your client's constraints, your task is not possible.
What you could do instead is popup another modal window that shows the contents of the dropdown. That way, you can get a differently sized viewport than what the first modal window offers. Also, if you open the new one as a child, you could even pass messages between the 2 windows.
Of course this will be a very rudimentary stone-age solution! You may also come across a lot of browser limitations/quirks.

How to have content pop out of iframe?

Say I have a menu which is initially 200px by 100px. I need to include it in an iframe but the problem is it is a dropdown menu and when it opens the menu gets cut of since it is inside the frame. Is there a way to have it drop out of the frame?
If both the parent page and the page within your iframe are coming from the same domain, you can communicate between them via JS:
Possible Ways to Communicate Between iFrame and Parent Page across domains
The solution would be to, upon hover, send JS to the parent page and have the parent page then render the menu on top of the iframe.
That said, having to use a menu within an iframe that then pops out of the iframe seems to be not a technical problem as much as it is a visual design and layout problem.
No there is not. You will need to use a different approach, such as downloading the content of the frame on the server and inlining it in the parent page instead. Another possibility would be to float the parent page's content over the iframe and make the iframe larger.

Hold website position when navigating

Is there a way to make it so the page doesn't shoot to the top of the site when clicking different links in the navigation bar?
e. So say I'm browsing my site and I'm scrolled down a little bit. Then I click on a link that navigates to a different page on my site. It automatically scrolls to the top. Is there a way to make it not do that.
instead of simply linking to a page, you could link to an anchor on that page using
link text
if that anchor is placed properly on the target page, you will not experience the jump back to top every time you link to another page. hope this helps
If this is the problem I'm picturing:
Change your links to point to <a href="#"> or <href="javascript:void(0);">
If you're going to different pages, you can use a link like:
My Link
Down in the page:
<div id="Section5">
Stuff!
</div>
This is the way that the web works. But still you can do a few work a rounds but each one will take a little work.
First option:
When you click on any link on the page, get the margin of the link from the top, then add it as a parameter to this link, and only then do the navigation. (the format of the line will be like page.html#margin-from-top).
Then in the new loaded page, you can look for this value and do the scroll. (I prefer the scrolling with a little duration).
Second option:
Another idea is to stay always on the same page and only change the content of it. you can do that with a little effects too.
It seems, too, like you might want to use a mooTools ScrollTo affect or possibly even invoke an AJAX method like SWFAddress.
Depending on exactly what you're trying to do, you may be able to accomplish it without using any fancy javascript, but it will depend on the inclusion of labels/etc. on your target page (as has been mentioned before).