Deferring script loading?

G’day,

We could add the option to defer all scripts and load in the footer.. but I think it might introduce more issues. I’ve seen lots of plugins and themes spit out javascript in the middle of the page and expect their enqueued scripts to be loaded already.

You could try enqueuing your scripts in the footer (fifth parameter of wp_enqueue_script) and then force them all to defer using a filter (https://matthewhorne.me/defer-async-wordpress-scripts/) to see if this works for you.. but my guess is most sites will break.

Let me know how you go.

@ajoyce2016,

I wrote a little addon plugin last year to do that; you can get it here: https://andrewrminion.com/2017/05/merge-minify-refresh-force-async-scripts/

As the author mentioned, it often does break things because of inlined JS.