Question

Currently i am working on a plugin and widget based CMS.

A widget is a html/javasctript code snippet which always resides in a main div (say it widget div) element.

Using jquery and jquery-ui as javascript framework.

My Question:

How can we confine/sandbox html of the widget in the containing div so that if there is any improper html which can break layout of all the page can be avoided?

—- EDIT —-

OK i got an idea, is it feasible/possible on server side ?

1. read the widget html from widget file
2. check if it is proper html or not (using some html parser library).
3. Fix it and past in template.

Answer 1

How can we confine/sandbox html of the
widget in the containing div so that
if there is any improper html which
can break layout of all the page can
be avoided?

If you need to do it robustly, the only choice is to use an iframe.

If the widget HTML contained something like:

</div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div>

That’s going to break any page (that uses divs, so in other words: all pages).

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From a now deleted comment:

Regarding your update, that should
work. One of HTML Tidy,
http://www.php.net/manual/en/domdocument.loadhtml.php,
or HTML Purifier should be what you’re
looking for.