Welcome to the Treehouse Community

Want to collaborate on code errors? Have bugs you need feedback on? Looking for an extra set of eyes on your latest project? Get support with fellow developers, designers, and programmers of all backgrounds and skill levels here with the Treehouse Community! While you're at it, check out some resources Treehouse students have shared here.

Looking to learn something new?

Treehouse offers a seven day free trial for new students. Get access to thousands of hours of content and join thousands of Treehouse students and alumni in the community today.

Start your free trial

JavaScript JavaScript and the DOM (Retiring) Traversing the DOM Sibling Traversal

Kostatinos Yacoumakis
seal-mask
.a{fill-rule:evenodd;}techdegree seal-36
Kostatinos Yacoumakis
Full Stack JavaScript Techdegree Graduate 16,231 Points
Posted by Kostatinos Yacoumakis
.a{fill-rule:evenodd;}techdegree seal-36
Kostatinos Yacoumakis
Full Stack JavaScript Techdegree Graduate 16,231 Points

Confused on what I'm being asked to do.

I'm having a hard time with this challenge. It's asking me to add a class "highlight " to a p element that is an immediate previous sibling of the button being clicked. Should I be using the insertBefore() method? I've re-watched this sections videos several times and have referenced MDN. Please help me understand this challenge.

app.js 
var list = document.getElementsByTagName('ul')[0];

list.addEventListener('click', function(e) {
  if (e.target.tagName == 'BUTTON') {

    let classH = document.querySelectorAll('p');
    classH.className ="highlight";
   classH = classH.previousElementSibling;



  }
});
index.html 
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
    <head>
        <title>JavaScript and the DOM</title>
    </head>
    <link rel="stylesheet" href="style.css" />
    <body>
        <section>
            <h1>Making a Webpage Interactive</h1>
            <p>Things to Learn</p>
            <ul>
                <li><p>Element Selection</p><button>Highlight</button></li>
                <li><p>Events</p><button>Highlight</button></li>
                <li><p>Event Listening</p><button>Highlight</button></li>
                <li><p>DOM Traversal</p><button>Highlight</button></li>
            </ul>
        </section>
        <script src="app.js"></script>
    </body>
</html>

1 Answer

Steven Parker
Steven Parker
231,269 Points
Steven Parker
Steven Parker
231,269 Points

It looks like you have the right idea, but some of the issues here are:

  • "classH" is being set to a collection of every paragraph in the document
  • there is no "className" propery on a collection (just on individual elements)
  • a collection also will not have a "previousElementSibling" property

So some hints:

  • use the event target (e.target) as a starting point for DOM traversal
  • find the specific paragraph element that follows the clicked button element
  • make the class name change on that specific element
Kostatinos Yacoumakis
seal-mask
.a{fill-rule:evenodd;}techdegree seal-36
Kostatinos Yacoumakis
Full Stack JavaScript Techdegree Graduate 16,231 Points
Kostatinos Yacoumakis
.a{fill-rule:evenodd;}techdegree seal-36
Kostatinos Yacoumakis
Full Stack JavaScript Techdegree Graduate 16,231 Points 
var list = document.getElementsByTagName('ul')[0];

list.addEventListener('click', function(e) {
  if (e.target.tagName == 'BUTTON') {

  let p = e.target.parentNode;
    let sib = p.previousElementSibling;
sib.className = 'highlight';



  }
});

Your comments helped but I'm still having trouble. I'm targeting the parent node which is the <p> elements, and adding the highlight class. What am I missing here?

Steven Parker
Steven Parker
231,269 Points
Steven Parker
Steven Parker
231,269 Points

The paragraph is the sibling of the target. You won't need to reference the parent node in this challenge.