make an element overflow out of an iframe [duplicate]

Question

Possible Duplicate:
Is there a way to have content from an IFRAME overflow onto the parent frame?

Here is my issue: I have two types of dialog which (should) look and act the same. One loads content directly into the page, and one uses a iframe to load content. I have an element which I need to overflow out of the iframe and show completely on the page. This element is basically an enhanced select element built with a list (ul/li). How can I make this act as a select would inside an iframe and overflow the iframe?

The first thing that comes to mind is to put the select/list outside of the iframe and position it in the correct spot, though this will require communicating between the iframe and parent more than I would like. Ideally I'd like a solution that keeps the select/list in the iframe.

Answer 1

You can't.

An <iframe> is an element containing a separate, distinct browser window (essentially).

Think of it literally like a window: when you look out of your window, the view of the outside stops at the windowframe.

This is in contrast to content inside, say, a scrollable <div>, which is more like a hand-held sheet of glass with some stuff painted on it and some other stuff stuck on with sellotape and hanging off over the edges.

Answer 2

You could use php to load the page into your current page. A lot of people consider iframes bad practice. It would only take a couple lines of php to load the page elements, instead of an iframe, which is sometimes slower.

Here is how you would do it....

<?php
    include('file.html');
?>

You would put this line in a and contain it on the page just as you would with the iframe. You can use ajax/js to seamlessly change the content of the html and even load things from a server if you wish.