The lack of iFrame support in Fronter has been well poured over in other forums and places.

Fronter, will support for this ever see the light of day?

I wondered if anyone can provide their examples of workarounds?

I found one yesterday after being set the challenge of embedding an Excel spreadsheet in a page. Would have been easy with iFrame support, simply publish the spreadsheet to a web page in Google docs and hey presto, insert the iFrame embed code provided into the Fronter page.

My workaround however was to create a user defined button in the room and point this to the published webpage of the Excel spreadsheet. But I cannot do this for every instance of a spreadsheet or similar for that room.

How useful it would be to have full integration with Google docs (and other services) via iFrame.

I have been told that the iframe issue is due to security issues but I agree that really would like to have iFrame, at least with some whitelisting option or something.

Goggle maps use iFrame and it's possible to use the code if you do the following:

Remove everything after </iframe>
Replace <iframe> and </iframe> with <object> and </object>
Add <p> before and </p> after
Replace src with type="text/html" data

This tips from Steinar Hov: webfronter.com/videoer/sarepta/menu3/Sm_..._inn_GoogleMaps.html

Hi Douglas,

That's incredibly useful, thanks. I've been looking for a method of converting <iFrame> code to <Object> that works in Fronter.

I can embed a Google map and an Excel spreadsheet hosted on Google docs. They are visible outside the school network, however they are not visible within school so it looks like something is being blocked through the LA server?!

A good website which documents and summarises the main security issues with iframes which can be found here

We do appreciate that unfortunatly this prevents the embedding of some resources but security has to take priority given the nature of the application.

A number of suppliers are also moving towards using embed rather than iframe for this reason.

There is also a fronter FAQ on other none supported elements and the reasoning which can be found here.

Thanks for the information Tom.

Turns out it might be a browser issue blocking my new <object> embeds. They work fine in Firefox within the school but not in IE7 or IE8.

I agree that it´s a useful workaround, but it´s nothing for the average teacher to use. You shouldn´t have to mix with the code at all.

For those not into code this site is quite helpful http://cit.ucsf.edu/embedmedia/step1.php since it generates the code for embedding once you provide the right information (I guess there are several other sites too that provide this service). When using the Flash embed option you get the Object/Embed code generated. Works also for embedding almost almost any Fronter tool into a Fronter Page).