Question

I’ve got question about developing web portals. For instance, the task is to develop several separate web applications. Probably each application will have its own database and be located on different server and port. All the applications has to be accessible from one portal. Do I have to use iframes in order to put all the apps together in one portal or there exist some other ways to make them accessible from one place? I am asking about the iframes since I’ve heard a lot that they are quite problematic and have difficulties with cross-browser compatibility.

Answer 1

It is very common for a collection of websites to need a unifying quality to them. Suppose you have a company that sells something. On their website they may Productions for sale, Jobs offered, and customer service. The internal website might have even more things. Accounting, Accounts Payable, Account Receivable, HR / Benefits, Business Intelligence, Newsletter for employees, etc.

Each one of these systems was developed by a different group with different technologies and different people. No two look alike and there is the perception that it is a mess. A mandate comes saying that everything has to work together and not be scatter all over the place.

Several options come to mind

1. Make one big site that does everything. Of course to have one site that does everything, everything would have to be rewritten.

2. Make one site that somehow can reach into each of the department sites and pull relevant information from those sites. Of course none of the original sites expected to have to serve up parts of themselves (Portlets)

3. Make a site that has a bunch of frame (or iframes) that hold all of the department sites. Users can still use the existing sites because they are not changed and putting sites into frames or iframes is a much smaller problem then option 1 and 2

4. Create a page that just has links to all of the department websites. Everything is still separate but it also looks separate.

Evaluation of the options

1. Rewriting everything is probably way too expensive

2. It would be less work, but bridging the gap between systems could be a perpetually a maintenance problem

3. I think this is what you are proposing.

4. This probably already exists and no one likes it. In fact it may be perceived a being the problem

5. Have all the sites use a standard CSS file to control look and feel

Hence, Option 3 is looking really good

Option 3: frame and iframe

You can do option 3 with a couple hundred lines of static HTML. I would do it 3 steps:

• Verify that each application works when it is in an iframe. I would check to make the menuing system, popups, etc. Still work even when the page is inside of an iframe. There is a good chance something won’t work

• There are dozens of tabbing mechanisms. jQuery has a bunch to chose from as to other Javascript libraries. Find a tabbing approach that works for you.

• Integrate the two together. Just because the iframe work and just because the tab worked, does not mean they will both work together.

This approach still requires intensive testing. It might take days to code, but it will take weeks to verify.

Option 5: what about CSS?

Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) provide a common look-and-feel websites. A single CSS can be shared across multiple department websites. Applying a new CSS often does not break anything.

In short

At the end of the day someone is going to have to maintain whatever is created. I would take a dozen ugly, but maintainable websites over one website that just never works.