Common function to check if an element exists

Question

I think there is more that is needed here. Can someone please comment on it?

What I need is to add some common functions to check if an element exists.

// Common functions
$(document).ready(function() {

    /*
    Function for creating different styling checkbox, radio input, and select
    */

    // Create pretty checkboxes and inputs

    if ($('.iCheck').length){
        $('.iCheck').iCheck({
        checkboxClass: 'icheckbox_minimal-blue',
        radioClass: 'iradio_minimal-blue',
        increaseArea: '20%' // optional
    });
    }

    // Create pretty selects and multiselect
        if(!$("html").hasClass("ie8")){ 
            if ($('select').length){
                $('select').attr('data-width', '100%').selectpicker();
            }

        };

     /*
      Preloader 
     */
    var targetPreloader = $('[data-overlay-text]');
    targetPreloader.click(function() {
        var text = $(this).attr("data-overlay-text");
        $('.preloader-text').text(text);
        $('.preloader-window').show().fadeIn();
    });

    /*
      Fix for showing SVG
     */
    svgeezy.init('nothing', 'png');


        /*
    Form validation using Jquery validate
    */      
        $('form').validate({
        highlight: function(element) {
            $(element).closest('.form-group').addClass('has-error');
        },
        unhighlight: function(element) {
            $(element).closest('.form-group').removeClass('has-error');
        },
        errorElement: 'span',
        errorClass: 'help-block',
        errorPlacement: function(error, element) {
            if(element.parent('.input-group').length) {
                error.insertAfter(element.parent());
            } else {
                error.insertAfter(element);
            }
        }
    });

});

Answer 1

You shouldn't even need to do a check for element exists before calling a jQuery method. All internal methods, and any plugin that follows good practices, just won't do anything at all if there are no elements in the set. So you could just simplify that part of the code down to (without the if):

$('.iCheck').iCheck({
    checkboxClass: 'icheckbox_minimal-blue',
    radioClass: 'iradio_minimal-blue',
    increaseArea: '20%' // optional
});

Answer 2

I had a similar question myself, and after reading this question from SO, I have reached the conclusion that the check you have used is probably just about as good as it gets, though that question does have other suggestions.