CODEWITHSUNDEEP
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NeoWang
NeoWang

Reputation: 18523

What is the best approach for a widget-container page - Ajax or iframe?

I need to implement a page of which many parts are dynamic widgets. Which widgets are loaded depend on user choice and are not known before hand. Each of these widgets include some HTML, and some javascript code (to initialize and attach event handlers on the HTML elements). I am wondering what is the best approach to implement such a page and widgets.

  1. AJAX. I could construct response with some HTML followed by a <script> tag. Although returning js code in AJAX is not recommended, I found this works for me (the script get executed, with HTML widget properly initialized and handlers attached). An alternative is to include an 'all-included' script in the container page. In this script I wrap each of widget-specific script in a function, and when the widget is dynamically loaded, I call that function. However, this way I fetch a lot of js code that may not be used.
  2. Iframe. I can also return the widget as a standalone HTML page to be loaded in iframes. This solves the javascript problem, but I need to make cross-domain calls to interacte with other part of the container page.

I think this should be a common problem faced by web developers. I am new to web development, could you share some 'best pratice' tips for my case?

Upvotes: 1

Views: 658

Answers (1)

Roy M J
Roy M J

Reputation: 6938

You should be going ahead with jquery+ajax.. There are lots of drawbacks with iframes. Although you could handle each plugin in separate page and avoid any kind of conflict, usablitity becomes a great headache..

In the time of everything going HTML5 based to support mobile platforms, iframes are hard to cuztomise for mobile screens. Moreover iframe takes out the entire apple users as iframes are not supported by apple devices..

jQuery + Ajax(HTML5) along with CSS3 should be the way to proceed..

Upvotes: 1

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