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JavaScript JavaScript and the DOM (Retiring) Getting a Handle on the DOM Practice Selecting Elements

srikanth chavvakula
srikanth chavvakula
6,178 Points
Posted by srikanth chavvakula
srikanth chavvakula
6,178 Points

How can we select multiple elements present under a tag?

Like in this exercise, I need to select all the elements (<li> type) present under the nav tag. There are other elements with tag <li> present in the document.

js/app.js 
let navigationLinks = document.getElementsByTagName['li'];
let galleryLinks;
let footerImages;
index.html 
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
  <head>
    <meta charset="utf-8">
    <title>Nick Pettit | Designer</title>
    <link rel="stylesheet" href="css/normalize.css">
    <link href='http://fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=Changa+One|Open+Sans:400italic,700italic,400,700,800' rel='stylesheet' type='text/css'>
    <link rel="stylesheet" href="css/main.css">
    <link rel="stylesheet" href="css/responsive.css">
    <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0">
  </head>
  <body>
    <header>
      <a href="index.html" id="logo">
        <h1>Nick Pettit</h1>
        <h2>Designer</h2>
      </a>
      <nav>
        <ul>
          <li><a href="index.html" class="selected">Portfolio</a></li>
          <li><a href="about.html">About</a></li>
          <li><a href="contact.html">Contact</a></li>
        </ul>
      </nav>
    </header>
    <div id="wrapper">
      <section>
        <ul id="gallery">
          <li>
            <a href="img/numbers-01.jpg">
              <img src="img/numbers-01.jpg" alt="">
              <p>Experimentation with color and texture.</p>
            </a>
          </li>
          <li>
            <a href="img/numbers-02.jpg">
              <img src="img/numbers-02.jpg" alt="">
              <p>Playing with blending modes in Photoshop.</p>
            </a>
          </li>
        </ul>
      </section>
      <footer>
        <a href="http://twitter.com/nickrp"><img src="img/twitter-wrap.png" alt="Twitter Logo" class="social-icon"></a>
        <a href="http://facebook.com/nickpettit"><img src="img/facebook-wrap.png" alt="Facebook Logo" class="social-icon"></a>
        <p>&copy; 2016 Nick Pettit.</p>
      </footer>
    </div>
  <script src="js/app.js"></script>
  </body>
</html>
egaratkaoroprat
egaratkaoroprat
16,630 Points

Oh, that one would be this:

let navigationLinks = document.querySelectorAll('nav a');

In the method querySelector() (this one will only get the first occurrence of the matching pattern) and querySelectorAll() (this one will store all occurrences in a list), you can pass in a CSS selector as the argument. 'nav a' will select all <a> elements that are child elements of <nav> (e.g. <a> that are inside of a <nav>). In case you don't understand how CSS selectors work, I would suggest to take a CSS course here on Treehouse. querySelector/querySelectorAll are quite handy tools when it comes to working with the DOM.

srikanth chavvakula
srikanth chavvakula
6,178 Points
srikanth chavvakula
srikanth chavvakula
6,178 Points

Thanks Egarat. That worked ! I think I now understand how to select the nested elements. Thanks much.

2 Answers

egaratkaoroprat
egaratkaoroprat
16,630 Points
egaratkaoroprat
egaratkaoroprat
16,630 Points

Hey there, You can use the querySelectorAll. In your case it is: document.querySelectorAll('nav ul li') and then you can iterate through the node list you have received (for example with the forEach method).

srikanth chavvakula
srikanth chavvakula
6,178 Points
srikanth chavvakula
srikanth chavvakula
6,178 Points

Hey, Thanks for taking time to answer this question. However, I am still receiving a "Bummer! The wrong links or elements were selected". I used the code shown below.

document.querySelectorAll('nav ul li');

egaratkaoroprat
egaratkaoroprat
16,630 Points

I can't remember the objective of this exercise. Can you send a link to it?