Find out the 4 simple reasons why you NEVER want to embed with iFrames, what happens next will SHOCK you!

Okay, I can’t think of 4 reasons, but hey, I can see a Buzzfeed writing career in my future! If you’ve not already deleted this email, you’ll be pleased to know that SeekBeak just got a big update to way that we manage embedding. Now, when you get the embedding code from your Snap, you’ll see it uses a small, clever piece of JavaScript, instead of just an iFrame. This has many benefits, and solves an infrequent, but major issue that certain people were experiencing with mobile browser crashes:

When you embed an iFrame on a page, it’s basically a ‘dumb’ container that just loads whatever page it’s pointing to. This is fine in a lot of cases, but it falls apart when you want to have many iFrames. i.e. in a gallery situation.

Loading a bunch of iFrames simultaneously can cause your main web page to load terribly slow, and more often than not, will crash mobile phone browsers because of their low amounts of memory.

So, how do we fix it?

Self Aware Scripting

Using ‘smart’ scripting to manage the embeds, instead of an iFrame, allows each embed to be aware of other embeds on the page, and only load a couple at once. If the user clicks and activates more than the maximum allowed, one of the other embeds turns off, saving memory and CPU cycles. Great!

But wait, there’s more!

Responsive by Default

Your Snaps will resize automagically to fit depending on the size of the screen. By default, they’re displayed at a 16:9 ratio for that HD feel. But only If you want them to, you can always go into the…

Advanced Settings

For those who like to tinker, you can also combine custom aspect ratios, fixed sizes, maximum sizes in pixels or percentages… and all with a handy visualizer!

Thumbnails and Animations

Using the new embedder, your viewers will be able to… dig in… to the new animated thumbnail images, and activate your Snaps with a simple click or touch.

I can’t use Scripts!

Fair enough, some people don’t like running random JavaScript from other sites on their page. If your web host doesn’t support running <script> tags, don’t worry, you can still use the old iFrame code, (just without thumbnails or the automatic shutoff). The iFrame code is located in a separate tab in the Sharing dialog.

The good news is that even though it’s old, we realize that old things need love too. The iFrame area also received an update, letting you customize it to your whim.

As this is the first release of our fancy script, there may be some issues we’ve not found yet. If you encounter something that doesn’t seem right, please let us know! This is all available right now for everyone to play with, for free. It’s in the same location as always, in the “Sharing” icon at the bottom of the Snap Editor and Viewer.

Till next time!

Tim Allan
Founder/CEO
SeekBeak.com