The behaviour is somewhat confusing and impractical when wanting to use external scripts.
The CJT interface has you insert a URL to the script you wish to link… then it says nothing, so you think something is wrong.
Well something is wrong, it has ‘stolen’ the script and copied it to a template which will become a local file on your website.
What’s wrong? Well:
- #1 — The script has been stolen, copied and duplicated – *copyright* anyone?!
- #2– The script now being locally stored is a snapshot of code *at a point in time* – *out of sync and out of maintenance* reach by the original script owner/provider!
- #3– The script is no longer identifiable at code or file system level; it has been renamed from original name and the filepath is obscure and long-winded – adding bytes weight (albeit small) to the page code
- #4– To edit and maintain the script you have to go through a ‘clunky’ template manager which sports none of the code editing window features you expect from code blocks
- #5– Although you have already told CJT you wanted to ‘Link external script’ you have to do a second step of ‘Template lookup’ to actually activate the link to the script file – The first button step should be called “LOAD EXTERNAL SCRIPT” to be accurate.
- #6– AND you have to be a mind reader to know the code block window which is being used to link the script CANNOT be empty and must have at least a comment block – This should be pre-populated with a sample if empty at time of “Link External file’
- #7– CJT ignores the load at HEAD/FOOTER setting for external scripts. I had it set to footer and on viewing code CJT linked the external script inside the <HEAD>
If It wasn’t for finding this post I wouldn’t have got this far as the documentation is missing key steps and info on EXTERNAL SCRIPTS.
I hope this info fills in the blanks for those struggling to get external linking going, and hope this gives suggestions for improvements to the developer.
