@marianmeres/widget-provider

Embed an iframe-based widget into a host page with built-in positioning presets, bidirectional postMessage communication, show/hide animations, drag-and-drop, resize, detach/dock workflow, and reactive state.

Installation

npm install @marianmeres/widget-provider

Or via JSR:

deno add jsr:@marianmeres/widget-provider

Usage

import { provideWidget } from "@marianmeres/widget-provider";

const widget = provideWidget({
	widgetUrl: "https://example.com/my-widget",
	stylePreset: "float", // "float" | "fullscreen" | "inline"
	animate: true, // fade-scale animation
	trigger: true, // show floating trigger button when hidden
	draggable: true, // drag handle for float preset
	resizable: true, // resize handle for float preset
});

// Control visibility
widget.open(); // show + auto-fullscreen on small screens
widget.show();
widget.hide();
widget.toggle();

// Dimension control (float/fullscreen only — no-op when inline)
widget.maximizeHeight();
widget.minimizeHeight();
widget.maximizeWidth();
widget.minimizeWidth();
widget.reset();

// Send messages to the iframe
widget.send("greet", { name: "World" });

// Listen for messages from the iframe
const unsub = widget.onMessage("response", (payload) => {
	console.log(payload);
});

// Subscribe to reactive state changes
widget.subscribe((state) => {
	console.log(state.visible, state.ready, state.heightState, state.detached);
});

// Clean up
widget.destroy();

Style Presets

| Preset | Description | | -------------- | --------------------------------------- | | "inline" | Flows within parent container (default) | | "float" | Fixed bottom-right chat-widget style | | "fullscreen" | Covers viewport with backdrop overlay |

Detach / Dock (inline only)

An inline widget can be temporarily detached from its parent container and floated on document.body, leaving a placeholder behind. Dock returns it to the original position. Both methods are async and preserve the iframe's current URL across the DOM move:

• Same-origin: full URL (including any in-iframe navigation) is preserved by reading contentWindow.location.href.
• Cross-origin: hash only, via the optional requestHash/hashReport postMessage protocol. If the iframe doesn't respond within 50ms, the URL is re-set without a hash.

Rapid or interleaved detach()/dock() calls are serialized through an internal promise chain, so they can't corrupt placeholder/parent state.

const widget = provideWidget({
	widgetUrl: "https://example.com/my-widget",
	parentContainer: document.getElementById("sidebar")!,
	stylePreset: "inline",
	placeholder: { content: "Widget is floating..." },
});

await widget.detach(); // moves to body, switches to float style, preserves URL
await widget.dock(); // returns to sidebar, restores inline style, preserves URL

Message Protocol

Messages between the host and iframe are namespaced with @@__widget_provider__@@ prefix. The iframe can send built-in control messages: ready, open, fullscreen, restore, maximizeHeight, minimizeHeight, maximizeWidth, minimizeWidth, reset, hide, destroy, setPreset, detach, dock, nativeFullscreen, exitNativeFullscreen.

The host sends state notifications to the iframe on ready and whenever values change: preset, heightState, widthState, detached, isSmallScreen.

The host also sends requestHash before detach/dock DOM moves. Same-origin iframes: the host reads contentWindow.location.href synchronously and re-assigns the full URL after the DOM move — in-iframe navigation (including subpaths) is preserved. Cross-origin iframes: the iframe can opt in to hash preservation by replying with hashReport (preserves only the hash):

// Iframe-side: opt-in hash preservation for cross-origin
const PREFIX = "@@__widget_provider__@@";
window.addEventListener("message", (event) => {
	if (event.data?.type === PREFIX + "requestHash") {
		window.parent.postMessage(
			{ type: PREFIX + "hashReport", payload: location.hash },
			event.origin,
		);
	}
});

Security

• Always pass an explicit allowedOrigin in production. If the URL parse fails and allowedOrigin is omitted, the library falls back to "*" and logs a warning — origin validation is effectively disabled in that case.
• Sandbox: Default is "allow-scripts allow-same-origin". When the widget is served from the same origin as the host, allow-same-origin lets the iframe script remove its own sandbox attribute — there is effectively no sandbox in that setup. For widgets you don't fully control, either serve from a different origin or drop allow-same-origin.
• innerHTML sinks: trigger.content and placeholder.content are assigned via innerHTML. Treat them as trusted HTML; never interpolate untrusted input.

API

See API.md for complete API documentation.

License

MIT