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I'm adding a chat feature to a couple of our websites. The chat will connect users with people at our help desk to help them use the websites. Our help desk folks want the chat window to appear like a tab on the side of the page and slide out, rather than popping up in a new window. However, I want to allow the user to navigate around the site without losing the chat.
To do this, I've been trying to move the entire page into an iframe once the chat starts (with the chat outside the iframe), so the user can navigate around the site within the iframe without losing the chat.
I used this answer to get started, and that works great visually. However, some of the javascript in the background breaks.
One of the sites is ASP.NET web forms. The other is MVC. I've been working with the web forms one first. Stuff like calling __doPostBack breaks once the page is moved into the iframe since the javascript context is left behind.
Once the user clicks on a link (a real link, not a __doPostBack) and the iframe refreshes, then everything works perfectly.
How I see it, I have a few options:
Copy all javascript variables from window.top into the iframe somehow. Hopefully without having to know all the variable names. I tried this.contentWindow.__doPostBack = window.top.__doPostBack, which works, but other variables are missing so it ultimately fails:
Somehow switch the iframe's context to look at the top window context, if that's even possible? Probably not.
Another thought was to not move the page into an iframe right away, but to wait until the page changes and then load the new page into a new iframe. But I'm not sure how to hook into that event and highjack it.
Something else?
These are sites for use by our employees only, so I only have to support IE11 and Chrome.
Update:
Thanks to LGSon for putting me on the track of using the target attribute (so I can use approach #3). Below is what I ended up doing. When I pop out the chat, I call loadNextPageInIframe(). I'm using jQuery here since we already use it on our site, but everything could be done without. I set the target on all links that don't already have a target pointing to another frame or _blank. I left _parent out, but I don't think we use it anyway.
I have a reference to my chat window div in a global variable called 'chatwindow'.
There still could be some cases where this doesn't work, such as if there is some javascript that sets window.location directly. If we have anything in our sites that does this, I'll have to add a way to handle it.
function loadNextPageInIframe() {
var frame = $("<iframe id=\"mainframe\" name=\"mainframe\" />").css({
position: "fixed",
top: 0,
left: 0,
width: "100%",
height: "100%",
border: "none",
display: "none"
}).appendTo("body");
$("form, a:not([target]), a[target=''], a[target='_top'], a[target='_self']").attr("target", "mainframe");
var firstload = true;
frame.load(function () {
//Runs every time a new page in the iframe loads
if (firstload) {
$(frame).show();
//Remove all elements from the top window except the iframe and chat window
$("body").children().not(frame).not(window.top.chatwindow).remove();
firstload = false;
}
//Make the browser URL and title reflect the iframe every time it loads a new page
if (this.contentWindow && this.contentWindow.location.href && window.top.location.hostname === this.contentWindow.location.hostname && window.top.location.href !== this.contentWindow.location.href) {
var title = this.contentDocument.title;
document.title = title;
if (window.top.history.replaceState) window.top.history.replaceState(null, title, this.contentWindow.location.href);
}
});
}
May I suggest you do the following
get all links
attach an event click handler to intercept when someone click a link
on click event, check if chat is in progress, and if, feed the iframe with the new link
var links = querySelectorAll("a");
for (var i = 0; i < links.length; i++) {
links[i].addEventListener('click', function(e) {
if (isChatInProgress()) {
e.preventDefault(); //stop the default action
document.getElementById("your_iframe_id").src = e.target.href;
// anything else here, like toggle tabs etc
}
});
}
Update
To handle forms I see 4 ways at the moment
1) Add an onsubmit handler to your forms
function formIsSubmitted(frm) {
if (isChatInProgress()) {
frm.target = "the iframe";
}
return true;
}
<form id="form1" runat="server" onsubmit="return formIsSubmitted(this)">
2) Add a click handler to your buttons
function btnClick(btn) {
if (isChatInProgress()) {
btn.form.target = "the iframe";
}
return true;
}
<asp:Button runat="server" ID="ButtonID" Text="ButtonText"
OnClick="Button_Click" OnClientClick="return btnClick(this);" />
3) When a chat start, you iterate through each form and alter its target attribute
function startChat() {
var forms = querySelectorAll("form");
for (var i = 0; i < forms.length; i++) {
forms[i].target = "the iframe";
});
}
4) Override the original postback event (Src: intercept-postback-event)
// get reference to original postback method before we override it
var __doPostBackOriginal = __doPostBack;
// override
__doPostBack = function (eventTarget, eventArgument) {
if (isChatInProgress()) {
theForm.target = "the iframe";
}
// call original postback
__doPostBackOriginal.call(this, eventTarget, eventArgument);
}
Update 2
The absolute best way to deal with this is of course to use AJAX to load both page and chat content, but that likely means a quite bigger work load if your sites aren't already use it.
If you don't want to do that, you can still use AJAX for chat and if a user were to navigate to a new page, the chat app recreate the ongoing chat window with all its content again.
I suggest instead of loading content to and from iframes - build the chat as an iframe and use a jQuery modal popup on the page for chat.
You can fix the jquery modal to a fixed location and page scrolling is enabled by default. You need to modify css accordingly to make the popup remains on the same location.
If you go down your current path - you will need to worry a lot about how content is moved to the iframe and it might be difficult to re-use the chat on different pages depending on the content. For example, imagine you playing a video on the page and the user clicks chat - if you load the content to the iframe - the user will lose the status on how far he has viewed, etc.
as per my opinion, adding the whole website as an 'I-Frame' is not a good design practice, and not a good solution for the problem. My suggestion would be:
Ensure that the 'Chat' application is loaded in all the pages, across your website
Whenever the 'Chat' is started, either establish the 'web-socket' connection or somehow, maintain the State on the Server
Have the configuration of the 'Chat' as 'Minimized', 'Open' etc and store them in your cookie or session storage
On every page load, call the 'Chat' application too. Read the Chat related configuration from sessionstorage or cookie and maintain it's state as 'Minimized' or 'Open' etc, including the X and Y position, if you want to make it as 'Floated'
Every time, either fetch the entire conversation from the server via Ajax or try to store and fetch from 'Local Storage' and do Ajax only for any Updates from the other party
Use CSS based 'Float' related properties to make it float and sit at some side.
This will ensure that your chat is available for the user and yet he can navigate all through the site.
The main goal is to keep non-refreshed the logotext <div class="small-7 medium-4 columns logo"> and the menu <nav class="pagedMenu" role="navigation">,without clipping on page refresh or while the content is loading from a page to another. Also, the menu state should be preserved from a page to another.
I've found here a possible solution that could solve the problem (you could use ajax to fetch the updated content and use jQuery to put the new content on the page and avoid the refresh entirely. Doing it that way, the existing data in the page would remain untouched. said #jfriend00)
So, I have tried to use an Ajax plugin (called AWS). In the AWS option page, I (suppose) that I've done the right thing pointing wrapper as Ajax container ID and also pagedMenu as Menu container class, Transition Effect Enabled, No ajax container IDs blank, no loader selected, having already a pulse loader implemented in the theme.
At this point, all I got it's a menu / side-menu (shiftnav) / pulse dot loader / content loading malfunction, generated perhaps by the wrong defined Ajax container id and/or menu container class(?) OR by a conflict with an existing JS / jQuery code, not so sure.
Also in Chrome console there is an error:
Uncaught SyntaxError: Unexpected token ;
(anonymous function) # ajaxify.js?ver=4.3.1:175
n.extend.each # jquery-2.1.4.min.js?ver=2.1.4:2
n.fn.n.each # jquery-2.1.4.min.js?ver=2.1.4:2
$.bind.$.ajax.success # ajaxify.js?ver=4.3.1:169
n.Callbacks.j # jquery-2.1.4.min.js?ver=2.1.4:2
n.Callbacks.k.fireWith # jquery-2.1.4.min.js?ver=2.1.4:2
x # jquery-2.1.4.min.js?ver=2.1.4:4
n.ajaxTransport.k.cors.a.crossDomain.send.b # jquery-2.1.4.min.js?ver=2.1.4:4
Everything is getting back to normal on page refresh but doesn't help at all, being useless.
I also have to mention that for the menu I've tried to keep the state using jQuery-Storage-API and storage=jQuery.sessionStorage; as you can see in mynewmenu.js file but that will not solve the non-refreshing elements problem.
The menu jsfiddle only, if this helps to have the whole picture, here thanks to #Diego Betto.
You can use this live link as example; there is a similar situation with the above described - Ajax implementation right(?) - and regarding the appearance, menu is kept non-refreshed from one page to another; if you browse Books, Works etc, menu sections you'll see; if there is a model that could be implemented here, I'll be glad to find it.
LE: meanwhile, I've tried another ajaxify solution made by #arvgta - special thanks - without success yet but as far as I've found from the Author, the defined elements should be div's with id's not classes. So, I'll try to find a way to modify somehow the code in order to have id instead on classes.
Also, I'll try to transform and implement in ajaxify.min.js file, the page-container element; jQuery('#page-container').ajaxify(); I'll come back with news.
LE2: I've tried to implement the solution using id's instead of classes but still, the pages are not loading correctly.
At this point we have ajax.min.js file updated with these lines:
(function($){
jQuery(document).ready(function(){
jQuery('#page-container').ajaxify({requestDelay:400,forms:false});
});
})(jQuery);
Also, I've modified the theme file to have id=page-container instead if class=page-container.
In these conditions, on menu click, the links are changed (like it should), menu/ logotext elements seems to working almost fine (sometimes get skippy changing position), but the content is not loading correctly in all cases; Same here, everything is getting back to normal on manual page refresh (f5), but doesn't help.
LE3: It looks like the conflict is (at least) between Revolution Slider plugin and Ajaxify.
errormessage="Revolution Slider Error: You have some jquery.js library include that comes after the revolution files js include." ;="" +=" This includes make eliminates the revolution slider libraries, and make it not work." "<="" span="">"
Site live link here. Any thoughts / alternative in this area? (not interested in using other different platforms, different WordPress themes, etc. just a workaround in this existing situation)
LE4: As far as I can see, there are many users that voted up the Jake Bown answer that could be indeed a solution; but I can't find the reason that didn't work correctly implemented into my theme (without errors) live link here The elements logotext / menu are still fading on refresh, are not kept non-refreshed. Any thoughts #Jake Bown / anyone?
LE final.
Buzinas delivered the closest answer for my needs, taking in consideration my site environment (plugins installed, etc).
From what you said I think I might have found the solution you're looking for - you want to load content dynamically whilst keeping the logo and navigation untouched? If so, this might be what you're looking for.
In the example, the pages are loaded in from a div within the page but could be used to load another URL or file:
$('.viewport ul li a').on('click', function(e) {
e.preventDefault();
var link = this.hash.substring(1, this.hash.length);
if($('.'+link).length) {
$('.viewport span.body').html($('.'+link).html());
}
});
TL;DR
I've created a plunker for you, take a look, and play with it as long as you can. You'll learn a lot from it!
I think you're trying too many things here, but didn't try the simplest:
The main goal is to keep non-refreshed the logotext and the menu ,without clipping on page refresh or while the content is loading from a page to another. Also the menu state should be preserved from a page to another.
If you want to do that, there are a few steps:
Create a 'master' page, that we're going to call index.html from now on.
So, our index must have the static part of our page, e.g menu, logo, footer etc.
Then, our 'subpages' must be cut down (no html, head, body, script, style tags, only the content that should be showed into our master page).
That done, now we must change our links to use AJAX instead of doing full refresh:
/* we add a 'click' event handler to our menu */
document.getElementById('menu-menu-2').addEventListener('click', function(e) {
var el = e.target;
/* then, we see if the element that was clicked is a anchor */
if (el.tagName === 'A') {
/* we prevent the default functionality of the anchor (i.e redirect to the page) */
e.preventDefault();
/* we show our spinner, so the user can see that something is loading */
spinner.classList.remove('hidden');
/* and we call our AJAX function, passing a function as the callback */
ajax(el.href, function(xhr) {
/* we get our main div, and we replace its HTML to the response that came
from the AJAX request */
document.getElementById('main').innerHTML = xhr.responseText;
/* since the request was finished, we hide our spinner again */
spinner.classList.add('hidden');
});
}
});
Ok, now our pages are already working via AJAX, and not reloading our static content.
But now, we see that we have some issues. For example, if someone tries to open one of our pages directly via URL, he'll see unstyled page, without the menu/logo etc. So, what should we do?
We have a few more steps now:
Simulate that our links are effectively transfering between pages using the History API:
/* inside our ajax callback, we save the fake-redirect we made into the pushState */
ajax(el.href, function(xhr) {
document.getElementById('main').innerHTML = xhr.responseText;
/* save the new html, so when the user uses the back button, we can load it again */
history.pushState({
html: main.innerHTML,
title: el.textContent + '| neuegrid'
}, '', el.href);
/* (...) */
});
/* and outside it, we add a 'popstate' event handler */
window.addEventListener('popstate', function(e) {
/* so, if we've saved the state before, we can restore it now */
if (e.state) {
document.getElementById('main').innerHTML = e.state.html;
document.title = e.state.title;
}
});
And we need that when the user enters directly to another page, e.g about-us, we redirect him to the index.html, and then load the about-us page from there.
So we create a redirect.js file, and we reference it in all of our
subpages:
/* save the page that the user tried to load into the sessionStorage */
sessionStorage.setItem('page', location.pathname);
/* and them, we redirect him to our main page */
location.replace('/');
And then, in our index.html page, we see if there is any page in the sessionStorage, and we load it, if there is, otherwise we load our home page.
var page = sessionStorage.getItem('page') || 'home';
/* we look into the menu items, and find which has an href attribute
ending with the page's URL we wanna load */
document.querySelector('#menu-menu-2 > li > a[href$="' + page + '"').click();
And that's it, we're done now. Take a look at the plunker I've been making to you.
And play with it as long as you can, so you'll learn a lot from it.
I hope I could help you! :)
Note: Just for reference, this is our ajax function:
function ajax(url, callback, method, params) {
if (!method) method = 'GET';
var xhr = new XMLHttpRequest();
xhr.open(method, url);
if (callback) xhr.addEventListener('load', function() {
callback.call(this, xhr);
});
if (params) {
params = Object.keys(params).map(function(key) {
return encodeURIComponent(key) + '=' + encodeURIComponent(params[key]);
}).join('&');
xhr.send(params);
} else {
xhr.send();
}
}
GOING AJAXED WITH WORDPRESS
demo: http://so.devilmaycode.it/how-to-keep-elements-non-refreshed/
follow these simple steps (let's take as example theme "twentyfifteen" on the WP templates folder):
edit single.php, page.php, index.php and all other pages having get_header() and get_footer() functions and replace it respectively with below code:
NOTE: this is important because if someone (ex: search-engine) reach your pages directly from the link, it is still fully available and 100% working. (useful for SEO)
<?php
//get_header()
if(!isset($_REQUEST['ajax'])){
get_header();
}
?>
<!-- other code --->
<?php
//get_footer()
if(!isset($_REQUEST['ajax'])){
get_footer();
}
?>
open the header.php add the below code inside the <head> section at the very end
<script>
!(function($) {
$(function() {
$('.menu-item a, .widget-area a, .page_item a').on('click', function(e) {
e.preventDefault();
var href = this.href;
var query = href ? (href + (!/\?/g.test(href) ? '?' : '&') + 'ajax=1') : window.location;
/* IMPLEMENT SOME LOGIG HERE BEFORE PAGE LOAD */
/* ex: kill instance of running plugins */
$('#content').hide().empty().load(query, function() {
/* IMPLEMENT SOME LOGIG HERE AFTER PAGE IS LOADED */
/* ex: refresh or run a new plugin instance for this page */
jQuery(this).show();
});
});
});
})(jQuery);
</script>
in the header.php file put the code below at the end of the file, 90% of times you need it under the navigation. In this case we already have this on the "twentyfifteen" theme.
NB: most probably you have the opening tag <div id="content" class="site-content"> inside the header.php file and the closing tag </div> on the footer.php file, this doesn't matter, you can leave it as is.
<div id="content"></div>
NOTE: consider this a proof of concept; it may work as is, but you still need to tailor it to suit your needs; you may need to:
Add a menu (in case it is not already set) by going under Appeareace > Menus > [check Primary Menu] > Save Menu in order to activate the menu. it's tested and working.
You may want to add some other class to the jQuery function like .widget-area a in order to ajax also widget links.
if you are using 3d party plugins you may need to ensure that all dependencies of each plugin are loaded also on the main page from where you want everything is displayed without refreshing content.
you may need to check and kill those 3d party plugin before a new page load and run or refresh plugin needed in the loaded page.
Been searching on the web for a solution, but couldn't find anything, so maybe it's not possible, although I hope it still is.
What Im trying to do is detect the button (class or id) that was clicked when being redirected to another page on my site.
What I have is a portfolio page that contains a large amount of divs with different classes, so when someone clicks on a specific button on the homepage and gets redirected to the portfolio page, is it possible to detect on the portfolio page how the visitor got directed from. So detect which button got clicked.
no idea how to approach this, something maybe with if previous window.location last action find class or id.
Hopefully my question makes sense and someone can give me an idea if even possible.
I imagine it would rather be possible to do with php, but unfortunately server side languages are not an option in this case.
Thanks
Examples of methods you can use
add the information in the originating url - use location.search or location.hash depending on your choice of ? or #
Set a cookie (or use session/localStorage in modern browsers) in originating page and read it in the target page
Interrogate document.referrer (not always set)
You can't do it without either modifying the links (adding a query string or hash), or having code on the source pages (where the links are).
The former is pretty obvious: Just add a query string or hash (I'd use a hash) that identifies where the click came from, and look for the hash on the portfolio page. E.g., links:
Portfolio
Portfolio
and in the portfolio page:
var from = location.hash;
If you don't want to do that, and you can put code on those pages, it's easy: Add a click handler that sets information about the link in sessionStorage (very well-supported on modern browsers), and look for it in sessionStorage when you get to the portfolio page.
E.g.,:
$(document).on("click", "a", function(e) {
// Maybe check the link is going to portfolio, or refine the selector above
sessionStorage.setItem("linkFrom", this.className);
});
and then in the portfolio page:
var from = sessionstorage.getItem("linkFrom");
You can use window.localStorage to save the last id of the clicked element.
localStorage.setItem('last_clicked_id', id);
And then read it in the next page:
localStorage.last_clicked_id
Before running you should check for localStorage support:
if(typeof(Storage) !== "undefined") {
//localStorage code
} else {
//no localStorage support
}
this is how it works: the recent page or url is set on the URL parameters like a GET server request, but instead the client will receive it and parse it not the server. the recent page or url is on the "fromurl" parameter. on every page put this in (it's a javascript code):
function getURIparams(s) {
loc = window.location.href;
loc = loc.substring((loc.indexOf("?")+1));
loc = loc.split("&");
for (l = 0; l < loc.length; l++) {
lcc = loc[l].split("=");
if (lcc[0] == s) {
return lcc[1];
break;
}
}
}
next on every anchor link put this in href:
The Link to another page
after that, on every page execute this javascript:
from_url = getURIparams("fromurl");
the "from_url" variable will be the string variable of where the user clicked before it comes to that page.
if you are to lazy to put all those anchor one by one like this, do this work around but you need jquery for this. you dont need to put the parameter on the links for it to know where it comes from it will be automatically added by jquery.
$(document).on('click', 'a', function(e){
e.preventDefault();
window.location.href = e.target.href + "?fromurl=" + window.location.pathname;
});
I am creating a mobile website with different events in a specific month. I want to add a button on every event page let user add different as'favorites'. I want that when user click the Add to favorites button, the event should be automatically added to a html page 'favorites'
I would go with a small javascript, external and called on the event pages (since there will be many instances of it). It's actually a very simple process you're asking about.
Create a new javascript file called favorites.js
Save it with this code:
Modified To support Opera
function bookmark(title,url){
var sPath = window.location.pathname;
var sPage = sPath.substring(sPath.lastIndexOf('/') + 1);
url =url+sPage;
if (window.sidebar) // firefox
window.sidebar.addPanel(title, url, "");
else if(window.opera && window.print){ // opera
var elem = document.createElement('a');
elem.setAttribute('href',url);
elem.setAttribute('title',title);
elem.setAttribute('rel','sidebar');
elem.click();
}
else if(document.all)// ie
window.external.AddFavorite(url, title);
}
In the head of every HTML document you write, you need to call this script (extremely similar to calling a CSS definition):
<script src="**/dir/**favorites.js" charset="UTF-8" type="text/javascript" defer/></script>
Defer is optional but recommended with a script like this which is not essential to the functioning of the page. However, if you want the possibility that the user can make use of the add to bookmarks function before the rest of the page loads, you may change defer to async.
Now you're almost there. At this point, to save yourself some frustration, make sure that your pages load without error before trying to use a link. This will ensure there are no bugs with your javascript or existing code.
To make use of the add to favorites button, it's as simple as using anchors and links. A link which would make use of this script in particular looks like this:
bookmark me
or
<img src="imgs/bookmarklogo.png" **other-img-definition-stuff**>
And in the old days it was common to use a form button, like this:
<input type="button" name="Bookmark this page" onclick="bookmark()" />
Several years have gone by since I really bothered myself with HTML/CSS, and in that time, options such as AddThis have come about. If you find this task too difficult, I would just go with something like that. And also I would recommend getting away from handcoding and go to some sort of CMS, like Drupal or Wordpress. Especially if you are on tight schedules.
So I've made a web app, image below. The app has several tabs which contain different information such as graphs and indicators. The app is made using HTML & Javascript and is one document. I have implemented a Javascript timer which, every 60 seconds, loads the exact same webapp but in a different HTML document, just with different values for the graphs etc. This was just to make it easy for me as i don't have a lot of time at the moment. So every minute the web apps graphs will refresh with different data coming from a different document. So basically i have index.html, index2.html and index3.html, all with the same code/webapp but loading different values into the graphs. Heres the code for the timer:
<script type="text/javascript">
var myVar=setInterval(function(){myTimer()},60000);
$(function () {
});
function myTimer()
{
window.location.replace("index2.html");
}
</script>
The only problem with this is that when, for example, index.html reaches 60 seconds and loads index2.html it goes back to the very first tab (Summary), is there anyway to remain on the same tab even though it's loading a different document?
As #JoshuaM pointed out, the best solution would be to use AJAX, but since you seem mostly satisfied with your current method, you could use a hash on the URL to indicate which tab should be active, e.g.:
index.html#/metrics
index2.html#/metrics
etc...
(I like to put in a leading slash for this sort of thing to distinguish it from a regular anchor link or unexpectedly jumping to an element with the same ID, but in a simple case like this, index.html#metrics could work just as well).
The link for the metrics tab would look like this:
Metrics
(Keep whatever Javascript you have set up on it to make the tabs work.)
Then, when loading the next page, append the hash to it:
var nextPage = 'index2.html';
window.location = nextPage + window.location.hash;
Finally, check for the hash when first loading a page:
var hash = window.location.hash;
//hashes indicating which tab to make active should begin with a slash, e.g. #/metrics
if (hash[1]=='/') {
var currentTab = hash.substr(2);
//activate current tab...
}
Another alternative would be to use an iframe for the graph content but that would probably require more reworking of your code.