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<h1 id="wp-enqueue-for-beginners">WP Enqueue for Beginners</h1>
<p>2020-05-05</p>
<p>Throughout my career designing, developing and auditing WordPress themes, I’ve come across many that include their custom styles / scripts as static HTML elements inside their respective <code>header</code> and <code>footer</code> templates. This is perfectly <em>fine</em>, but there is a cleaner way to include these files.</p>
<p>This post is purposefully catered for WordPress beginners, so if this seems overly simple, then you’re probably already developing WordPress themes that utilize these techniques. (Which is awesome!)</p>
<h2 id="introducing-wp-enqueue">Introducing WP Enqueue</h2>
<p>The description of Wp Enqueue from the WordPress documentation:</p>
<p>In a nutshell: Placing a <code>wp_enqueue_script</code> or <code>wp_enqueue_style</code> script in the <code>functions.php</code> of your custom theme tells WordPress to pull external files into the header or footer of your website. Best practice being: <em>styles into the header, scripts into the footer</em>.</p>
<p>I suggest you read the official documentation for more details: <a href="https://developer.wordpress.org/reference/functions/wp_enqueue_script/">wp_enqueue_script</a> and <a href="https://developer.wordpress.org/reference/functions/wp_enqueue_style/">wp_enqueue_style</a>.</p>
<h2 id="enqueue-stylesheets">Enqueue Stylesheets</h2>
<p>The default script to enqueue a CSS stylesheet:</p>
<pre><code>wp_enqueue_style( $handle, $src, $deps, $ver, $media );
</code></pre>
<ul>
<li><code>$handle</code> - the name associated with your stylesheet</li>
<li><code>$src</code> - URL pointing to the directory of the stylesheet itself</li>
<li><code>$deps</code> - An array of any other stylesheets needed as dependencies</li>
<li><code>$ver</code> - The version number of the stylesheet (used for cache busting)</li>
<li><code>$media</code> - Specify media type (<code>all</code>, <code>print</code>, <code>screen</code>, etc.)</li>
</ul>
<p>So, with all those parameters in mind, here is what a standard default enqueue of a CSS stylesheet looks like:</p>
<pre><code>wp_enqueue_style( 'google-fonts', 'https://fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=Montserrat:200,300,300i,400,600,700,800,900', '', '1.0', '');
</code></pre>
<p>In this example we have rendered the following:</p>
<ul>
<li><code>$handle</code>: google-fonts</li>
<li><code>$src</code>: <a href="https://fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=Montserrat:200,300,300i,400,600,700,800-">https://fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=Montserrat:200,300,300i,400,600,700,800-</a> 0</li>
<li><code>$deps</code>: Null (left blank)</li>
<li><code>$ver</code>: 1.0</li>
<li><code>$media</code>: Null (left blank)</li>
</ul>
<p><strong>Important:</strong> Keep in mind that the <code>wp_enqueue_style</code> script will render the stylesheet link into the WordPress header automatically.</p>
<h2 id="enqueue-scripts">Enqueue Scripts</h2>
<p>The default script to enqueue an external JS file:</p>
<pre><code>wp_enqueue_script( $handle, $src, $deps, $ver, $in_footer );
</code></pre>
<ul>
<li><code>$handle</code> - the name associated with your script</li>
<li><code>$src</code> - URL pointing to the directory of the script itself</li>
<li><code>$deps</code> - An array of any other scripts needed as dependencies</li>
<li><code>$ver</code> - The version number of the script (used for cache busting)</li>
<li><code>$in_footer</code> - Set whether the script is loaded in the <code><head></code> or just before the <code></body></code></li>
</ul>
<p>With all those parameters in mind, here is what a standard default enqueue of a Javascript file looks like:</p>
<pre><code>wp_enqueue_script( 'bxslider', get_template_directory_uri() . '/js/bxslider.js', array('jquery'), '1.0.0', true );
</code></pre>
<p>In this example we have rendered the following:</p>
<ul>
<li><code>$handle</code>: bxslider</li>
<li><code>$src</code>: get_template_directory_uri() . /js/bxslider.js’</li>
<li><code>$deps</code>: array(jquery’)</li>
<li><code>$ver</code>: 1.0.0</li>
<li><code>$in_footer</code>: True (<em>places script before closing body tag</em>)</li>
</ul>
<h2 id="packaging-everything-together">Packaging Everything Together</h2>
<p>Now that we have the custom stylesheet and script ready to be loaded into our custom WordPress theme, we just need to properly package them together as a function in our <code>functions.php</code> file:</p>
<pre><code>// Add styles and scripts to the header/footer
function custom_enqueue_scripts() {
wp_enqueue_style( 'google-fonts', 'https://fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=Montserrat:200,300,300i,400,600,700,800,900');
wp_enqueue_script( 'bxslider', get_template_directory_uri() . '/js/bxslider.js', array('jquery'), '1.0.0', true );
}
add_action( 'wp_enqueue_scripts', 'custom_enqueue_scripts');
</code></pre>
<p>That’s it! Hopefully this helps prevent WordPress newbies from statically rendering their external CSS and JS files directly in template files. Let WordPress do that for you!</p>
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