Skip to main content

Rails: Using jQuery via Google's AJAX Libraries API

Adding jQuery to your project via Google's AJAX Libraries API is a piece of cake! I just updated my application layout to include:
<script src="http://www.google.com/jsapi" type="text/javascript"></script>
<script type="text/javascript">
  <% extras = RAILS_ENV == "development" ? "{ uncompressed: true }": "{}" %>
  google.load("jquery", "1.3.2", <%= extras %>);
  google.load("jqueryui", "1.7.2", <%= extras %>);
</script>
That code loads jquery and jqueryui. I don't have to keep them on my server. I don't have to cache them. It uses the compressed version for production and the uncompressed version in development. Best of all, the user very well might already have that file cached in their browser.
Labels:

Comments

Unknown said…
but what if you don't want google to know that you are using jquery?
1:56 PM
jjinux said…
To some degree, it's impossible. As soon as you're live, the entire world will know that you use jQuery because they'll see it in the HTML source.

It's interesting to note that jQuery is no longer hosting their own copies of the library. Even they tell you to use Google: http://blog.jquery.com/2009/08/20/codejquerycom-redirected-to-google-ajax-apis/.

Happy Hacking!
2:05 PM
Varikin said…
I have been doing this for a while and is very nice. The one issue is I don't like using that for development. So in Django I have in my base template:

{% if debug %}
local jquery
{% else %}
google jqury
{% endif %}

This is nice for debugging and limited connectivity when developing.
8:56 AM
jjinux said…
Good tip! I hadn't thought about limited connectivity. That's a killer.
12:42 PM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Ubuntu 20.04 on a 2015 15" MacBook Pro

I decided to give Ubuntu 20.04 a try on my 2015 15" MacBook Pro. I didn't actually install it; I just live booted from a USB thumb drive which was enough to try out everything I wanted. In summary, it's not perfect, and issues with my camera would prevent me from switching, but given the right hardware, I think it's a really viable option. The first thing I wanted to try was what would happen if I plugged in a non-HiDPI screen given that my laptop has a HiDPI screen. Without sub-pixel scaling, whatever scale rate I picked for one screen would apply to the other. However, once I turned on sub-pixel scaling, I was able to pick different scale rates for the internal and external displays. That looked ok. I tried plugging in and unplugging multiple times, and it didn't crash. I doubt it'd work with my Thunderbolt display at work, but it worked fine for my HDMI displays at home. I even plugged it into my TV, and it stuck to the 100% scaling I picked for the othe
1 comment
Read more

ERNOS: Erlang Networked Operating System

I've been reading Dreaming in Code lately, and I really like it. If you're not a dreamer, you may safely skip the rest of this post ;) In Chapter 10, "Engineers and Artists", Alan Kay, John Backus, and Jaron Lanier really got me thinking. I've also been thinking a lot about Minix 3 , Erlang , and the original Lisp machine . The ideas are beginning to synthesize into something cohesive--more than just the sum of their parts. Now, I'm sure that many of these ideas have already been envisioned within Tunes.org , LLVM , Microsoft's Singularity project, or in some other place that I haven't managed to discover or fully read, but I'm going to blog them anyway. Rather than wax philosophical, let me just dump out some ideas: Start with Minix 3. It's a new microkernel, and it's meant for real use, unlike the original Minix. "This new OS is extremely small, with the part that runs in kernel mode under 4000 lines of executable code.&quo
50 comments
Read more

Drawing Sierpinski's Triangle in Minecraft Using Python

In his keynote at PyCon, Eben Upton, the Executive Director of the Rasberry Pi Foundation, mentioned that not only has Minecraft been ported to the Rasberry Pi, but you can even control it with Python . Since four of my kids are avid Minecraft fans, I figured this might be a good time to teach them to program using Python. So I started yesterday with the goal of programming something cool for Minecraft and then showing it off at the San Francisco Python Meetup in the evening. The first problem that I faced was that I didn't have a Rasberry Pi. You can't hack Minecraft by just installing the Minecraft client. Speaking of which, I didn't have the Minecraft client installed either ;) My kids always play it on their Nexus 7s. I found an open source Minecraft server called Bukkit that "provides the means to extend the popular Minecraft multiplayer server." Then I found a plugin called RaspberryJuice that implements a subset of the Minecraft Pi modding API for B
4 comments
Read more