JavaScript file per view in Rails

Question

As per 'unobtrusive JavaScript' recommendations I want to separate my JavaScript logic into
separate files. However I don't know how to organize them.

Should I:

1. Just throw all application javascript into Application.js file and load it with layout page? This is simple approach but I will end up with a bloated Application.js. Some users might want to visit only a couple of pages, but this entire file would preloaded which is not good.
2. Or should I create a separate javaScript file for each view and load them independently? This creates a set of questions. How to link each js file to corresponding view?

Thanks.

Answer 1

I suggest putting it all into one file, which you can then minify and gzip. The client will only have to download it once, as it'll be cached on all subsequent requests.

Another thing that might interest you is sprockets, a javascript dependency manager, which you can install using gem. You can get more information on sprockets from the website (http://getsprockets.org/) or from the github page (http://wiki.github.com/sstephenson/sprockets). It makes writing big javascript applications much more manageable.

Answer 2

Load the main JavaScript in application.js every time. Now create files for different needs. Create a form.js file, a myfancypart.js file etc. Don't load them in the application.html.erb layout. Load them dynamically when you need them:

application.html.erb:

<%= javascript_include_tag "application" %>
<%= yield :javascript_includes %>

top of your view.html.erb:

<% content_for :javascript_includes do %>
  <%= javascript_include_tag "forms.js" %>
<% end %>

Everything in the content_for block will be loaded at yield :javascript_includes.