The benefit of using an iframe so far has been much easier reuse of code for the widget content. However, we've had a few folks request to use their own stylesheet which can't be supported (instead we offer a configuration of the embed snippet to style a few things like menu width, fonts family and colors).
In any case, if we learn even a single helpful trick about embedding rich content from this book, it will have been money well spent!
Bought the book immediately, as what we do for a living is third-party JavaScript (search engine for e-commerce, offered as a service).
But I'm surprised to find that there is no mention of Ajax Crawling and SEO (see http://code.google.com/web/ajaxcrawling/), which is a crucial issue, a deal-breaker for many customers. I realize this is a MEAP book, but even the Table of Contents does not hint that search engine indexing will be treated in any way.
Bought the book immediately - I don't think I've ever bought something so quickly!
This is a book whose value is very clear - if you're working in the field of embeddable widgets (as I am), you know how "hack-ish" and tricky a field it is. The Disqus people have managed to make a great product despite this - any tricks I can learn from them that will make my life easier will be worth tons.
I agree with jwr - SEO is a big topic which I know nothing about, except feeling vaguely uneasy since I know we're losing a lot of SEO opportunities with our widget. Definitely a topic that should be covered in the book.
This might be a niche topic, but how about talking about advertising inside widgets in the book? Advertising is a method that many widgets use to monetize, but I'm unclear how well the standard Google adwords, etc. solutions work with embeddable widgets.
Congrats again guys! I've already picked up a bunch of tricks from the first few chapters that are available, so it's immediately paid for itself in my mind.
Thank you, financial disasters of the past. For the Europeans: If you order the printed book with the 50% off voucher with the cheaper postage fee, you still won't pay much more than 25 Euros.
Oh, and thank you for making that book. That's a title that was definitely missing from my bookshelf (yeah, we still have those in Europe ;)).
This is interesting. When I worked at a high traffic news site, we had what seemed like an unending stream of low-level crises related to 3rd party scripts of various sorts and it always blew me away, not being someone who focused on the front end, that there wasn't a more formalized methodology for dealing with them.
I might be biased, but I disagree that it's "just hacks". Certainly hacks are involved, but there are a number of best practices and methodologies involved in proper third-party scripting. Which are covered in the book.
I recently had the pleasure of hearing on of your Engineers, Ben Vinegar, speak at a Tech Talk in Toronto. My impression from the talk was that the hacks were perhaps the more interesting subject. I hope you haven't cut them all out of your book.
- a script include that is very lightweight and only
- document.writes an iframe and
- asynchronously loads a helper script to deal with cross domain communication so that the frame can change height when the menu tabs change
See it in action here http://www.northernspyfoodco.com/menus/dinner
it eventually loads the iframe with this content:
http://www.realtimefarms.com/restaurant/northern-spy-food-co...
The benefit of using an iframe so far has been much easier reuse of code for the widget content. However, we've had a few folks request to use their own stylesheet which can't be supported (instead we offer a configuration of the embed snippet to style a few things like menu width, fonts family and colors).
In any case, if we learn even a single helpful trick about embedding rich content from this book, it will have been money well spent!