Alternative to Iframes?

[Pyro]

Hey guys,

I've heard nothing but horrible things about iframes and compatibility issues. So I was wondering, is there an alternative that can swap out a certain part of a website and work on every browser at the same time?

Thanks,

Mario

[ACTIONpack]

Alot of people use flash to do what iframe does.

[gigapixels Veteran]

You can use some basic AJAX...

[primexx]

php includes

[Lant]

php includes

+1

php is nice and easy even if your a novice and free - you just have to make sure your host supports it.

[Daniel Tablas]

Yep PHP is a great way. It's easy once you get the hang of it (Y)

[Pyro]

Hey guys, PHP inclues are what I want to swap out, can they be swapped out without refreshing? I have never heard of this method.

I have like 20 php include boxes that I want loaded into the site when certain links are clicked without refreshing.

Flash is out of the question just because of what the includes contain.

And if anyone can show me a link to the AJAX way I'd love to give that a shot.

Thanks for the replies,

Mario

[primexx]

oooh if you want no-refresh then AJAX is the way to go.

[smctainsh]

Perhaps something like this example? However, if you want something that fetches another page without refreshing, I recommend this tutorial.

Smctainsh

[Pyro]

Thanks guys, a couple more questions if you don't mind...

If people have Javascript disabled will the first example you gave still work? http://www.smctainsh.com/jsexample/

And is the AJAX one cross browser compatible?

Thanks,

Mario

[The_Decryptor Veteran]

Javascript won't work if people disable Javascript, so no, it won't

And IE7 and most other browsers use the XMLHTTPRequest object, IE6 uses an ActiveX Object (luckily with the same function calls and return values, which makes sense since other implementations are based off it)

You can also do it by using hidden iframes, but if the browser supports a native object for it, it would be a better way to go (less overhead)

[ncc50446]

Take a look here, I found this a while ago when I was trying to learn some ajax.

http://www.dynamicdrive.com/dynamicindex17/ajaxtabscontent/

You can turn javascript off, and it will still work, well, sorta lol But its the next best thing to frames. And it works in FF, IE, Opera and such, and suppose to work with webcrawlers and such.

Hope that helps :)

[primexx]

As a fallback for JS disabled people (I know I dont want to enable JS just to view a website properly), always make it so that the page would still work except it'll reload rather than dynamically changing. A rule of thumb is that you use client side scripting to ENHANCE website functions, not to IMPLEMENT website functions.