I have a lot of experience with WordPress development, and I’ve grown to love the way JavaScript dependencies are handled in that particular application. In WordPress, all JavaScript dependencies are defined in /wp-includes/script-loader.php. To ensure jQuery loads before any jQuery-dependent scripts, you just use $script->add() and reference the jQuery library ID. Easy as pie.
Zend Framework’s ZendX JQuery extension has similar functionality, though what I will discuss below is not as advanced as the WP library. To achieve a simple version of this functionality, we need to edit three files.
Step 1: Create the Helper
/**
* jQueryGlobal Helper file
*
* @file /application/views/helpers/jQueryGlobal.php
*/
class Zend_View_Helper_jQueryGlobal extends Zend_View_Helper_Abstract {
public function jQueryGlobal() {
$jquery = $this->view->jQuery();
// Enable jQuery
$jquery->enable();
// Set jQuery version to latest stable release
$jquery->setVersion('1.3.2');
$jquery->setUiVersion('1.7.2');
// Ensure site.js is loaded *after* jQuery
$jquery->addJavascriptFile('/js/site.js');
return '';
}
}
Step 2: Edit Bootstrap.php
/**
* Bootstrap file
*
* @file /application/Bootstrap.php
*/
class Bootstrap extends Zend_Application_Bootstrap_Bootstrap {
protected function _initAutoload() {
$moduleLoader = new Zend_Application_Module_Autoloader( array(
'namespace' => '',
'basePath' => APPLICATION_PATH ));
return $moduleLoader;
}
protected function _initViewHelpers() {
$this->bootstrap('layout');
$layout = $this->getResource('layout');
$view = $layout->getView();
$view->doctype('XHTML1_STRICT');
$view->headTitle('jQuery Dependencies Example')->setSeparator(' :: ');
// Ensure all modules can use helpers
$view->addHelperPath(APPLICATION_PATH . '/views/helpers');
$view->addHelperPath('ZendX/JQuery/View/Helper', 'ZendX_JQuery_View_Helper');
$viewRenderer = new Zend_Controller_Action_Helper_ViewRenderer();
$viewRenderer->setView($view);
Zend_Controller_Action_HelperBroker::addHelper($viewRenderer);
}
}
Step 3: Edit the layout or view file(s)
<?php echo $this->doctype(); ?> <html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> <head> <?php echo $this->headMeta(); ?> <?php echo $this->headTitle(); ?> <?php echo $this->jQueryGlobal(); ?> <?php echo $this->jQuery(); ?> </head> <body></body> </html>
That’s it! I plan on extending this to be able to handle dependencies for any JavaScript library. If anyone has experience doing this, knows of a better way, or has a simple suggestion, please by all means share it with us. We are all here to learn!
And how do you use the jQuery after setting up this?. Pure jQuery by hand or?