react-frame-component vs react-iframe

React Iframe Libraries Comparison

Both 'react-frame-component' and 'react-iframe' are libraries designed to facilitate the integration of iframes within React applications. They provide developers with tools to embed external content seamlessly while maintaining the React component lifecycle. 'react-frame-component' allows for the creation of iframes with a full document context, enabling the use of styles and scripts within the iframe, while 'react-iframe' offers a simpler approach to embedding content with basic customization options. Each package serves different needs based on the complexity of the iframe integration required in a React application.

Package	Downloads	Stars	Size	Issues	Publish	License

react-frame-component	229,182	1,779	22 kB	19	9 months ago	MIT
react-iframe	91,161	437	331 kB	25	-	ISC

react-frame-component

react-iframe

React <Frame /> component

This component allows you to encapsulate your entire React application or per component in an iFrame.

npm install --save react-frame-component

How to use:

import Frame from 'react-frame-component';

Go check out the demo.

const Header = ({ children }) => (
  <Frame>
    <h1>{children}</h1>
  </Frame>
);

ReactDOM.render(<Header>Hello</Header>, document.body);

Or you can wrap it at the render call.

ReactDOM.render(
  <Frame>
    <Header>Hello</Header>
  </Frame>,
  document.body
);

Props:

head

head: PropTypes.node

The head prop is a dom node that gets inserted before the children of the frame. Note that this is injected into the body of frame (see the blog post for why). This has the benefit of being able to update and works for stylesheets.

initialContent

initialContent: PropTypes.string

Defaults to '<!DOCTYPE html><html><head></head><body><div></div></body></html>'

The initialContent props is the initial html injected into frame. It is only injected once, but allows you to insert any html into the frame (e.g. a head tag, script tags, etc). Note that it does not update if you change the prop. Also at least one div is required in the body of the html, which we use to render the react dom into.

mountTarget

mountTarget: PropTypes.string

The mountTarget props is a css selector (#target/.target) that specifies where in the initialContent of the iframe, children will be mounted.

<Frame
  initialContent='<!DOCTYPE html><html><head></head><body><h1>i wont be changed</h1><div id="mountHere"></div></body></html>'
  mountTarget='#mountHere'
  >
</Frame>

contentDidMount and contentDidUpdate

contentDidMount: PropTypes.func contentDidUpdate: PropTypes.func

contentDidMount and contentDidUpdate are conceptually equivalent to componentDidMount and componentDidUpdate, respectively. The reason these are needed is because internally we call ReactDOM.render which starts a new set of lifecycle calls. This set of lifecycle calls are sometimes triggered after the lifecycle of the parent component, so these callbacks provide a hook to know when the frame contents are mounted and updated.

ref

ref: PropTypes.oneOfType([ PropTypes.func, PropTypes.shape({ current: PropTypes.instanceOf(Element) }) ])

The ref prop provides a way to access inner iframe DOM node. To utilitize this prop use, for example, one of the React's built-in methods to create a ref: React.createRef() or React.useRef().

const MyComponent = (props) => {
  const iframeRef = React.useRef();

  React.useEffect(() => {
    // Use iframeRef for:
    // - focus managing
    // - triggering imperative animations
    // - integrating with third-party DOM libraries
    iframeRef.current.focus()
  }, [])

  return (
    <Frame ref={iframeRef}>
      <InnerComponent />
    </Frame>
  );
}

Accessing the iframe's window and document

The iframe's window and document may be accessed via the FrameContextConsumer or the useFrame hook.

The example with FrameContextConsumer:

import Frame, { FrameContextConsumer } from 'react-frame-component'

const MyComponent = (props, context) => (
  <Frame>
    <FrameContextConsumer>
      {
        // Callback is invoked with iframe's window and document instances
        ({document, window}) => {
          // Render Children
        }
      }
    </FrameContextConsumer>
  </Frame>
);

The example with useFrame hook:

import Frame, { useFrame } from 'react-frame-component';

const InnerComponent = () => {
  // Hook returns iframe's window and document instances from Frame context
  const { document, window } = useFrame();

  return null;
};

const OuterComponent = () => (
  <Frame>
    <InnerComponent />
  </Frame>
);

More info

I wrote a blog post about building this component.