Engaging users in today’s digital content landscape involves eye-catching online advertisements, videos, graphics, and other forms of interaction. This is why it’s helpful to have some familiarity with iFrames. If you don’t, keep reading! This article will take a closer look and answer the question “what is iFrame?”
All about iFrame
When you want to incorporate content from an external source into your own website, you can use an iFrame, also called an Inline Frame, to do so. You can embed iFrames practically anywhere, from articles to website landing pages to educational modules and more.
It works like an additional window on the page by displaying content from other websites. This can include anything that enriches your content and encourages user interaction, such as videos from YouTube, images from other sources, a map on your “Contact Us” page to help clients find you, and online ads.
How to insert an iFrame element
Using the <iframe> tag in an HTML file allows you to embed an iFrame element. One of the most popular uses of iFrame is to display a video from YouTube. Here’s what the embed code looks like:
<iframe width="420" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/4XFoSHTHpes?rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>This code snippet demonstrates how to use YouTube iFrame tag to embed a specific video by providing a video ID. The height, width, and frame border are also some of the additional factors that can be customized. The script that loads your YouTube video player will use these settings.
👉 Let’s take a look at every tag individually:
- For the video to play within the iFrame, you’ll need to use the
<iframe>...</iframe>tag. - The src attribute indicates that the iFrame’s content comes from an external server.
- The iFrame’s aspect ratio is determined by its width and height dimensions.
The pros and cons of using an iFrame
To help you decide whether to use iFrames on your website, we’ve laid out some of the benefits and drawbacks of doing so:
Advantages 👍
- Using external content: Developers can skip the trouble of downloading and uploading media files to the server because of iFrames.
- Separate elements: The embedded content in an iFrame often has no effect on the surrounding HTML, custom JavaScript, or CSS, and iFrames themselves function independently from the rest of the page.
- Customized layouts: Since iFrames allow you to set up your content and manage how it is viewed online, they are helpful for keeping your website’s brand consistent and ensuring a smooth navigation experience for your visitors.
Disadvantages 👎
- Security: When using iFrame, you typically incorporate content from external sources over which you have no say. Over time, this increases the risks of security vulnerabilities and might degrade the user experience.
- Slowdown: Users with limited bandwidth may experience a white flash as the iFrame content loads. Because of this, the website’s design suffers, as well as the user experience.
Wrapping up: What is iFrame? 👨🎓
Overall, iFrames are effective tools for improving user engagement. However, iFrame is best viewed as an extension of the content you provide rather than a structural component of your website. By learning what is iFrame, you can better implement it into your pages.
