Question

In WordPress, I have a page template that uses a specific JS file and CSS file that no other part of the site uses. On this specific template page, is there any way to add these items to the head, before wp_head is called?

I realize I could use is_page_template() in a conditional but my head file is getting out of control.

Answer 1

If you look here http://codex.wordpress.org/Plugin_API/Action_Reference you can see that the hook called just before wp_head is get_header

So what you need to do is: add an action called on that hook, test if you are on the page that you want and if you are add the script and the css

This would happen in a plugin (not in the theme files like header.php or functions.php) and it would look something like this:

// call the function that adds your current script 
add_action('get_header', 'add_that_script');
function add_that_script()
{
    if (is_page(SOME_PAGE_IDENTIFIER)) // this is the page you need; check http://codex.wordpress.org/Function_Reference/is_page on how to use this function; you can provide as a parameter the id, title, name or an array..
    {
        wp_register_script( 'mycustomscript', 'http://www.example.com/script.css'); // register your script 
        wp_enqueue_script( 'mycustomscript' ); // enqueue it to be added in the head section

        wp_register_style( 'mycustomstyle', 'http://www.example.com/example.css'); // register your css 
        wp_enqueue_style( 'mycustomstyle' ); // enqueue it to be added in the head section
    }
}

You just need to replace the id for your page and the urls to the js file and to the css. Sure, maybe you want to test some other way if you are on the right page, but I think that this shows the idea.