About this plugin
A number of the javascript libraries distributed with WordPress are also
hosted on Google’s AJAX Libraries API.
This plugin allows your WordPress site to use the content distribution
network side of Google’s AJAX Library API, rather than serving these files from your WordPress install directly.
This provides numerous potential performance benefits:
- increases the chance that a user already has these files cached
- takes load off your server
- uses compressed versions of the libraries (where available)
- Google’s servers are set up to negotiate HTTP compression with the requesting browser
For a more detailed look see Dave Ward’s 3 reasons why you should let
Google host jQuery for
you.
Supported Libraries and Components
- Dojo
- jQuery
- jQuery UI
- MooTools
- Prototype
- script.aculo.us
- swfobject
Links
- Use Google Libraries Home
- Issue Tracker
- GitHub Repository
- Support Forum
Incompatible Plugins
Better WordPress Minify
2 does not yet support
protocol-relative URLs, but the next release is supposed to correct
this.
Gravity Forms
I’ve had reports of Gravity Forms breaking UGL, but I don’t have
access to Gravity Forms, so I’m not sure what’s going on. If you need
Gravity Forms you might need to disable UGL, or it might be fine, I’m
not really sure.
WP-Minify
WP-Minify doesn’t yet support protocol-relative URLs. Add
com/’ as a JS and CSS exclusion.
Incompatible Themes
K2
I’ve had scattered reports that UGL is stepping out of the way when
using K2.
A Request
If you’re going to flag the plugin as “broken” in the WordPress Plugin
Directory, please try and let me know what is
broken.
I’m not a mind reader.
Technical Details
Use Google Libraries uses the following hooks (each with a priority of 1000).
wp_default_scripts
Use Google Libraries compares it’s list of supported scripts to those
registered, and replaces the standard registrations src with ones that
point to Google’s servers. Other attributes (like dependencies) are left
intact.
script_loader_src
z query string from the URL
used to load the requested library if it is going to load the library from
com. Otherwise the URL is left unaltered. This both
improves the chances of the given URL already being cached, and prevents
us from including scripts multiple times.
If jQuery is enqued Use Google Libraries will inject a bit of
javascript before the next enqueued script enabling jQuery’s noConflict mode as it would
with the standard WordPress version.
References
Parts of this plugin (specificly, the dropping of the micro number,
which has since been removed for better caching performance) were
inspired by John Blackbourn’s
Google AJAX Libraries,
which has very similar goals to this plugin.
Future Plans
- add ability to disable protocol relative URLs
- add ability to disable on frontend and/or admin