Preloading images with jQuery

Question

I'm looking for a quick and easy way to preload images with JavaScript. I'm using jQuery if that's important.

I saw this here (http://nettuts.com...):

function complexLoad(config, fileNames) {
  for (var x = 0; x < fileNames.length; x++) {
    $("<img>").attr({
      id: fileNames[x],
      src: config.imgDir + fileNames[x] + config.imgFormat,
      title: "The " + fileNames[x] + " nebula"
    }).appendTo("#" + config.imgContainer).css({ display: "none" });
  }
};

But, it looks a bit over-the-top for what I want!

I know there are jQuery plugins out there that do this but they all seem a bit big (in size); I just need a quick, easy and short way of preloading images!

Answer 1

I would use an Manifest file to tell (modern) web browsers to also load all relevant images and cache them. Use Grunt and grunt-manifest to do this automatically and never worry again about preload scripts, cache invalidators, CDN etc.

https://github.com/gunta/grunt-manifest

Answer 2

$.fn.preload = function (callback) {
  var length = this.length;
  var iterator = 0;

  return this.each(function () {
    var self = this;
    var tmp = new Image();

    if (callback) tmp.onload = function () {
      callback.call(self, 100 * ++iterator / length, iterator === length);
    };

    tmp.src = this.src;
  });
};

The usage is quite simple:

$('img').preload(function(perc, done) {
  console.log(this, perc, done);
});

http://jsfiddle.net/yckart/ACbTK/

Answer 3

I use the following code:

$("#myImage").attr("src","img/spinner.gif");

var img = new Image();
$(img).load(function() {
    $("#myImage").attr("src",img.src);
});
img.src = "http://example.com/imageToPreload.jpg";

Answer 4

Quick and easy:

function preload(arrayOfImages) {
    $(arrayOfImages).each(function(){
        $('<img/>')[0].src = this;
        // Alternatively you could use:
        // (new Image()).src = this;
    });
}

// Usage:

preload([
    'img/imageName.jpg',
    'img/anotherOne.jpg',
    'img/blahblahblah.jpg'
]);

Or, if you want a jQuery plugin:

$.fn.preload = function() {
    this.each(function(){
        $('<img/>')[0].src = this;
    });
}

// Usage:

$(['img1.jpg','img2.jpg','img3.jpg']).preload();

Answer 5

A quick, plugin-free way to preload images in jQuery and get a callback function is to create multiple img tags at once and count the responses, e.g.

function preload(files, cb) {
    var len = files.length;
    $(files.map(function(f) {
        return '<img src="'+f+'" />';
    }).join('')).load(function () {
        if(--len===0) {
            cb();
        }
    });
}

preload(["one.jpg", "two.png", "three.png"], function() {
    /* Code here is called once all files are loaded. */
});
​    ​

Note that if you want to support IE7, you'll need to use this slightly less pretty version (Which also works in other browsers):

function preload(files, cb) {
    var len = files.length;
    $($.map(files, function(f) {
        return '<img src="'+f+'" />';
    }).join('')).load(function () {
        if(--len===0) {
            cb();
        }
    });
}

Answer 6

you can load images in your html somewhere using css display:none; rule, then show them when you want with js or jquery

don't use js or jquery functions to preload is just a css rule Vs many lines of js to be executed

example: Html

<img src="someimg.png" class="hide" alt=""/>

Css:

.hide{
display:none;
}

jQuery:

//if want to show img 
$('.hide').show();
//if want to hide
$('.hide').hide();

Preloading images by jquery/javascript is not good cause images takes few milliseconds to load in page + you have milliseconds for the script to be parsed and executed, expecially then if they are big images, so hiding them in hml is better also for performance, cause image is really preloaded without beeing visible at all, until you show that!