Question

Is there any way to stop an iframe re-loading its contents when I change its position within the DOM? Simple example:

<script type="text/javascript">
function moveiframe() {
    var dest = document.getElementById('newparent');
    dest.appendChild(document.getElementById('googleframe'));
}
</script>
<iframe src="http://www.google.com" id="googleframe"></iframe>
<input type="button" onclick="moveiframe()" value="Move" />

clicking the "Move" button changes the parent of the iframe, and reloads its contents (in Firefox and Chrome, but not IE).

Any suggestions would be much appreciated!

[Updated with background info]

I’m loading the site’s adverts in placeholder divs at the bottom of the page (to prevent advert loading from holding up the page load) – and then shifting the divs they’ve been written in to their correct container once loaded. It all works great… unless the ad that gets served uses an iframe (like google adsense) in which case the ad gets loaded twice and the serving is messed up.

Answer 1

Considering the simplicity of your test case, it looks like the only methods you have available to put an element inside another will always force the contents to reload.

[Edit] After seeing what you’re trying to do, there are a couple things you can try:

1. All ads could be served in IFRAMEs (on your own site) which will not hold up loading of the page and can be placed in the right place right away.
2. As mentioned above IFRAMEs won’t hold up loading of the page so you could put the ads in place right away if they are IFRAMEs and load them at the bottom if they are something else. Of course, this won’t work if the slow part is before you know if you are going to get an IFRAME or not.
3. You could keep the content in it’s placeholder DIV but when it’s done loading just reposition (with CSS absolute positioning) over the right place in the page. Not the most elegant solution, but should work fine.