CODEWITHSUNDEEP
content-management-systemcross-domainblogger
Nathan Arthur
Nathan Arthur

Reputation: 9096

Cross-domain navigation within Blogger without Javascript

The setup: I have a Blogger blog set up on a domain name as blog.mydomain.com. The main site site at mydomain.com is running Umbraco CMS.

The problem: I need to have the navigation from the CMS transported to Blogger somehow, so that making a change on the main website doesn't require the extra step of modifying the navigation inside Blogger.

Generating the navigation data on the CMS side in what ever format it needs to be (XML, unordered list, JSON, etc) is not a problem. The problem is getting the data from Umbraco to Blogger after it is generated.

I'm not yet willing to use Javascript, as this would seriously impair the website for users browsing without Javascript. (Too bad because AJAX would be a very workable solution.)

I've tossed around the idea of using an iFrame. How would this work for a navigation system including sub-menus? Creating and deleting multiple iframes is out of the picture, since I don't want to use Javascript. I could use one large iframe to allow for the sub-menus, but then it would cover content at the top of the content area, rendering it unclickable.

Upvotes: 0

Views: 443

Answers (3)

tony722
tony722

Reputation: 2035

You could build an HTML skeleton of empty ULs in Blogger (the max that you might need) to hold your navigation contents, and then link to an Umbraco-generated external stylesheet.

This stylesheet could fill those LIs with CSS generated content using the :before and :after pseudo-elements, and hiding unused LIs with CSS display: none.

An example of this is at: http://jsfiddle.net/5bXja/1/

This works in IE8+ so depending on your clients, this may-or-may-not be more widely supported than Javascript. Likely not. ;-)

Upvotes: 1

Anton
Anton

Reputation: 6041

It's not possible to use IFrame, cause of same origin policy. Both sites are on different domains, when user click menu item inside IFrame, there is no way to call parent window.

There are few ways how this can be done.

1) Javascript solution. Use json rpc, or another cross-domain calls. Load menu from your CMS and render it. Yes, this requires javsascript, but, seriously, show me the site, which does not use javascript.

2) Direct server communication. Is it possible to perform http call from blogger ? If so, just perform http call to your CMS from Blogger, get data and render it.

3) Mixed flash/javascript solution. Flash can perform http call regardless of same origin policy. Get data with flash, use ExternalInterface to call Javascript function to render data.

There is no another way to do it. I suggest you to use javascript solution

Upvotes: 1

Max McKinney
Max McKinney

Reputation: 1218

I'm thinking about how you could do this, but while I do - in this day-and-age javascript has become very common. Most users are going to have it, and those with it disabled really shouldn't be on the web. Is this the only reason you don't want to use javascript? Around 2% according to YDN have js disabled, and that's lower from other countries. As time goes on that 2% should get lower, I don't see that as an issue. However if you absolutely can't use javascript, I'll keep thinking. I might have an idea, I'll need to test it though.

Upvotes: 3

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