document.createElement('script')… adding two scripts with one callback

Question

I need to add prototype and then add scriptaculous and get a callback when they are both done loading. I am currently loading prototype like so:

var script = document.createElement("script");
script.src = "http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/prototype/1.6.1.0/prototype.js";
script.onload = script.onreadystatechange = callback;
document.body.appendChild( script );

I could do this by chaining the callbacks, but that seems like poor practice ( I don't want a silly chain of 20 callback methods when I need to load more scripts). Ideas?

Answer 1

I propose you to use some small loader which will chain and do stuff for you. For example like this one:

function loadScripts(array,callback){
    var loader = function(src,handler){
        var script = document.createElement("script");
        script.src = src;
        script.onload = script.onreadystatechange = function(){
            script.onreadystatechange = script.onload = null;
            handler();
        }
        var head = document.getElementsByTagName("head")[0];
        (head || document.body).appendChild( script );
    };
    (function run(){
        if(array.length!=0){
            loader(array.shift(), run);
        }else{
            callback && callback();
        }
    })();
}

This script should help you to build the script tags and call your callback when all files are loaded. Invoke is pretty easy:

loadScripts([
   "http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.3.2/jquery.min.js",
   "http://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/prototype/1.6.1.0/prototype.js"
],function(){
    alert('All things are loaded');
});

Hope this will help

Answer 2

Because of a bug in Internet Explorer the recursive loader program from nemisj is not working correct in IE. Can be solved by setting a delay on the recursive call like:

function loadScripts(array,callback){  
    var loader = function(src,handler){  
        var script = document.createElement("script");  
        script.src = src;  
        script.onload = script.onreadystatechange = function(){  
          script.onreadystatechange = script.onload = null;  
          if(/MSIE ([6-9]+\.\d+);/.test(navigator.userAgent))window.setTimeout(function(){handler();},8,this);  
          else handler();  
        }  
        var head = document.getElementsByTagName("head")[0];  
        (head || document.body).appendChild( script );  
    };  
    (function(){  
        if(array.length!=0){  
                loader(array.shift(),arguments.callee);  
        }else{  
                callback && callback();  
        }  
    })();  
}  

This small hack does it, and often is the solution in IE, when an unexplainable problem occurs, which is too often.

Answer 3

Since scriptaculous requires prototype, you will have to chain the listeners, with whatever method you use to load these scripts.

There are various script loaders available to load scripts in parallel, as fast as possible, e.g. LABjs, but none is going to help much in this scenario.

If you end up having 10-20 scripts to load, I would recommend combining the scripts beforehand, using a tool such as a Combiner.