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

Syed Abdul Hafiz Bin Syed Hussain
Syed Abdul Hafiz Bin Syed Hussain
1,559 Points
Posted by Syed Abdul Hafiz Bin Syed Hussain
Syed Abdul Hafiz Bin Syed Hussain
1,559 Points

Why isn't my code working?

I don't quite understand why the following code is not working:

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

Can someone please help explain this to me? I have been stuck on this for quite a while.

js/app.js 
$("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>

2 Answers

Cindy Lea
PLUS
Cindy Lea
Courses Plus Student 6,497 Points
Cindy Lea
Cindy Lea
Courses Plus Student 6,497 Points

Use this: $('a.external').attr('target', '_blank');

They want the a in front of external.

Steven Parker
Steven Parker
229,771 Points
Steven Parker
Steven Parker
229,771 Points

Cindy's answer is correct, but I thought you might want to know why:

The challenge asks you to target links that have the class "external". Since the element type for a link is "a", and a class must be preceded by a period (.), the selector to do this is "a.external".

Using just "external" as a selector would target elements of type "external" (which is not a valid element type).

Happy coding! :sparkles: