I am creating a mobile singlepage web app using jquery mobile. The webapp includes a number of javascript files and a number of css files. I have written a deploy script that concatenates and minifies js and css files, and now I am wondering whether I should inline the concatenated js and css directly in the HTML file – please note that I am talking about a singlepage app here (I know that this would be a bad idea in a traditional web 1.0 app with dynamically generated HTML). I am also using appcache/manifest file to cache the singlepage app so that subsequent access to the web app will be served from the cache, so it is the initial load time that is my primary concern.
When I inline everything (jquery, jquery mobile etc.), my 7kb HTML file increases to 350kb (100kb zipped) but now everything can be loaded in a single request.
But am I missing some other benefits such as parallel downloading of js files – and would it therefore be better to not inline the css and js, but instead just concatenate all js and css to a single js file and a single css file and then fetch each of them in separate requests?
Are there any limits regarding file size that I should be aware of? Maybe caching in network routers works better with smaller file sizes or whatever?
So my question boils down to whether it is a good idea to inline everything when making singlepage mobile web apps?
The answer to how much should be concatenated and how much should be inlined varies depending on a number of conditions. The final answer is you should do A/B testing and find what works best for you. From what you describe I recommend you definitely NOT inline 350K of CSS & JS. If you do this then any change to the HTML or JS or CSS requires downloading the entire payload. Instead, compartmentalize those changes and forced updates by keeping HTML, JS, & CSS as separate requests. You could do dynamic | inlining to make the first response fast but leverage (app or localStorage) cache for subsequent requests, but that’s going to get complicated when coupled with app cache (because the HTML doc is saved to app cache). Otherwise, just keep them separate, save each resource to app cache, and update individual resources as needed.