Resize iframe height according to content height in it

Php Problem Overview

I am opening my blog page in my website. The problem is I can give a width to an iframe but the height should be dynamic so that there is no scrollbar in the iframe, and it looks like a single page...

I have tried various JavaScript code to calculate the height of the content but all of them give an access denied permission error and is of no use.

<iframe src="http://bagtheplanet.blogspot.com/" name="ifrm" id="ifrm" width="1024px" ></iframe>

Can we use Ajax to calculate height or maybe using PHP?

Php Solutions

Solution 1 - Php

To directly answer your two subquestions: No, you cannot do this with Ajax, nor can you calculate it with PHP.

What I have done in the past is use a trigger from the iframe'd page in window.onload (NOT domready, as it can take a while for images to load) to pass the page's body height to the parent.

<body onload='parent.resizeIframe(document.body.scrollHeight)'>

Then the parent.resizeIframe looks like this:

function resizeIframe(newHeight)
{
    document.getElementById('blogIframe').style.height = parseInt(newHeight,10) + 10 + 'px';
}

Et voila, you have a robust resizer that triggers once the page is fully rendered with no nasty contentdocument vs contentWindow fiddling :)

Sure, now people will see your iframe at default height first, but this can be easily handled by hiding your iframe at first and just showing a 'loading' image. Then, when the resizeIframe function kicks in, put two extra lines in there that will hide the loading image, and show the iframe for that faux Ajax look.

Of course, this only works from the same domain, so you may want to have a proxy PHP script to embed this stuff, and once you go there, you might as well just embed your blog's RSS feed directly into your site with PHP.

Solution 2 - Php

You can do this with JavaScript.

document.getElementById('foo').height = document.getElementById('foo').contentWindow.document.body.scrollHeight + "px";

Solution 3 - Php

Fitting IFRAME contents is kind of an easy thing to find on Google. Here's one solution:

<script type="text/javascript">
    function autoIframe(frameId) {
       try {
          frame = document.getElementById(frameId);
          innerDoc = (frame.contentDocument) ? frame.contentDocument : frame.contentWindow.document;
          objToResize = (frame.style) ? frame.style : frame;
          objToResize.height = innerDoc.body.scrollHeight + 10;
       }
       catch(err) {
          window.status = err.message;
       }
    }
</script>

This of course doesn't solve the cross-domain problem you are having... Setting document.domain might help if these sites are in the same place. I don't think there is a solution if you are iframe-ing random sites.

Solution 4 - Php

Here's my solution to the problem using MooTools which works in Firefox 3.6, Safari 4.0.4 and Internet Explorer 7:

var iframe_container = $('iframe_container_id');
var iframe_style = {
    height: 300,
    width: '100%'
};
if (!Browser.Engine.trident) {
    // IE has hasLayout issues if iframe display is none, so don't use the loading class
    iframe_container.addClass('loading');
    iframe_style.display = 'none';
}
this.iframe = new IFrame({
    frameBorder: 0,
    src: "http://www.youriframeurl.com/",
    styles: iframe_style,
    events: {
        'load': function() {
            var innerDoc = (this.contentDocument) ? this.contentDocument : this.contentWindow.document;
            var h = this.measure(function(){
                return innerDoc.body.scrollHeight;
            });            
            this.setStyles({
                height: h.toInt(),
                display: 'block'
            });
            if (!Browser.Engine.trident) {
                iframe_container.removeClass('loading');
            }
        }
    }
}).inject(iframe_container);

Style the "loading" class to show an Ajax loading graphic in the middle of the iframe container. Then for browsers other than Internet Explorer, it will display the full height IFRAME once the loading of its content is complete and remove the loading graphic.

Solution 5 - Php

Below is my onload event handler.

I use an IFRAME within a jQuery UI dialog. Different usages will need some adjustments. This seems to do the trick for me (for now) in Internet Explorer 8 and Firefox 3.5. It might need some extra tweaking, but the general idea should be clear.

    function onLoadDialog(frame) {
    try {
        var body = frame.contentDocument.body;
        var $body = $(body);
        var $frame = $(frame);
        var contentDiv = frame.parentNode;
        var $contentDiv = $(contentDiv);

        var savedShow = $contentDiv.dialog('option', 'show');
        var position = $contentDiv.dialog('option', 'position');
        // disable show effect to enable re-positioning (UI bug?)
        $contentDiv.dialog('option', 'show', null);
        // show dialog, otherwise sizing won't work
        $contentDiv.dialog('open');

        // Maximize frame width in order to determine minimal scrollHeight
        $frame.css('width', $contentDiv.dialog('option', 'maxWidth') -
                contentDiv.offsetWidth + frame.offsetWidth);

        var minScrollHeight = body.scrollHeight;
        var maxWidth = body.offsetWidth;
        var minWidth = 0;
        // decrease frame width until scrollHeight starts to grow (wrapping)
        while (Math.abs(maxWidth - minWidth) > 10) {
            var width = minWidth + Math.ceil((maxWidth - minWidth) / 2);
            $body.css('width', width);
            if (body.scrollHeight > minScrollHeight) {
                minWidth = width;
            } else {
                maxWidth = width;
            }
        }
        $frame.css('width', maxWidth);
        // use maximum height to avoid vertical scrollbar (if possible)
        var maxHeight = $contentDiv.dialog('option', 'maxHeight')
        $frame.css('height', maxHeight);
        $body.css('width', '');
        // correct for vertical scrollbar (if necessary)
        while (body.clientWidth < maxWidth) {
            $frame.css('width', maxWidth + (maxWidth - body.clientWidth));
        }

        var minScrollWidth = body.scrollWidth;
        var minHeight = Math.min(minScrollHeight, maxHeight);
        // descrease frame height until scrollWidth decreases (wrapping)
        while (Math.abs(maxHeight - minHeight) > 10) {
            var height = minHeight + Math.ceil((maxHeight - minHeight) / 2);
            $body.css('height', height);
            if (body.scrollWidth < minScrollWidth) {
                minHeight = height;
            } else {
                maxHeight = height;
            }
        }
        $frame.css('height', maxHeight);
        $body.css('height', '');

        // reset widths to 'auto' where possible
        $contentDiv.css('width', 'auto');
        $contentDiv.css('height', 'auto');
        $contentDiv.dialog('option', 'width', 'auto');

        // re-position the dialog
        $contentDiv.dialog('option', 'position', position);

        // hide dialog
        $contentDiv.dialog('close');
        // restore show effect
        $contentDiv.dialog('option', 'show', savedShow);
        // open using show effect
        $contentDiv.dialog('open');
        // remove show effect for consecutive requests
        $contentDiv.dialog('option', 'show', null);

        return;
    }

    //An error is raised if the IFrame domain != its container's domain
    catch (e) {
        window.status = 'Error: ' + e.number + '; ' + e.description;
        alert('Error: ' + e.number + '; ' + e.description);
    }
};

Solution 6 - Php

The trick is to acquire all the necessary iframe events from an external script. For instance, you have a script which creates the iFrame using document.createElement; in this same script you temporarily have access to the contents of the iFrame.

var dFrame = document.createElement("iframe");
dFrame.src = "http://www.example.com";
// Acquire onload and resize the iframe
dFrame.onload = function()
{
	// Setting the content window's resize function tells us when we've changed the height of the internal document
	// It also only needs to do what onload does, so just have it call onload
	dFrame.contentWindow.onresize = function() { dFrame.onload() };
	dFrame.style.height = dFrame.contentWindow.document.body.scrollHeight + "px";
}
window.onresize = function() {
	dFrame.onload();
}

This works because dFrame stays in scope in those functions, giving you access to the external iFrame element from within the scope of the frame, allowing you to see the actual document height and expand it as necessary. This example will work in firefox but nowhere else; I could give you the workarounds, but you can figure out the rest ;)

Solution 7 - Php

@SchizoDuckie's answer is very elegant and lightweight, but due to Webkit's lack of implementation for scrollHeight (see here), does not work on Webkit-based browsers (Safari, Chrome, various and sundry mobile platforms).

For this basic idea to work on Webkit along with Gecko and Trident browsers, one need only replace

<body onload='parent.resizeIframe(document.body.scrollHeight)'>

with

<body onload='parent.resizeIframe(document.body.offsetHeight)'>

So long as everything is on the same domain, this works quite well.

Solution 8 - Php

Try this, you can change for even when you want. this example use jQuery.

$('#iframe').live('mousemove', function (event) {	
    var theFrame = $(this, parent.document.body);
    this.height($(document.body).height() - 350);			
});

Solution 9 - Php

I just spent the better part of 3 days wrestling with this. I'm working on an application that loads other applications into itself while maintaining a fixed header and a fixed footer. Here's what I've come up with. (I also used EasyXDM, with success, but pulled it out later to use this solution.)

Make sure to run this code AFTER the <iframe> exists in the DOM. Put it into the page that pulls in the iframe (the parent).

// get the iframe
var theFrame = $("#myIframe");
// set its height to the height of the window minus the combined height of fixed header and footer
theFrame.height(Number($(window).height()) - 80);

function resizeIframe() {
	theFrame.height(Number($(window).height()) - 80);
}

// setup a resize method to fire off resizeIframe.
// use timeout to filter out unnecessary firing.
var TO = false;
$(window).resize(function() {
	if (TO !== false) clearTimeout(TO);
	TO = setTimeout(resizeIframe, 500); //500 is time in miliseconds
});

Solution 10 - Php

Try using scrolling=no attribute on the iframe tag. Mozilla also has an overflow-x and overflow-y CSS property you may look into.

In terms of the height, you could also try height=100% on the iframe tag.

Content Type	Original Author	Original Content on Stackoverflow
Question	chinmay	View Question on Stackoverflow
Solution 1 - Php	SchizoDuckie	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 2 - Php	Anders S	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 3 - Php	Scott Evernden	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 4 - Php	Truman Leung	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 5 - Php	nelis	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 6 - Php	Soup d'Campbells	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 7 - Php	nomadkbro	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 8 - Php	Idham Perdameian	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 9 - Php	Stone	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 10 - Php	Gary Green	View Answer on Stackoverflow