jQuery two part question - anchor to mimic tab and binding click event

Question

Question

---

1. I'd like to have an anchor in the page that performs the same function as the tab.
   I was only able to get it to work if I placed something like $('#tabs ul a:first').click() in the onclick event of the particular anchor. Note: the href has no effect on the links external to the tab plugin; it is probably only used in the anchors in the tab when constructing their click event.

2. I came across a jQuery binding problem.
   Instead of performing a DOM lookup for each link, it'd be better to store that in a variable and add the click event to the external anchor's click event. However, when a selector returns multiple objects, the object in the array (it's most likely not an array that's returned, but an object) does not seem to have any functions.

JSFiddle Example

JS

---

$(function() {
    $( "#tabs" ).tabs(); 

    var tabs = $('#tabs ul li a');

    $( "#links2 a" ).each(function(index){
       $(this).bind('click',function(){
          (tabs[index]).click();
       });
    });
});

HTML/CSS (incomplete)

---

<link rel="stylesheet" href="http://jqueryui.com/themes/base/jquery.ui.all.css" />
<link rel="stylesheet" href="http://jqueryui.com/demos/demos.css" />
<style type="text/css">
   #links1 , #links2, #links3      { margin-top:1em; font-size:1.5em;}
   #links1 a, #links2 a, #links3 a { text-decoration:none; color:#0cf}
</style>
<div id="tabs">
    <ul>
        <li><a href="#tabs-1">Foo</a></li>
        <li><a href="#tabs-2">Bar</a></li>
        <li><a href="#tabs-3">Baz</a></li>
    </ul>
    <div id="tabs-1" ><p>Foo foo foo foo foo foo foo foo. foo-foo!</p></div>
    <div id="tabs-2" ><p>Bar bar bar bar bar bar bar bar. bar-bar!</p></div>
    <div id="tabs-3" ><p>Baz baz baz baz baz baz baz baz. baz-baz!</p></div>
</div>

<div id="links1">
   <div>HREF doesn't matter:</div>
   <a href="#tabs-1">foo</a>     
   <a href="#tabs-2">bar</a>           
   <a href="#tabs-3">baz</a>
</div>

<div id="links2">
   <div>Trying to dynamically bind onclick</div>
   <a href="#">foo</a> 
   <a href="#">bar</a>       
   <a href="#">baz</a>
</div>

<div id="links3">
   <div>What should happen, but not the right method:</div>
   <a href="#" onclick="$('#tabs li:first a').click()">foo</a>
   <a href="#" onclick="$('#tabs li a:eq(1)').click()//not sure if this is the best way to reference">bar</a>       
   <a href="#" onclick="$('#tabs li:last a').click()">baz</a>
</div>

Answer 1

Instead of

(tabs[index]).click();

it should be

tabs.eq(index).click();

The first form gets you the raw DOM element, while the second gets you a jQuery-wrapped DOM element. There's no "click" method on <a> element nodes, at least no standard method. (Alternatively, $(tabs[index]) would work too.)