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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>

4 Answers

Carlos Federico Puebla Larregle
Carlos Federico Puebla Larregle
21,074 Points
Carlos Federico Puebla Larregle
Carlos Federico Puebla Larregle
21,074 Points

It's a little bit simpler than that. You don't need to add a class, you have to select all the links that actually have that class already. You could do that like this:

$("a.external").attr('target','_blank');
Frederic Camara
Frederic Camara
4,344 Points

precisely

Bob McCarty
PLUS
Bob McCarty
Courses Plus Student 16,618 Points
Bob McCarty
Bob McCarty
Courses Plus Student 16,618 Points

Frederic,

Try

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

Finds all links assigns the class and adds the attribute.

Bob

Frederic Camara
Frederic Camara
4,344 Points
Frederic Camara
Frederic Camara
4,344 Points

Thanks mate. I also realized that I wasn't properly adding the class to JQuery. It work once I changed it to '.external'.

Carlos Federico Puebla Larregle
Carlos Federico Puebla Larregle
21,074 Points
Carlos Federico Puebla Larregle
Carlos Federico Puebla Larregle
21,074 Points

Remember that other tags could have that class too. So if you omit the "a" in the selector you would be selecting all the tags ("a", "li", "ul", etc.) that have that class.