Using a single external scripts file?

[digitman]

Hi.
I read somewhere that if I place all of my javascript code in a single file and link to that file in the html code of all the pages of my website,it would load fast.However I want to use different files to store my code,since it lets me keep my code organized.I mean that I want to put all the code related to a certain category in one file,and code related to other categories in seperate files.E.g all the code related to form submission would be in one file,while all the code related to page decoration would be in another.But in that case,if the user visits my homepage,then visits page A,and then goes to the page involving a form submission,the code for the form submission would be loaded as new code.Would it slow down the loading of the page?What should I do?
thanks!

[digitman]

do these forums even get moderated?

[Jazzee]

Originally Posted by digitman

do these forums even get moderated?

What does that have to do with anything?

[digitman]

I mean,this post(and some other posts of mine) are left unreplied for days.Isnt it the job of the moderators to keep all forums active?

[Pipeline-Webdesign]

uh oh... afraid to see what happens!!! *hides under shelter*

[digitman]

nah,I didnt mean to offend anyone.It was just a question.Sorry jazzee.

[Jazzee]

Try using line breaks and add spaces after punctuation to make your post more readable.

[imaginemn]

digitman, I am not a moderator so I cannot speak for them, but this is isn't a technical support site it's an online community. We are all here to help eachother when we can. The moderators shouldn't be expected to know it all especially answer all the questions directly. To be totally honest isn't this more of a programming question rather than a design issue? This probably would have been answered quickly in the coding forum.

On that note, the answer to your questions is pretty simple. When writing html/javascript code. You want to minimize what you send to the user. If you number 1 priority is speed. Then less is better. The main reason you want to use 1 include file is more for maintenance/updates when using the same code in multiple pages. Do you want to modify the code 30 different times or just once.

What you don't want to do is create 1 HUGE javascript file that has every function especially on pages that do not need this. Remember we are talking about performance here. If the file is 100KB the page will load much faster than if the file is 500KB.

Bottom line create mutliple include files and include them on each page as needed. Hope this answers all your questions.

imaginemn