http://www.javascriptkit.com/javatutors/ is a very good site about javascript and ajax.
I found a good article about dymaniclly load external javascript and css
Dynamically loading an external JavaScript or CSS file
The conventional way to loading external JavaScript (ie: .js) and CSS (ie: .css) files on a page is to stick a reference to them in the HEAD section of your page, for example:
<head>
<script type="text/javascript" src="myscript.js"></script>
<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="main.css" />
</head>
Files that are called this way are added to the page as they are encountered in the page's source, or synchronously. For the most part, this setup meets our needs just fine, though in the world of synchronous Ajax design patterns, the ability to also fire up JavaScript/ CSS on demand is becoming more and more handy. In this tutorial, lets see how it's done.
Dynamically loading external JavaScript and CSS files
To load a .js or .css file dynamically, in a nutshell, it means using DOM methods to first create a swanky new "SCRIPT" or "LINK" element, assign it the appropriate attributes, and finally, use element.appendChild() to add the element to the desired location within the document tree. It sounds a lot more fancy than it really is. Lets see how it all comes together:
function loadjscssfile(filename, filetype){
if (filetype=="js"){ //if filename is a external JavaScript file
var fileref=document.createElement('script')
fileref.setAttribute("type","text/javascript")
fileref.setAttribute("src", filename)
}
else if (filetype=="css"){ //if filename is an external CSS file
var fileref=document.createElement("link")
fileref.setAttribute("rel", "stylesheet")
fileref.setAttribute("type", "text/css")
fileref.setAttribute("href", filename)
}
if (typeof fileref!="undefined")
document.getElementsByTagName("head")[0].appendChild(fileref)
}
loadjscssfile("myscript.js", "js") //dynamically load and add this .js file
loadjscssfile("javascript.php", "js") //dynamically load "javascript.php" as a JavaScript file
loadjscssfile("mystyle.css", "css") ////dynamically load and add this .css fileDemo:
Load "myscript.js"
Load "mystyle.css" "myscript.js" source:
var petname="Spotty"
alert("Pet Name: " + petname) "mystyle.css" source:
#demotable td{
background-color: lightyellow;
}
#demotable b{
color: blue;
}
Since external JavaScript and CSS files can technically end with any custom file extension (ie: "javascript.php"), the function parameter "filetype" lets you tell the script what file type to expect before loading. After that, the function sets out to create the element using the appropriate DOM methods, assign it the proper attributes, and finally, add it to the end of the HEAD section. Now, where the created file gets added is worth elaborating on:
document.getElementsByTagName("head")[0].appendChild(fileref)
By referencing the HEAD element of the page first and then calling appendChild(), this means the newly created element is added to the very end of the HEAD tag. Furthermore, you should be aware that no existing element is harmed in the adding of the new element- that is to say, if you call loadjscssfile("myscript.js", "js") twice, you now end up with two new "SCRIPT" elements both pointing to the same JavaScript file. This is problematic only from an efficiency standpoint, as you'll be adding redundant elements to the page and using unnecessary browser memory in the process. A simple way to prevent the same file from being added more than once is to keep track of the files added by loadjscssfile(), and only load a file if it's new:
var filesadded="" //list of files already added
function checkloadjscssfile(filename, filetype){
if (filesadded.indexOf("["+filename+"]")==-1){
loadjscssfile(filename, filetype)
filesadded+="["+filename+"]" //List of files added in the form "[filename1],[filename2],etc"
}
else
alert("file already added!")
}
checkloadjscssfile("myscript.js", "js") //success
checkloadjscssfile("myscript.js", "js") //redundant file, so file not added
Here I'm just crudely detecting to see if a file that's set to be added already exists within a list of added files' names stored in variable filesadded before deciding whether to proceed or not.
Ok, moving on, sometimes the situation may require that you actually remove or replace an added .js or .css file. Lets see how that's done next.
Dynamically removing/ replacing an external JavaScript or CSS file
Any external JavaScript or CSS file, whether added manually or dynamically, can be removed from the page. The end result may not be fully what you had in mind, however. I'll talk about this a little later.
Dynamically removing an external JavaScript or CSS file
To remove an external JavaScript or CSS file from a page, the key is to hunt them down first by traversing the DOM, then call DOM's removeChild() method to do the hit job. A generic approach is to identify an external file to remove based on its file name, though there are certainly other approaches, such as by CSS class name. With that in mind, the below function removes any external JavaScript or CSS file based on the file name entered:
function removejscssfile(filename, filetype){
var targetelement=(filetype=="js")? "script" : (filetype=="css")? "link" : "none" //determine element type to create nodelist from
var targetattr=(filetype=="js")? "src" : (filetype=="css")? "href" : "none" //determine corresponding attribute to test for
var allsuspects=document.getElementsByTagName(targetelement)
for (var i=allsuspects.length; i>=0; i--){ //search backwards within nodelist for matching elements to remove
if (allsuspects[i] && allsuspects[i].getAttribute(targetattr)!=null && allsuspects[i].getAttribute(targetattr).indexOf(filename)!=-1)
allsuspects[i].parentNode.removeChild(allsuspects[i]) //remove element by calling parentNode.removeChild()
}
}
removejscssfile("somescript.js", "js") //remove all occurences of "somescript.js" on page
removejscssfile("somestyle.css", "css") //remove all occurences "somestyle.css" on page
The function starts out by creating a collection out of either all "SCRIPT" or "LINK" elements on the page depending on the desired file type to remove. The corresponding attribute to look at also changes accordingly ("src" or "href" attribute). Then, the function sets out to loop through the gathered elements backwards to see if any of them match the name of the file that should be removed. There's a reason for the reversed direction- if/whenever an identified element is deleted, the collection collapses by one element each time, and to continue to cycle through the new collection correctly, reversing the direction does the trick (it may encounter undefined elements, hence the first check for allsuspects[i] in the if statement). Now, to delete the identified element, the DOM method parentNode.removeChild() is called on it.
So what actually happens when you remove an external JavaScript or CSS file? Perhaps not entirely what you would expect actually. In the case of JavaScript, while the element is removed from the document tree, any code loaded as part of the external JavaScript file remains in the browser's memory. That is to say, you can still access variables, functions etc that were added when the external file first loaded (at least in IE7 and Firefox 2.x). If you're looking to reclaim browser memory by removing an external JavaScript, don't rely on this operation to do all your work. With external CSS files, when you remove a file, the document does reflow to take into account the removed CSS rules, but unfortunately, not in IE7 (Firefox 2.x and Opera 9 do).Demo:
Load "myscript.js"
Remove "myscript.js"
Load "mystyle.css"
Remove "mystyle.css" "myscript.js" source:
var petname="Spotty"
alert("Pet Name: " + petname) "mystyle.css" source:
#demotable td{
background-color: lightyellow;
}
#demotable b{
color: blue;
}
Dynamically replacing an external JavaScript or CSS file
Replacing an external JavaScript or CSS file isn't much different than removing one as far as the process goes. Instead of calling parentNode.removeChild(), you'll be using parentNode.replaceChild() to do the bidding instead:
function createjscssfile(filename, filetype){
if (filetype=="js"){ //if filename is a external JavaScript file
var fileref=document.createElement('script')
fileref.setAttribute("type","text/javascript")
fileref.setAttribute("src", filename)
}
else if (filetype=="css"){ //if filename is an external CSS file
var fileref=document.createElement("link")
fileref.setAttribute("rel", "stylesheet")
fileref.setAttribute("type", "text/css")
fileref.setAttribute("href", filename)
}
return fileref
}
function replacejscssfile(oldfilename, newfilename, filetype){
var targetelement=(filetype=="js")? "script" : (filetype=="css")? "link" : "none" //determine element type to create nodelist using
var targetattr=(filetype=="js")? "src" : (filetype=="css")? "href" : "none" //determine corresponding attribute to test for
var allsuspects=document.getElementsByTagName(targetelement)
for (var i=allsuspects.length; i>=0; i--){ //search backwards within nodelist for matching elements to remove
if (allsuspects[i] && allsuspects[i].getAttribute(targetattr)!=null && allsuspects[i].getAttribute(targetattr).indexOf(oldfilename)!=-1){
var newelement=createjscssfile(newfilename, filetype)
allsuspects[i].parentNode.replaceChild(newelement, allsuspects[i])
}
}
}
replacejscssfile("oldscript.js", "newscript.js", "js") //Replace all occurences of "oldscript.js" with "newscript.js"
replacejscssfile("oldstyle.css", "newstyle", "css") //Replace all occurences "oldstyle.css" with "newstyle.css"
Notice the helper function createjscssfile(), which is essentially just a duplicate of loadjscssfile() as seen on the previous page, but modified to return the newly created element instead of actually adding it to the page. It comes in handy when parentNode.replaceChild() is called in replacejscssfile() to replace the old element with the new. Some good news here- when you replace one external CSS file with another, all browsers, including IE7, will reflow the document automatically to take into account the new file's CSS rules.Demo:
Load "oldscript.js"
Replace with "newscript.js" instead
Load "oldstyle.css"
Replace with "newstyle.css" instead "oldscript.js" source:
var petname="Spotty"
alert("Pet Name: " + petname)
"newscript.js" source:
var petname="Beauty"
alert("Pet Name: " + petname) "oldstyle.css" source:
#demotable2 td{
background-color: lightyellow;
}
#demotable2 b{
color: blue;
}
"newstyle.css" source:
#demotable2 td{
background-color: lightblue;
}
#demotable2 b{
color: red;
}
Conclusion
So when is all this useful? Well, in today's world of Ajax and ever larger web applications, being able to load accompanying JavaScript/ CSS files asynchronously and on demand is not only handy, but in some cases, necessary. Have fun finding out what they are, or implementing the technique. :)
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