I have a plugin that creates a shortcode and requires a JavaScript file and a CSS file to load on any page that contains that shortcode. I could just make the script/style load on all pages, but that's not the best practice. I only want to load the files on pages that call the shortcode. I've found two methods of doing this, but both have problems. [Method 1](http://scribu.net/wordpress/optimal-script-loading.html) sets a flag to true inside the shortcode handler function, and then checks that value inside a `wp_footer` callback. If it's true, it uses `wp_print_scripts()` to load the JavaScript. The problem with this is that it only works for JavaScript and not CSS, because CSS should be declared inside `<head>`, which you can only do during an early hook like `init` or `wp_head`. [Method 2](http://beerpla.net/2010/01/13/wordpress-plugin-development-how-to-include-css-and-javascript-conditionally-and-only-when-needed-by-the-posts/) fires early and "peeks ahead" to see if the shortcode exists in the current page content. I like this method much better than the first, but the problem with it it won't detect if the template calls `do_shortcode()`. So, I'm leaning towards using the second method and then trying to detect if a template is assigned, and if so, parse it for the shortcode. Before I do that, though, I wanted to check if anyone know of a better method.