JQuery : adding 5 id's on the fly (instead of classes)

Question

I'm dealing with this situation :

• I have a color animation script which targets by id (it's not JQuery but pure javascript)
• then I have a dynamic list without ids : 'ul' somePHP throwing list items '/ul'
• and finally I have JQuery itself (which I'll use to add several ids on the fly to the list items: but I still don't know how)

I've realised that I couldn't add, with JQuery, single classes to the list items, as the color plugin only searches by id (it uses getElementById, which have no parallel with classes).

I must exclude so the addClass JQ function, which would be easy enough to put at work.

The script only would work if I could insert ids in the list, 5 well-defined ids, and give later some instructions in the externalised color plugin to affect them :

<ul>
     <li><a href="" id="ontheflyone">pulled from the DB</a></li>
     <li><a href="" id="ontheflytwo">pulled from the DB</a></li>
     <li><a href="" id="ontheflythree">pulled from the DB</a></li>
     <li><a href="" id="ontheflyfour">pulled from the DB</a></li>
     <li><a href="" id="ontheflyfive">pulled from the DB</a></li>
</ul>

Then, the instructions :

document.getElementById(’id’).onmouseover = function() { 'ontheflyone','text','$color1' };
document.getElementById(’id’).onmouseout = function() { 'ontheflyone','text','$color2'};

document.getElementById(’id’).onmouseover = function() { 'ontheflytwo','text','$color1' };
document.getElementById(’id’).onmouseout = function() { 'ontheflytwo','text','$color2'};

etc.

I could change the plugin's javascript itself, but I thought it would be easier using JQuery to add, in some way, ids in my html.

The color plugin is an awesome piece of code written by Michael Leigeber I reproduce as follows :

// main function to process the fade request //
function colorFade(id,element,start,end,steps,speed) {
  var startrgb,endrgb,er,eg,eb,step,rint,gint,bint,step;
  var target = document.getElementById(id);
  steps = steps || 20;
  speed = speed || 20;
  clearInterval(target.timer);
  endrgb = colorConv(end);
  er = endrgb[0];
  eg = endrgb[1];
  eb = endrgb[2];
  if(!target.r) {
    startrgb = colorConv(start);
    r = startrgb[0];
    g = startrgb[1];
    b = startrgb[2];
    target.r = r;
    target.g = g;
    target.b = b;
  }
  rint = Math.round(Math.abs(target.r-er)/steps);
  gint = Math.round(Math.abs(target.g-eg)/steps);
  bint = Math.round(Math.abs(target.b-eb)/steps);
  if(rint == 0) { rint = 1 }
  if(gint == 0) { gint = 1 }
  if(bint == 0) { bint = 1 }
  target.step = 1;
  target.timer = setInterval( function() { animateColor(id,element,steps,er,eg,eb,rint,gint,bint) }, speed);
}

// incrementally close the gap between the two colors //
function animateColor(id,element,steps,er,eg,eb,rint,gint,bint) {
  var target = document.getElementById(id);
  var color;
  if(target.step <= steps) {
    var r = target.r;
    var g = target.g;
    var b = target.b;
    if(r >= er) {
      r = r - rint;
    } else {
      r = parseInt(r) + parseInt(rint);
    }
    if(g >= eg) {
      g = g - gint;
    } else {
      g = parseInt(g) + parseInt(gint);
    }
    if(b >= eb) {
      b = b - bint;
    } else {
      b = parseInt(b) + parseInt(bint);
    }
    color = 'rgb(' + r + ',' + g + ',' + b + ')';
    if(element == 'background') {
      target.style.backgroundColor = color;
    } else if(element == 'border') {
      target.style.borderColor = color;
    } else {
      target.style.color = color;
    }
    target.r = r;
    target.g = g;
    target.b = b;
    target.step = target.step + 1;
  } else {
    clearInterval(target.timer);
    color = 'rgb(' + er + ',' + eg + ',' + eb + ')';
    if(element == 'background') {
      target.style.backgroundColor = color;
    } else if(element == 'border') {
      target.style.borderColor = color;
    } else {
      target.style.color = color;
    }
  }
}

// convert the color to rgb from hex //
function colorConv(color) {
  var rgb = [parseInt(color.substring(0,2),16), 
    parseInt(color.substring(2,4),16), 
    parseInt(color.substring(4,6),16)];
  return rgb;
}

So, a million thanks if someone can tell me how to add those ids on the fly, or, maybe, how to change the javascript to target classes,

Many thanks,

Jan

Answer 1

So you have an ordinary <ul></ul> and want to give every <li> in it a unique id? Try the jQuery command "each":

$("li").each(function(index, element){$(element).attr("id", index);});

This will loop over all <li> elements and assign every element its nummerical index (in the array of elements jQuery has found) as "id" attribute.

Answer 2

If you're using jquery you can get an element by class using syntax like this (assuming the css class is called 'className':

$(".className").mouseover(function(){
  alert("something");
});

to do the same thing with an id you would do this in jquery:

$("#idVal").mouseover(function(){
  alert("something");
});