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JavaScript JavaScript and the DOM (Retiring) Getting a Handle on the DOM Practice Selecting Elements

Christopher Phillips
Christopher Phillips
10,061 Points
Posted by Christopher Phillips
Christopher Phillips
10,061 Points

How to select child elements?

I've tried most of what I learned in this segment to pass this step but nothing is working.

Selecting the 'nav' only returns one item; Selecting 'ul' returns more than 3; Likewise with 'li' ; I've tried adding my own tags, classes, id names and then selecting those. But then I get an error regarding .length - Apparently this is meant to be done without altering the index.html file (or at least changes aren't saved)

What gives??

js/app.js 
let navigationLinks = document.getElementsByClassName('navLink');
let galleryLinks;
let footerImages;
index.html 
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
  <head>
    <meta charset="utf-8">
    <title>Nick Pettit | Designer</title>
    <link rel="stylesheet" href="css/normalize.css">
    <link href='http://fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=Changa+One|Open+Sans:400italic,700italic,400,700,800' rel='stylesheet' type='text/css'>
    <link rel="stylesheet" href="css/main.css">
    <link rel="stylesheet" href="css/responsive.css">
    <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0">
  </head>
  <body>
    <header>
      <a href="index.html" id="logo">
        <h1>Nick Pettit</h1>
        <h2>Designer</h2>
      </a>
      <nav>
        <ul>
          <li class="navLink"><a href="index.html" class="selected">Portfolio</a></li>
          <li class="navLink"><a href="about.html">About</a></li>
          <li class="navLink"><a href="contact.html">Contact</a></li>
        </ul>
      </nav>
    </header>
    <div id="wrapper">
      <section>
        <ul id="gallery">
          <li>
            <a href="img/numbers-01.jpg">
              <img src="img/numbers-01.jpg" alt="">
              <p>Experimentation with color and texture.</p>
            </a>
          </li>
          <li>
            <a href="img/numbers-02.jpg">
              <img src="img/numbers-02.jpg" alt="">
              <p>Playing with blending modes in Photoshop.</p>
            </a>
          </li>
        </ul>
      </section>
      <footer>
        <a href="http://twitter.com/nickrp"><img src="img/twitter-wrap.png" alt="Twitter Logo" class="social-icon"></a>
        <a href="http://facebook.com/nickpettit"><img src="img/facebook-wrap.png" alt="Facebook Logo" class="social-icon"></a>
        <p>&copy; 2016 Nick Pettit.</p>
      </footer>
    </div>
  <script src="js/app.js"></script>
  </body>
</html>

1 Answer

Katie Wood
Katie Wood
19,141 Points

Hi there,

Have they told you about querySelector and querySelectorAll at this point? This should return links inside the nav element:

let navigationLinks = document.querySelectorAll('nav a');

Without querySelector, you could chain two other methods like this, though it's not as easy to read:

let navigationLinks = document.getElementsByTagName('nav')[0].getElementsByTagName('a');
Christopher Phillips
Christopher Phillips
10,061 Points
Christopher Phillips
Christopher Phillips
10,061 Points

Thanks! I did remember seeing something like this let navigationLinks = document.getElementsByTagName('nav')[0] but when I tried going back a 2nd time, somehow I couldn't find it again.

And no, they didn't teach how to 'drill down' like your first method. Thanks!

Katie Wood
Katie Wood
19,141 Points

No problem - I couldn't remember when exactly they teach what, so I just gave you both of them. Glad it helped!