I was looking to do the same thing. I want to use the SmartMenu on 100s of pages, but I wanted to maintain only one file with the menu bar as it changes from time to time.
You are right, this is a question of timing for loading the external file.
After fiddling around a little bit, here is the code that works. It basically wait for the content to be inserted/loaded before initiating the menu. Therefore it should work.
Replace the initial code to initiate the SmartMenus:
$(function() {
$('#main-menu').smartmenus();
});
With this code which will load the file /YourMenuFile.html and then once completed, will initiate the smartmenus and only then.
<!-- SmartMenus jQuery init -->
<script type="text/javascript">
$(function() {
$("#includedContent").load("/YourMenuFile.html", function() {
$('#main-menu').smartmenus();
});
});
</script>
In the Header of your pages, you can add the following DIV.
<!-- Beginning of the header page with the SmartMenus -->
<div data-role="header" id="includedContent"></div>
<!-- end of the page header -->
And your file /YourMenuFile.html would look like that , just your list menu.
<ul id="main-menu" class="sm sm-blue">
<li><a href="#">Item 1</a></li>
<li><a href="#">Item 2</a>
<ul>
<li><a href="#">Item 2-1</a></li>
<li><a href="#">Item 2-2</a></li>
<li><a href="#">Item 2-3</a></li>
</ul>
</li>
<li><a href="#">Item 3</a></li>
</ul>
Enjoy!
.
