Single javascript file dependency for two different rails assets

Question

I have an application.js asset and an editor.js asset. They both have the dependency of the jquery.batchImageLoad.js library.

application.js is available throughout the website, but editor.js is available only on some pages, but they sometimes meet.

The thing is that jquery.batchImageLoad.js library gets loaded twice, which is not exactly desirable.

Is there any way to keep these from colliding except having to change the actual javascript?

if application.js is on EVERY page and it already has a dep on jquery.batchImageLoad.js then why does editor.js need to have the dep on the same batchImage? — dstarh
– dstarh, Commented Apr 23, 2012 at 16:50
@dstarh In the near future, there will be some pages which will have only editor.js. — Andrei Zisu
– Andrei Zisu, Commented Apr 23, 2012 at 20:36

phillee · Accepted Answer · 2012-05-31 22:28:12Z

2

It's fine to have jquery.batchImageLoad.js in both pages with application.js and editor.js because the browser will cache it, so the user only downloads it once.

I recommend structuring your js files and includes in a way that doesn't have overlap. You can do this by ditching application.js and have:

editor.js
common.js
- includes jquery.batchImageLoad.js and other common libraries
everything_else.js
- most of what you had in application.js before

You'd include common.js everywhere then include editor.js or everything_else.js depending on what you need.

If you don't want to restructure, you could write a include_once function, though this makes your javascript includes less predictable

# in application_helper 
@included_javascripts = {}

def javascript_include_tag_once file
   unless @included_javascripts[file]
      javascript_include_tag file
      @included_javascripts[file] = true
   end
end

edited May 31, 2012 at 22:28

answered May 31, 2012 at 12:47

phillee

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3 Comments

Andrei Zisu Over a year ago

but what if it runs twice? and the way rails works will make it load 2 times anyway.

phillee Over a year ago

What do you mean by the way rails works? For a jQuery extension, running twice is not ideal but probably ok since it will just override it the second time (there should be no onload methods). It's up to you to structure your includes in such a way that the file is only included once.

Andrei Zisu Over a year ago

It's an old post and I can't really remember why... but it certainly did not work

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