jQuery Preload CSS Images

gistfile1.js

jQuery.preloadCssImages = function(){
 
    var allImgs = [];//new array for all the image urls  
    var k = 0; //iterator for adding images
    var sheets = document.styleSheets;//array of stylesheets
 
    for(var i = 0; i<sheets .length; i++){//loop through each stylesheet
 
        var cssPile = '';//create large string of all css rules in sheet
        var csshref = (sheets[i].href) ? sheets[i].href : 'window.location.href';
        var baseURLarr = csshref.split('/');//split href at / to make array
 
        baseURLarr.pop();//remove file path from baseURL array
 
        var baseURL = baseURLarr.join('/');//create base url for the images in this sheet (css file's dir)
 
        if(baseURL!="") baseURL+='/'; //tack on a / if needed
 
        if(document.styleSheets[i].cssRules){//w3
 
            var thisSheetRules = document.styleSheets[i].cssRules; //w3
 
            for(var j = 0; j<thisSheetRules.length; j++){
                cssPile+= thisSheetRules[j].cssText;
            }
        }
        else {
            cssPile+= document.styleSheets[i].cssText;
        }
 
        //parse cssPile for image urls and load them into the DOM
        var imgUrls = cssPile.match(/[^(]+.(gif|jpg|jpeg|png)/g);//reg ex to get a string of between a "(" and a ".filename"
 
        if(imgUrls != null && imgUrls.length>0 && imgUrls != ''){//loop array
 
            var arr = jQuery.makeArray(imgUrls);//create array from regex obj        
 
            jQuery(arr).each(function(){
                allImgs[k] = new Image(); //new img obj
                allImgs[k].src = (this[0] == '/' || this.match('http://')) ? this : baseURL + this;     //set src either absolute or rel to css dir
                k++;
            });
        }
    }//loop
    return allImgs;
};

//USAGE

//preload only
$.preloadCssImages();
 
//load into array
var preloadedImgs = $.preloadCssImages();