Welcome to the Treehouse Community

Want to collaborate on code errors? Have bugs you need feedback on? Looking for an extra set of eyes on your latest project? Get support with fellow developers, designers, and programmers of all backgrounds and skill levels here with the Treehouse Community! While you're at it, check out some resources Treehouse students have shared here.

Looking to learn something new?

Treehouse offers a seven day free trial for new students. Get access to thousands of hours of content and join thousands of Treehouse students and alumni in the community today.

Start your free trial

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
231,269 Points
Steven Parker
Steven Parker
231,269 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: