Best Approaches to Client Libraries in CQ

[burnray]

We have some component-wise JS under /apps/[project]/components/[component_name]/. It works fine in author instance for admin as admin has read permission over /apps. While at Publish Instance, anonymous has no right to read /apps therefore anonymous will receive 404 over these JS. 

Refer to [1] we can use etc/design/[project]/clientlibs to embed the JS and CSS. Anonymous can read this clientlibs so that the 404 problem is solved. 

However, these component-wise JS are embedded in every pages, even which do not contain the corresponding component. It generates JS error in our case. 

Let's say we have a component A which will print out <div id="component_A">***</div>, with a JS component_A_JS in clientlibs $("#component_A").doSomething, this component_A_JS is embedded in etc/design so that every page will load this js. 

For a page containing component A, there will be a <div id="component_A">, the JS works fine. While if a page doesn't have component A, there will be js error saying #component_A is not found. JS stops.

What's Adobe's recommendation over this issue? 

[1] http://www.i-cubed.com/best-approaches-to-client-libraries-in-adobe-cq5-part-1/

[Jörg_Hoh · Accepted solution]

It's best practice to have only a small number of clientlibs which you expose to the public. This will improve the cachability and in the end make your pages load faster.

So you should fix your javascript code, so it doesn't throw errors if the component is not there.

Jörg