What's a good method for loading scripts via plugin?

Question

First, apologies if this is a newb question.. I'm creating a plugin that adds a jQuery background and I can't seem to get the jQuery plugin files to run. The plugin requires 3 scripts to run as well as a bit of CSS and the controlling script.

Here is what I have in my wp plugin:

add_action('wp_enqueue_scripts', 'scripts_method');
add_action('wp_print_styles', 'add_stylesheet');

function add_stylesheet() {
        $style_url = plugins_url('style/jquery.background-0.0.1.css', __FILE__); 
        $style_file = WP_PLUGIN_DIR . '/twenty-first-backgrounds/style/jquery.background-0.0.1.css';
        if ( file_exists($style_file) ) {
            wp_register_style('jquery.background-0.0.1', $style_url);
            wp_enqueue_style( 'jquery.background-0.0.1');
        }
    }
function scripts_method(){

     wp_register_script('jquery.custom.min',
         plugins_url('/js/jquery.custom.min.js', __FILE__), 
         array('jquery'),'1.8.16' );
     wp_enqueue_script('jquery.custom.min');

     wp_register_script('jquery.parallax.unmin',
         plugins_url('/js/jquery.parallax.unmin.js', __FILE__), 
         array('jquery'),'1.0' );
     wp_enqueue_script('jquery.parallax.unmin');

     wp_register_script('jquery.okshadow',
         plugins_url('/js/jquery.okshadow.js', __FILE__), 
         array('jquery'),'1.0' );
     wp_enqueue_script('jquery.okshadow');

     wp_register_script('jquery.lines',
         plugins_url('/js/jquery.lines.js', __FILE__), 
         array('jquery','jquery.custom.min','jquery.parallax.unmin','jquery.okshadow'),
         '1.0' );
     wp_enqueue_script('jquery.lines');

}

The last script, 'jquery.lines' contains the script which displays the background, the other 3 are dependencies. They seem to load as they are visible within the pages source code. I can get it to work if I echo the jQuery and CSS directly, otherwise they don't run. This is strange because I can physically see the loaded js files within the pages source code. Am I missing something?

Answer 1

This is strange because I can physically see the loaded js files within the pages source code. Am I missing something?

Are you sure they are loading? click on the links in the source and see if they lead to valid js source files because you may have issues with your paths such that your source says something like

<link rel='stylesheet' href='whatever.css'>

make sure whatever.css its invalid or else browser will ignore it. Please check your browsers error console and see.