This plugin hasn’t been tested with the latest 3 major releases of WordPress. It may no longer be maintained or supported and may have compatibility issues when used with more recent versions of WordPress.

Inline JavaScript in Head

Description

CAUTION: This plugin is now deprecated! The successor plugin is Embed JavaScript File Content. The new plugin is rebuild from scratch and more rock solid: It respects order and position of scripts and extra scripts added via wp_add_inline_script or wp_localize_script don’t get lost. Give it a try!

In some cases you cannot wait for a JavaScript file to load, even if it is placed early in the <head> section of your template. You can benefit from better performance, if you place the JavaScript code directly inside a <script> tag into the header. This is where this plugin comes in: It provides a filter inline_javascript_in_head_handles, which takes JavaScript handles, dequeues those scripts and echos their code content inline into the head section instead of linking them via a script tag.

Please beware that placing lots of JavaScript code inline in the <head> section can be critical! First you lose caching benefits and second the document size can increase easily. A general rule of thumb is that you should only consider JavaScript files for inline placement, which are critical and which have a file size lower than ~500 Bytes.

Example

add_action( 'wp_enqueue_scripts', 'my_scripts' );
function my_scripts() {
    // Some critical script is enqueued
    wp_enqueue_script( 'js-detection', get_template_directory_uri() . '/js/js-detection.js' );
}

/**
 * Define JavaScript handles to be echoed inline in the html head section.
 */
add_filter( 'inline_javascript_in_head_handles', 'my_inline_javascript_in_head_handles', -20 );
function my_inline_javascript_in_head_handles( $handles ) {
    $scripts = [ 'js-detection' ];

    return array_merge( $handles, $scripts );
}

Installation

  1. Upload inline-javascript-in-head.zip to the /wp-content/plugins/ directory.
  2. Activate the plugin through the ‘Plugins’ menu in WordPress.
  3. Use the inline_javascript_in_head_handles filter in your theme or plugin.
  4. You’re done!

Reviews

Çile 23, 2020 1 reply
Slowed down the website and deactivating the plugin appears not to reverse the moving of the javascript to the head. Complete restore of website to resolve.
Read all 1 review

Contributors & Developers

“Inline JavaScript in Head” is open source software. The following people have contributed to this plugin.

Contributors

Changelog

1.2.0

  • CAUTION: Last update! This plugin is now deprecated (see description section)
  • Bugfix: Some scripts could have gotten lost under certain conditions.

1.1.2

  • readme.txt code appearance screwed up, now hopefully fixed.

1.1.1

  • readme.txt update

1.1

  • Added filter inline_javascript_in_head_wrap_try_catch, which can add add a try catch wrapper around the JavaScript code.

1.0

  • First release