Code is selecting wrong element to animate

Question

I'm trying to get my jquery to select a different element based on a value stored in the clicked elements attribues. But it keeps animating the clicked element. Because there are multiple classes named element1 I figured this would be the easiest way to animate a specified div associated with that button.

$(".element1").click(function(){
    var expander = $(this).attr("id");
    var expander2 = '#' + expander;
    test(expander2);


});

function test(expander3) {
    if (toggle == true) {
        $(expander3).animate({height:200}, {queue:false}, "slow");
        $(expander3).animate({width:400}, {queue:false}, "slow");
        toggle = false;
    } else if (toggle == false) {
        $(expander3).animate({height:0}, {queue:false}, "slow");
        $(expander3).animate({width:50}, {queue:false}, "slow");
        toggle = true;
    }
}

I did alert(expander2) and I'm getting the correct id (i.e. #id1, #id2 etc etc) but it is only animating the .element1, .element2 etc etc. It's like it's ignoring the correct id.

Here's how the html looks if that helps:

<input type="button" id="id1" class="element1" value="TextGoesHere"></input>

<div id="id1">
    This should be animating.
</div>

Answer 1

Your html is invalid: the id attribute should be unique. When you try to select by id with $("#idThatIsNotUnique") it will just find the first element (or potentially the last element in some browsers) with that id - in your case the input, not the div.

You could use an html5 data- attribute instead:

  <input type="button" data-animate-id="id1" class="element1" value="TextGoesHere"></input>

  <div id="id1">This should be animating.</div>

And then JS:

        $(".element1").click(function(){
            var expander = $(this).attr("data-animate-id");
            var expander2 = '#' + expander;
            test(expander2);
        });