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JavaScript jQuery Basics (2014) Creating a Simple Lightbox Adding New Attribute Values with attr()

Posted by Frederic Camara
Frederic Camara
4,344 Points

Where do I identify the target attr. var $external = $('<a class="external"></a>') $external.attr('target',"_blank");

I'm not sure what I did wrong here. It is apparently not passing in a value for the target attribute. Am I missing a step or is my syntax improper?

js/app.js 
var $external = $('<a class="external"></a>')
$external.attr('target',"_blank");
index.html 
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
  <link rel="stylesheet" href="css/style.css" type="text/css" media="screen" title="no title" charset="utf-8">
  <title>Links Page</title>
</head>
<body>
  <h1>Links</h1>
  <ul>
    <li><a href="http://google.com" class="external">Google</a></li>
    <li><a href="http://yahoo.com" class="external">Yahoo</a></li>
  </ul>
  <script src="//code.jquery.com/jquery-1.11.0.min.js" type="text/javascript" charset="utf-8"></script>
  <script src="js/app.js" type="text/javascript" charset="utf-8"></script>
</body>
</html>

1 Answer

Steven Parker
Steven Parker
216,149 Points
Steven Parker
Steven Parker
216,149 Points

You're not creating new elements here, you are selecting existing ones. The JQuery argument will look like a CSS selector, which in this case would be a.external (for links which have the external class).

:warning: SPOILER ALERT

Here's the corrected code:

var $external = $("a.external")
$external.attr('target', "_blank");

This can also be combined into one line:

$("a.external").attr('target', "_blank");