How to dynamically add a style for text-align using jQuery

Question

I'm trying to correct the usual IE bugs around CSS 2.1 and need a way to alter an elements style properties to add a custom text-align style.

Currently in jQuery you can do something like

$(this).width() or $(this).height() 

but I can't seem to find a good way to alter the text-align with this same approach.

The item already has a class and I set the text-align in that class with no luck. Is it possible to just add a text-align CSS attribute to this element after a class is defined?

I have something like this

$(this).css("text-align", "center"); 

just after my width adjustment and after I view this in firebug I see only "width" is the only property set on the style. Any help?

EDIT:

Whoa - big response to this question! A bit more detail around the problem at hand:

I'm tweaking the js source for jqGrid A3.5 to do some custom sub grid work and the actual JS I'm tweaking is shown below (sorry for using "this" in my examples above, but I wanted to keep this simple for brevity)

var subGridJson = function(sjxml, sbid) {
    var tbl, trdiv, tddiv, result = "", i, cur, sgmap,
    dummy = document.createElement("table");
    tbl = document.createElement("tbody");
    $(dummy).attr({ cellSpacing: "0", cellPadding: "0", border: "0" });
    trdiv = document.createElement("tr");
    for (i = 0; i < ts.p.subGridModel[0].name.length; i++) {
        tddiv = document.createElement("th");
        tddiv.className = "ui-state-default ui-th-column";
        $(tddiv).html(ts.p.subGridModel[0].name[i]);
        $(tddiv).width(ts.p.subGridModel[0].width[i]);
        trdiv.appendChild(tddiv);
    }
    tbl.appendChild(trdiv);
}

I've tried both of the below (from the answers provided) with no luck.

$(tddiv).width(ts.p.subGridModel[0].width[i]).attr('style', 'text-align: center');

AND

$(tddiv).width(ts.p.subGridModel[0].width[i]).css('text-align', 'center');

I will continue to work on this issue today and post a final solution for anyone feeling my pain around this strange issue.

Sunroom

Answer 1

You have the right idea, as documentation shows:

http://docs.jquery.com/CSS/css#namevalue

Are you sure you're correctly identify this with class or id?

For example, if your class is myElementClass

$('.myElementClass').css('text-align','center');

Also, I haven't worked with Firebug in a while, but are you looking at the dom and not the html? Your source isn't changed by javascript, but the dom is. Look in the dom tab and see if the change was applied.

Cuticle

It should work, but it seems to fail when used in conjunction with width() being set previously. The answer is to use jquery chaining. – Beauchamp

Answer 2

You could also try the following to add an inline style to the element:

$(this).attr('style', 'text-align: center');

This should make sure that other styling rules aren't overriding what you thought would work. I believe inline styles usually get precedence.

EDIT: Also, another tool that may help you is Jash (http://www.billyreisinger.com/jash/). It gives you a javascript command prompt so you can ensure you easily test javascript statements and make sure you're selecting the right element, etc.

Armes

Answer 3

I usually use

$(this).css({
    "textAlign":"center",
    "secondCSSProperty":"value" 
});

Hope that helps

Dragnet

Answer 4

I think you should use "textAlign" instead of "text-align".

Pickaxe

This would only be the case if setting the style using vanilla javascript DOM manipulation. jQuery css() uses actual css keywords instead. – Blavatsky

Answer 5

Interesting. I got the same problem as you when I wrote a test version.

The solution is to use jquery's ability to chain and do:

$(this).width(500).css("text-align", "center");

Interesting find though.

To expand a bit, the following does not work

$(this).width(500);
$(this).css("text-align", "center");

and results only in the width being set on the style. Chaining the two, as I suggested above, does seem to work.

Beauchamp

Answer 6

$(this).css("text-align", "center"); should work, make sure 'this' is the element you're actually trying to set the text-align style to.

Fredi

Answer 7

Is correct?

<script>
$( "#box" ).one( "click", function() {
  $( this ).css( "width", "+=200" );
});
</script>

Marguritemargy

Answer 8

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
  <head>
    <script src="https://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/3.1.1/jquery.min.js"></script>
    <script>
      $( document ).ready(function() {
      $this = $('h1');
         $this.css('color','#3498db');
         $this.css('text-align','center');
         $this.css('border','1px solid #ededed');
      });
    </script>

  </head>
  <body>
      <h1>Title</h1>
 </body>
</html>

Rory

Answer 9

 $(this).css({'text-align':'center'}); 

You can use class name and id in place of this

$('.classname').css({'text-align':'center'});

or

$('#id').css({'text-align':'center'});

Jenellejenesia

Answer 10

suppose below is the html paragraph tag:

<p style="background-color:#ff0000">This is a paragraph.</p>

and we want to change the paragraph color in jquery.

The client side code will be:

<script>
$(document).ready(function(){
    $("p").css("background-color", "yellow");
});
</script> 

Piet

Does this in any way improve the given answers? – Offshore

Answer 11

function add_question(){ var count=document.getElementById("nofquest").value; var container = document.getElementById("container"); // Clear previous contents of the container while (container.hasChildNodes()) { container.removeChild(container.lastChild); } for (i=1;i

how to set center of the textboxes

Mortonmortuary

1. Formatting 2. Can you provide an explanation? – Tombstone