Creating a jQuery UI sortable in an iframe

Question

On a page I have an iframe. In this iframe is a collection of items that I need to be sortable. All of the Javascript is being run on the parent page. I can access the list in the iframe document and create the sortable by using context:

var ifrDoc = $( '#iframe' ).contents();

$( '.sortable', ifrDoc ).sortable( { cursor: 'move' } );

However, when trying to actually sort the items, I'm getting some aberrant behavior. As soon as an item is clicked on, the target of the script changes to the outer document. If you move the mouse off of the iframe, you can move the item around and drop it back by clicking, but you can not interact with it within the iframe.

Example: http://robertadamray.com/sortable-test.html

So, is there a way to achieve what I want to do - preferably without having to go hacking around in jQuery UI code?

Answer 1

Dynamically add jQuery and jQuery UI to the iframe (demo):

$('iframe')
    .load(function() {
        var win = this.contentWindow,
            doc = win.document,
            body = doc.body,
            jQueryLoaded = false,
            jQuery;

        function loadJQueryUI() {
            body.removeChild(jQuery);
            jQuery = null;

            win.jQuery.ajax({
                url: 'http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jqueryui/1.8.18/jquery-ui.min.js',
                dataType: 'script',
                cache: true,
                success: function () {
                    win.jQuery('.sortable').sortable({ cursor: 'move' });
                }
            });
        }

        jQuery = doc.createElement('script');

        // based on https://gist.github.com/getify/603980
        jQuery.onload = jQuery.onreadystatechange = function () {
            if ((jQuery.readyState && jQuery.readyState !== 'complete' && jQuery.readyState !== 'loaded') || jQueryLoaded) {
                return false;
            }
            jQuery.onload = jQuery.onreadystatechange = null;
            jQueryLoaded = true;
            loadJQueryUI();
        };

        jQuery.src = 'http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.7.2/jquery.min.js';
        body.appendChild(jQuery);
    })
    .prop('src', 'iframe-test.html');

​ Update: Andrew Ingram is correct that jQuery UI holds and uses references to window and document for the page to which jQuery UI was loaded. By loading jQuery / jQuery UI into the iframe, it has the correct references (for the iframe, rather than the outer document) and works as expected.

---

Update 2: The original code snippet had a subtle issue: the execution order of dynamic script tags isn't guaranteed. I've updated it so that jQuery UI is loaded after jQuery is ready.

I also incorporated getify's code to load LABjs dynamically, so that no polling is necessary.