Preview and edit external website - javascript

I have a difficult one
I am trying to show an external website within my page (currently using an iframe)
The trick is I want to be able to edit the site
e.g. I really want to show a preview of another website that I can modify.
Not sure if there is any tools out there, was thinking of using a jquery request to create a page within my domain that I can edit?
Any advice?

If that would be possible from within the browser, that would be a bug.
The way you should do it, is creating some sort of a proxy on your own domain/server, and fetch the site through there. Then you're allowed to access the iframe and edit whatever you like.
Of course, the site won't run like it normally would, since it can't use its own cookies, AJAX calls, etc.

I think this js library could inspire you something!
easyXDM

Related

Loading the html of a different website

I'm looking to get some data from a Facebook page of a restaurant, but I'm kinda stuck. I want to load some divs from the facebook page of the restaurant, then get the ID's of the divs, since they contain some information i would like to use. Ive tried using the .load function from jQuery, but no luck. Of all the answers I've seen, they all include a url that's something like somefile.html. Is it possible to load the divs ids and some innerHTML from a live page like Facebook? Are they somehow downloading the html to a file then using that? Keep in mind I know nothing about PHP, so any solutions? Thanks!
The right way to do it would be though Facebooks graph API, take a look at this site and see if it offers the information you need https://developers.facebook.com/docs/graph-api/reference/page/
NOTE
As comments have pointed out, "web scraping" is FORBIDDEN on Facebook.com by Facebook policy. http://www.facebook.com/apps/site_scraping_tos_terms.php
Technically, I don't think this is possible with Facebook and just JavaScript.
In general, using just JavaScript, one solution would be to load the (external) site like FaceBook into an Iframe, and then grab all the DIVs and search the DOM that's loaded into the iFrame. However, I believe FaceBook (and other sites) set something called "CORS Request Headers" which prevent the page from loading into an iFrame -- also, as far as I know, this cannot be hacked around except to use another language to pull the HTML as a file (like with PHP).
Sources:
Facebook Forbids iFrames
JavaScript, Load Page in iFrame

How to hide the source URL in an iFrame on Wordpress

I have been reading up on here about how to hide the source URL in an iFrame using Javascript and Jquery, but for some reason, I haven't found a solution that works so far with Wordpress.
So short and sweet, I am trying to hide a URL for competition reasons, I'm about to launch a new web page using an iFrame to display content from another website that I subscribe to and pay quite a bit of money for their services. So I don't want my competition to know about them and copy what I do.
What would be the best way that I could mask the HTML source link in the iFrame? I use the latest version of Wordpress to host my site.
Alternatively, I am open to more advanced solutions.
Thanks in advance.
I'm not stealing anything. I'm a businessman who pays taxes and I pay $1400 per year for the web service that I use and I don't want my competitors STEALING MY set up
Ok I'll take you at face value. As has been pointed out in comments, it's impossible to do this with plain HTML or Javascript. It simply can not be done. There is no way to prevent a user of a browser from seeing the URI's that are contacted. Period.
That being said you could:
Retrieve the HTML from the 3rd party with your web server using something like CURL in PHP.
Take the result of the above and send it out on a URL of your choosing.
Create HTML with an <iframe> or whatever else you want to display the content from the 3rd party and point it at your new URL on your web server.
The above is not trivial to do correctly and will require some knowledge and work on your part. One issue with the above method will be: passing along javascript, images, css, etc... correctly so that they appear to come from your server.

Alternatives to iframe for loading cross-site HTML when using iPhone?

I apologize if this has been asked before. I searched but did not find anything. It is a well-known limitation of AJAX requests (such as jQuery $.get) that they have to be within the same domain for security reasons. And it is a well-known workaround for this problem to use iframes to pull down some arbitrary HTML from another website and then you can inspect the contents of this HTML using javascript which communicates between the iframe and the parent page.
However, this doesn't work on the iPhone. In some tests I have found that iframes in the Safari iPhone browser only show content if it is content from the same site. Otherwise, they show a blank content area.
Is there any way around this? Are there other alternatives to using iframes that would allow me to pull the HTML from a different domain's page into javascript on my page?
Edit:
One answer mentioned JSONP. This doesn't help me because from what I understand JSONP requires support on the server I'm requesting data from, which isn't the case.
That same answer mentioned creating a proxy script on my server and loading data through there. Unfortunately this also doesn't work in my case. The site I'm trying to request data from requires user login. And I don't want my server to have to know the user's credentials. I was hoping to use something client-side so that my app wouldn't have to know the user's credentials at the other site.
I'm prepared to accept that there is no way to accomplish what I want to do on the iPhone. I just wanted to confirm it.
You generally can NOT inspect the contents of an iframe from another domain via JavaScript. The most common answers are to use JSONP or have your original server host a proxy script to retrieve the inner contents for you.
Given your revisions, without modification or support from the secondary site, you are definitely not going to be able to do what you want via the iPhone's browser.
"In some tests I have found that iframes in the Safari iPhone browser only show content if it is content from the same site"
I found the same thing. Is this documented somewhere? Is there a workaround? This sounds like broken web standards to me, and I am wondering if there is a solution.

Is it possible to open an external URL without changing pages -- similar to those javascript image viewer popouts

I'd like to host some images on my website and let people post URL's to them. However, I don't want people to have to be redirected to my website to view them. Is there some way to setup my site so that no matter where the URL is posted, it will open up without changing pages? Similar looking to lightscribe?
If people are simply posting links to your site like <a href="http://example.com">, there's nothing you can do on example.com to prevent them from leaving the referring page.
You could provide a piece of code that will create a lightbox-like effect and encourage your users to use it instead of the URL. Like YouTube, for example, which provides a chunk of HTML that creates an embedded player.
You may try using bookmarklet type links. But you need a bit JS experience for this, though it sure can be done.

Embedding web controls across sites - using IFrames/Javascript

I'm just looking for clarification on this.
Say I have a small web form, a 'widget' if you will, that gets data, does some client side verification on it or other AJAX-y nonsense, and on clicking a button would direct to another page.
If I wanted this to be an 'embeddable' component, so other people could stick this on their sites, am I limited to basically encapsulating it within an iframe?
And are there any limitations on what I can and can't do in that iframe?
For example, the button that would take you to another page - this would load the content in the iframe? So it would need to exist outwith the iframe?
And finally, if the button the user clicked were to take them to an https page to verify credit-card details, are there any specific security no-nos that would stop this happening?
EDIT: For an example of what I'm on about, think about embedding either googlemaps or multimap on a page.
EDIT EDIT: Okay, I think I get it.
There are Two ways.
One - embed in an IFrame, but this is limited.
Two - create a Javascript API, and ask the consumer to link to this. But this is a lot more complex for both the consumer and the creator.
Have I got that right?
Thanks
Duncan
There's plus points for both methods. I for one, wouldn't use another person's Javascript on my page unless I was absolutely certain I could trust the source. It's not hard to make a malicious script that submits the values of all input boxes on a page. If you don't need access to the contents of the page, then using an iframe would be the best option.
Buttons and links can be "told" to navigate the top or parent frame using the target attribute, like so:
This is a link
<form action="http://some.url/with/a/page" target="_parent"><button type="submit">This is a button</button></form>
In this situation, since you're navigating away from the hosting page, the same-origin-policy wouldn't apply.
In similar situations, widgets are generally iframes placed on your page. iGoogle and Windows Live Gadgets (to my knowlege) are hosted in iframes, and for very good reason - security.
If you are using AJAX I assume you have a server written in C# or Java or some OO language.
It doesn't really matter what language only the syntax will vary.
Either way I would advise against the iFrame methods.
It will open up way way too many holes or problems like Http with Https (or vice-versa) in an iFrame will show a mixed content warning.
So what do you do?
Do a server-side call to the remote site
Parse the response appropriately on the server
Return via AJAX what you need
Display returned content to the user
You know how to do the AJAX just add a server-side call to the remote site.
Java:
URL url = new URL("http://www.WEBSITE.com");
URLConnection conn = url.openConnection();
or
C#:
HttpWebRequest req = (HttpWebRequest)HttpWebRequest.Create("http://www.WEBSITE.com");
WebResponse res = req.GetResponse();
I think you want to get away from using inline frames if possible. Although they are sometimes useful, they can cause issues with navigation and bookmarking. Generally, if you can do it some other way than an iframe, that is the better method.
Given that you make an AJAX reference, a Javascript pointer would probably be the best bet i.e. embed what you need to do in script tags. Note that this is how Google embed things such as Google Analytics and Google Ads. It also has the benefit of also being pullable from a url hosted by you, thus you can update the code and 'voila' it is active in all the web pages that use this. (Google usually use version numbers as well so they don't switch everyone when they make changes).
Re the credit card scenario, Javascript is bound by the 'same origin policy'. For a clarification, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Same_origin_policy
Added: Google Maps works in the same way and with some caveats such as a user/site key that explicitly identify who is using the code.
Look into using something like jQuery, create a "plugin" for your component, just one way, and just a thought but if you want to share the component with other folks to use this is one of the things that can be done.

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