[jQuery] To combine JS or not?
We're working on a CMS which will allow third party developers to
create extensions for the system (modules). We want to allow
developers the use of a UI Toolkit; which will comprise of pre-
installed versions of the jQuery UI framework and other jQuery plugins
they may find useful.
To keep the JS loading time as small as possible the developer will
specify which elements of the UI library they will need (see the
download builder), and the system will then output only the JS their
module really needs. And if more than one module needs the same JS the
system won't load it twice.
Now my question is this...
Should we load a separate JS file for each UI element, eg:
jqueryui-draggable.js
jqueryui-sortable.js
A local cache of them can be stored, but there are more HTTP requests
as certain pages may need quite a few different elements.
Or should we combine these and pack them dynamically using PHP, into
one JS file - which makes a smaller filesize and less HTTP requests,
but no cache because the content will change.