Javascript best practices - Hide element in DOM or Generate DOM element

Question

I've a question about best practices in javascript.

I've a dropdown menu with some statuts. If the statut is : external, I want to display a form. I don't know the best way to do this. Do i need to hide a DIV from the DOM and display him when i need it or do i need to generate my form dynamically in jquery and make a call ajax to populate some data.

Answer 1

It really depends on your application. If you already have a lot of elements in the DOM, and the likelyhood of actually needing to show this form is low, you may want to add it later (using ajax) because in most cases you don't need it anyway. However, if your DOM load is light, and in most cases the form will be shown, you make want to have it ready and hidden so that is can be quickly shown.

There is also a middle ground where you can "lazy load" it (using javascript on page load), and keep it in a json object until it is ready to be used. This will keep your DOM responsive, and give the added benefit of a quicker load of the form.