jQuery Activate Plugin

jon@jondavis.net

Activate a plugin that is normally activated in script using ..

Before:

<div id="#ID_TO_SOMETHING">...</div>
<script>
    $(function() {
        $('#ID_TO_SOMETHING').myPlugin();
    });
</script>

.. on document.ready by instead using ..

After:

<div data-jquery-activate="myPlugin">

Why?

Because this is really obvious. Implementing the markup that defines an element that relies on a dependency shouldn't require its author to stop and look for some script file to update or to add a <script> tag. It should be enough to identify the plugin's activation function, if the plugin is really so simple to activate as $(..).theplugin();.

To use:

Just add the script after jQuery and add the attribute data-jquery-activate="plugin_name" where plugin_name is a comma-delimited list of all plug-ins that would otherwise be activated by calling $('#identifier').plugin_name().

<div data-jquery-activate="myPlugin,myOtherPlugin">...</div>
<script src="jquery.js"></script>
<script src="myPlugin.js"></script>
<script src="myOtherPlugin.js"></script>
<script src="jquery-activate-plugin.js"></script>

By the way...

... this plugin activator plugin is really, really simple. It's not about the complexity, it's about the convention, stupid.