Modifying Elements

Brandon, I get what you are saying in the second par about not storing it in the variable but the directions say to set it to the variable inputValue and so did you in the last sentence of the first par. so can you be more clear please bc I am stuck on this as well.

// lets assume the value of the input element with an id of 'linkName' is Louise's Link
var inputId = document.getElementById("linkName"); // this statement is fine as it grabs the proper element and stores it as the value of inputId
var inputValue = inputId.value; // this statement is also fine as it takes the string Louise's Link and stores it as the value of inputValue | so inputValue is equal to "Louise's Link"
inputValue = document.getElementById("link").textContent; // this statement removes "Louise's Link" as the value of inputValue and replaces it with the textContent of the anchor element with an id of 'link', but currently the anchor element with an id of 'link' does not have a text element as a child
// as such, inputValue becomes equal to "" (or an empty string)

What you want to do is grab the anchor element with an id of 'link' the same way you grabbed the input element with an id of 'linkName', and you want to set the textContent of the anchor element with an id of 'link' (since it currently does not have any text content) to be the value of inputValue (which we're saying is Louise's Link).

Challenge 1: Select the <input> element with the ID linkName and store its value in the variable inputValue. (For a refresher on getting the value of a text input, watch this video from the previous section.)

You've already completed challenge 1 with the first two lines of your code.

Challenge 2: Next, set the text content of the <a> element with the ID link to the value stored in inputValue.

The second challenge doesn't ask you to store the text content of the <a> element with the ID link to inputValue, it asks that you set the text content of the <a> element with the ID link to the value [already] stored in inputValue.

Does this make sense? I know it can be a lot to take in.

I appreciate you breaking it down Brandon, however, I still lost. I'm sorry. I see how it would replace the value bc you are using the same variable to hold a different value. Am I understanding this correctly? I've looked text content online and went over the treamhouse video again and I still don't get why my answer is not working? This is what I came up with:

var inputValue=document.getElementById('linkName').value;//first answer inputValue.textContent=document.getElementById('link');//I am calling that value to using text content and setting it to the id link which is attached to the element 'a'. Please tell me what I am missing?

First off, you have no need to apologize. You’re asking questions, and that’s a good thing.

Secondly, great job refactoring your code so that you grabbed the <input> with ID of linkName and its value in one statement.

Now, in order to grab the <a> with an ID of link, you’d write...

document.getElementById(‘link’),

and if you wanted to GET the text content of the <a> with an ID of link, you’d write...

document.getElementById(‘link’).textContent,

and so if you wanted to SET the text content of the <a> with an ID of link, you’d write the code to GET the text content, but you’d SET it equal to the text you want it to be. So say you wanted the text content of the <a> with an ID of link to be Melissa’s Link...

You’d write...

document.getElementById(‘link’).textContent = “Melissa’s Link”,

And since that’s how you would set the text content of an element, how would you alter that line of code to set the text content to be equal to the value stored in the variable inputValue?

P.S. Yes, you understood the first part correctly. :), and sorry for just now realizing you are not the same person who posted the question asking for help to begin with. lol

Ok I got it now, Brandon! that example helped. I had to set it to the variable but not change the value of the variable. so my answer was: document.getElementById('link').textContent=(inputValue);

Yes. That’s exactly right, Melissa.

Now... you actually do not need to wrap inputValue in parentheses.

You could write it document.getElementById(‘link’).textContent = inputValue

But adding the parentheses doesn’t alter the functionality. Good stuff.

Good to know! Thanks for all your help and patience!