diff --git a/src/_h5ai/apache/h5ai-footer.html.jade b/src/_h5ai/apache/h5ai-footer.html.jade
index cf6d4d71..4b4a411d 100644
--- a/src/_h5ai/apache/h5ai-footer.html.jade
+++ b/src/_h5ai/apache/h5ai-footer.html.jade
@@ -1,10 +1,3 @@
 
-- var h5ai = "/_h5ai/"
-
 // generated code ends here
-|</div>
-
-script( src!="#{h5ai}config.js" )
-script( src!="#{h5ai}js/scripts.js" )
-
-|</body></html>
+|</div></body></html>
diff --git a/src/_h5ai/apache/h5ai-header.html.jade b/src/_h5ai/apache/h5ai-header.html.jade
index 68cd5d78..d64e4bcf 100644
--- a/src/_h5ai/apache/h5ai-header.html.jade
+++ b/src/_h5ai/apache/h5ai-header.html.jade
@@ -39,5 +39,7 @@ div#bottombar.clearfix
 	span.right
 	span.center
 
+	script( src!="#{h5ai}js/scripts.js" )
+
 |<div id="data-apache-autoindex" class="hideOnJs">
 // The following code was generated by Apache's autoindex module. It is not valid HTML5, but gets removed from the DOM tree as soon as possible. The actual page should render as valid HTML5.
diff --git a/src/_h5ai/config.js b/src/_h5ai/config.json
similarity index 99%
rename from src/_h5ai/config.js
rename to src/_h5ai/config.json
index dafa14cd..245da50e 100644
--- a/src/_h5ai/config.js
+++ b/src/_h5ai/config.json
@@ -3,11 +3,10 @@
 {{pkg.url}}
 
 Configuration
-options, types and localization
+options, types and langs
 */
 
-var H5AI_CONFIG = {
-
+{
 	"options": {
 
 		/*
@@ -431,4 +430,4 @@ var H5AI_CONFIG = {
 		"zh-cn": "简体中文",
 		"zh-tw": "正體中文"
 	}
-};
+}
diff --git a/src/_h5ai/js/scripts.js b/src/_h5ai/js/scripts.js
index 84933bb7..bf6a96b3 100644
--- a/src/_h5ai/js/scripts.js
+++ b/src/_h5ai/js/scripts.js
@@ -21,20 +21,28 @@
 
 	// @include "inc/**/*.js"
 
-	$(function () {
-		/*global H5AI_CONFIG, amplify, Base64, jQuery, Modernizr, moment, _ */
+	$.ajax({
+		url: $('script[src$="/js/scripts.js"]').attr('src').replace(/\/js\/scripts.js$/, '/config.json'),
+		complete: function (data) {
 
-		// `jQuery`, `moment` and `underscore` are itself functions,
-		// so they have to be wrapped to not be handled as constructors.
-		modulejs.define('config', H5AI_CONFIG);
-		modulejs.define('amplify', amplify);
-		modulejs.define('base64', Base64);
-		modulejs.define('$', function () { return jQuery; });
-		modulejs.define('modernizr', Modernizr);
-		modulejs.define('moment', function () { return moment; });
-		modulejs.define('_', function () { return _; });
+			var config = JSON.parse(data.responseText.replace(/\/\*[\s\S]*?\*\/|\/\/.*?(\n|$)/g, ''));
 
-		modulejs.require($('body').attr('id'));
-	});
+			$(function () {
+				/*global amplify, Base64, jQuery, Modernizr, moment, _ */
+
+				// `jQuery`, `moment` and `underscore` are itself functions,
+				// so they have to be wrapped to not be handled as constructors.
+				modulejs.define('config', config);
+				modulejs.define('amplify', amplify);
+				modulejs.define('base64', Base64);
+				modulejs.define('$', function () { return jQuery; });
+				modulejs.define('modernizr', Modernizr);
+				modulejs.define('moment', function () { return moment; });
+				modulejs.define('_', function () { return _; });
+
+				modulejs.require($('body').attr('id'));
+			});
+		}}
+	);
 
 }(jQuery));
diff --git a/src/_h5ai/php/h5ai-index.php.jade b/src/_h5ai/php/h5ai-index.php.jade
index 250ac430..d8030fdc 100644
--- a/src/_h5ai/php/h5ai-index.php.jade
+++ b/src/_h5ai/php/h5ai-index.php.jade
@@ -62,5 +62,4 @@ html.no-js( lang="en" )
 
 		div#data-php-no-js-fallback.hideOnJs !{fallback}
 
-		script( src!="#{h5ai}config.js" )
 		script( src!="#{h5ai}js/scripts.js" )
diff --git a/src/_h5ai/php/inc/H5ai.php b/src/_h5ai/php/inc/H5ai.php
index b94defbb..c31a1a08 100644
--- a/src/_h5ai/php/inc/H5ai.php
+++ b/src/_h5ai/php/inc/H5ai.php
@@ -28,10 +28,8 @@ class H5ai {
 
 		$str = file_exists($file) ? file_get_contents($file) : "";
 
-		// remove comments and change expression to pure json
-		$str = preg_replace("/\/\*.*?\*\//s", "", $str);
-		$str = preg_replace("/^.*H5AI_CONFIG\s*=\s*/s", "", $str);
-		$str = preg_replace("/;.*/s", "", $str);
+		// remove comments to get pure json
+		$str = preg_replace("/\/\*.*?\*\/|\/\/.*?(\n|$)/s", "", $str);
 		$config = json_decode($str, true);
 
 		return $config;
@@ -63,7 +61,7 @@ class H5ai {
 		$this->ignore_patterns = $H5AI_CONFIG["IGNORE_PATTERNS"];
 		$this->index_files = $H5AI_CONFIG["INDEX_FILES"];
 
-		$this->config = H5ai::load_config($this->h5aiAbsPath . "/config.js");
+		$this->config = H5ai::load_config($this->h5aiAbsPath . "/config.json");
 		$this->options = $this->config["options"];
 
 		$this->h5aiAbsHref = H5ai::normalize_path($this->options["h5aiAbsHref"], true);