iframe-broadcaster

Why?

There's occasions where you may want to allow consumers of your embed to listen for events within your frame.

This module was designed to facilitate interactive tours of 3rd party systems.

Quick Start

In your child frame add the following script tag.

<script src="https://unpkg.com/iframe-broadcaster@0.14.0/iframe-broadcaster.min.js"></script>

In your parent window add the following integration code.

<script>
window.addEventListener('message', function(e){
    const valid = 
        e.origin == "expected-child-domain.com"
        && e.data 
        && e.data.type == 'iframe-broadcast'

    if( valid ){
        console.log( e.data )
    }
})
</script>

Live Demo

Glitch Playground

Data Structure

e.data.eventType

A string indicating what type of event triggered the message to be sent.

Valid values:

'error'
'click'
'keydown'
'focus'
'blur'
'submit'
'drop'
'play'
'change'
'input'
'abort'
'timeout'
'progress'
'loadstart'
'loadend'
'load'

e.data.target.tagName

The HTML tagName attribute of the target element.

e.data.target.id

The HTML id attribute of the target element.

e.data.target.className

The HTML className attribute of the target element.

e.data.parent.id

The HTML id attribute of the target element's parent node.

e.data.target.className

The HTML id attribute of the target element's parent node.

e.data.coords

For mouse events only

Contains a hash of { x:number, y:number } objects for layer, offset and page.

Example:

// e.data.coords
{
    layer: { x:0, y: 0 }
    offset: { x:y, y: 0 }
    page: { x:y, y: 0 }
}

e.data.keyCode

For keyboard events only

Used to identify which key was pressed in the child iframe.

e.data.shiftKey

For keyboard events only

Used to identify if the shift key was active when the key event fired.

e.data.metaKey

For keyboard events only

Used to identify if the meta key was active when the key event fired.

e.data.error

For error events only

The error message that was fired in the child iframe context.

e.data.stack

For error events only

The stack at the time an error fired in the child iframe context.

e.data.value

Only available when an event was dispatched from an element with a value property.

The value property of the element that was dispatched.

e.data.checked

Only available when an event was dispatched from an element with a checked property.

The checked property of the element that was dispatched.

e.data.selectedIndex

Only available when an event was dispatched from an element with a selectedIndex property.

The selectedIndex property of the element that was dispatched.

Future Work

Allow the parent and the child to opt-in / request to which events they want to broadcast.

iframe-broadcaster