loading js files and other dependent js files asynchronously
- by taber
I'm looking for a clean way to asynchronously load the following types of javascript files: a "core" js file (hmm, let's just call it, oh i don't know, "jquery!" haha), x number of js files that are dependent on the "core" js file being loaded, and y number of other unrelated js files. I have a couple ideas of how to go about it, but not sure what the best way is. I'd like to avoid loading scripts in the document body.
So for example, I want the following 4 javascript files to load asynchronously, appropriately named:
/js/my-contact-page-js-functions.js // unrelated/independent script
/js/jquery-1.3.2.min.js // the "core" script
/js/jquery.color.min.js // dependent on jquery being loaded
http://thirdparty.com/js/third-party-tracking-script.js // another unrelated/independent script
But this won't work because it's not guaranteed that jQuery is loaded before the color plugin...
(function() {
a=[
'/js/my-contact-page-functions.js',
'/js/jquery-1.4.2.min.js',
'/js/jquery.color.js',
'http://cdn.thirdparty.com/third-party-tracking-script.js',
],
d=document,
h=d.getElementsByTagName('head')[0],
s,
i,
l=a.length;
for(i=0;i<l;i++){
s=d.createElement('script');
s.type='text/javascript';
s.async=true;
s.src=a[i];
h.appendChild(s);
}
})();
Is it pretty much not possible to load jquery and the color plugin asynchronously? (Since the color plugin requires that jQuery is loaded first.)
The first method I was considering is to just combine the color plugin script with jQuery source into one file.
Then another idea I had was loading the color plugin like so:
$(window).ready(function() {
$.getScript("/js/jquery.color.js");
});
Anyone have any thoughts on how you'd go about this? Thanks!
