Annoying: plugins add css js even when not used

  • There is something that really annoys me – I’m not sure if it the WP architecture or just the way some plugins are written, but I noticed that no matter if a plugin is actually used within a page or note, any js or css is loaded anyway.

    Some examples:
    – I’m using Download manager, but I don’t use the widget sidebar. The css is loaded anyway.
    – GD Starrating – js+css is loaded even if there are no ratings in the current page
    – and so on.

    Is it possible to load the resources dynamically (i.e. only when needed?) Having more than 2-3 plugins enabled results in quite big loading times.

    Also, something more developer/architecture-related: plugins use different javascript libraries, even for trivial effects. Again, when having a few plugins enabled, you get jquery, scriptaculous and others loaded. Loading a 120Kb library for a simple fade or something is crazy. I wish WP would come with a js library and all plugins would use the same one.

    PS: Yes, I enabled mod_deflate to improve speeds, but I still want to get everything loaded fast and with no (or very few) redundancies.

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  • the fact is that most plugin authors are still using wp_head to load all that extraneous crap. And I do mean all.

    The solution I came up with, and this was a time consuming but worthwhile chore was to create my own hook, and re-code some of the plugins I happened to be using so that they used that hook, and not the default wp_head.

    Its a hack, but it works fabulously.

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