Enqueued scripts should use plugins_url() instead of plugin_dir_url()

[westonruter]

Feature Description

When the URLs for JS files are generated in the plugins, the plugin_dir_url() function is used. Its output is concatenated with the relative path:

performance/plugins/optimization-detective/detection.php

Line 82 in 5fbd82e

wp_json_encode( add_query_arg( 'ver', OPTIMIZATION_DETECTIVE_VERSION, plugin_dir_url( __FILE__ ) . 'detect.js' ) ),

However, this is not ideal because the resulting URL is not directly filterable. It would be better to use plugins_url():

- add_query_arg( 'ver', OPTIMIZATION_DETECTIVE_VERSION, plugin_dir_url( __FILE__ ) . 'detect.js'
+ plugins_url( add_query_arg( 'ver', OPTIMIZATION_DETECTIVE_VERSION, 'detect.js' ), __FILE__ )

In this way, the plugins_url filter can be used to potentially rewrite the URL to point to a CDN, for example.

See instances: https://github.com/search?q=repo%3AWordPress%2Fperformance%20%2Fplugin_dir_url%5C(%2F&type=code

[felixarntz]

@westonruter I'm not sure I agree with your assessment:

• plugin_dir_url() wraps plugins_url(), so the URL up to the plugin's own directory is still filterable.
• This means e.g. changing to point to a CDN works just as well with plugin_dir_url().
• I don't see any benefit of being able to filter the remainder of the URL (the path relative to the plugin's directory). You can't (or at the very least shouldn't) change the contents of a plugin from the outside, so being able to filter that part makes no sense to me. It's safer not to allow filtering it.

[westonruter]

A couple additional use cases for being able to filter the entire URL:

• Replace a minified JS or CSS file with a non-minified one, or vice-versa. This requires adding/removing .min from the URL path. (Example filter from Jetpack.)
• Add a cache busting query parameter.

Jetpack favors plugins_url() over plugin_dir_url() with 62 files vs 8 files, respectively.

Maybe more importantly, Gutenberg also favors plugins_url() over plugin_dir_url(), with 32 files vs 5 files, respectively.