[thelist] Use JavaScript includes to insert PHP into a site?

Keith cache at dowebs.com
Fri Jan 11 12:51:39 CST 2002


Thanks Andrew!

> > I've never seen documentation that IE *should* ignore the enclosed
> > js tag, it just does, at least in 5.5.
> 
> Actually this is defined and reliable behaviour (HTML4, section 16.5).
> The same goes for <object>. Hooray!

I knew that <object> provides for alternative content, and with 
<object> it makes sense, I just wasn't sure that the iframe spec had 
the same logic. Actually I've seen <object> being used for importing 
external text content instead of iframe. But NN4.7 understands 
<object> just enough to try to load it, fail, and then refuse to load the 
alternative. Damn I'll be glad when that thing is no longer in use!

> Or, if you were lazy and didn't want to make the script output
> JS-or-HTML- depending-on-the-query-string, another possibility would
> be to give non-iframes browser a plain HTML link. The content wouldn't
> appear on the page bug it would still be accessible.

Yup that's the lazy way to do it alright :-)
> 
> ...or, specifically to Netscape 4, <ilayer>. (shudder)

I was going to mention <ilayer> too, but I couldn't quit shuddering 
either. That's a whole different can of worms....

Inspite of my earlier diatribe about the shortcomings of iframes the 
very problem I mentioned can be turned into a feature (something I 
love to see). This technique was on a site that imported newsfeeds 
and I think the original post on this thread was concerning importing 
newsfeeds.

Newsfeeds by nature frequently change in size of content. Rather 
than attempt to flow the page to accomodate the changing size this 
site used an iframe about 150X200. The iframe loaded an iframe 
and the internal iframe loaded the feed, The use of the internal 
iframe allowed for a stationary "Read the Article" button at the 
bottom of the box. The newsfeed contained a headline and a lead-
in paragraph. It was assumed that the contents would exceed the 
space so they sculpted the scrollbar size and color to fit the page 
theme. That site even began an auto-scroll that was disabled 
whenever the mouse was over the iframe, a technique I wasn't 
particularly fond of but it did call attention to the newsfeed. That site 
provided no alternative for Netscape, there was no newsfeed for 
Netscape visitors. Enclosing an external javascript tag would have 
let them at least present the headline and "Read the Article" button 
without the lead-in paragraph. 

Anyhow, thought that might be of use to someone trying to flow 
changable content size onto a page.

keith





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