jQuery IFrame AJAX

Library provides transport to emulate AJAX via hidden iframe. In the first place necessary for AJAX uploading files to older browsers do not support the XMLHttpRequest 2.

Demo: http://paulzi.ru/jquery-iframe-ajax/

Russian readme

Install

Install via NPM

npm install jquery-iframe-ajax

Install via Bower

bower install jquery-iframe-ajax

Or install manually.

Usage

Include library on page after jQuery:

<script src="/bower_components/jquery/dist/jquery.min.js">
<script src="/bower_components/jquery-iframe-ajax/dist/jquery-iframe-ajax.min.js">

Now you can upload files via iframe transport:

$(document).on('click', function () {
    $.ajax({
        url:    '/path/to/handler',
        method: 'post',
        iframe: true,
        data:   { additional: 'value' },
        files:  $('.form input[type="file"]')
    })
        .done(function (data) {
            alert(data);
        });
});

You can also send the existing form with all files and fields:

$(document).on('click', function () {
    $.ajax({
        url:    '/path/to/handler',
        method: 'post',
        iframe: true,
        data:   { additional: 'value' },
        form:   $('.form')
    })
        .done(function (data) {
            alert(data);
        });
});

Options

• iframe - enable iframe transport
• files - array of input[type="file"] or jQuery object with similar elements (using if form option is not set)
• form - form or jQuery object with form (option files will be ignored)
• iframeOnSubmit - callback after iframe form submit

Response handling

By default, the iframe does not provide information about the response, such as:

• HTTP code
• HTTP status text
• Content-Type of response
• Headers

But you can emulate this support by wrapping the content in the tag <textarea>:

<textarea data-status="403" data-status-text="Forbidden" data-content-type="text/json">
{"status": "Auth required"}
</textarea>

List of textarea attributes:

• data-status (int) - (required) HTTP code of response
• data-status-text (string) - HTTP response short description (see: HTTP Reason-Phrase)
• data-content-type (string) - Content-Type of response (it is override value in headers)
• data-headers (plain object or string) - List of header

Note: the real response code for iframe must be 200 for the correct processing of the contents textarea.

Detect IFrame transport

If the request was sent via IFrame, then further transferred POST parameter X-Requested-With = IFrame (that param, not header!).

That way you can have different responding depending on transport:

$response = json_encode(['status' => 'ok']);
if (!empty($_POST['X-Requested-With']) && $_POST['X-Requested-With'] === 'IFrame') {
    echo "<textarea data-status="200" data-status-text="OK" data-content-type="text/json">{$content}</textarea>";
} else {
    header("Content-Type: text/json");
    echo $content;
}

Requirements

• jQuery 1.7+

Browser support

Tested with browsers:

• Internet Explorer 7+
• Chrome 7+
• Firefox 3+
• Opera 15+
• Safari 5+
• Android Browser 2.2+
• iOS Safari ?