How can I trigger onblur from a ul li?

Question

I am essentially highlighting each li when clicked, and want to "un-highlight" the clicked li when clicking elsewhere or tabbing out (by effecting the background-color property).

This behavior would essentially be emulating <select> in its' highlighting behavior... I'm not using select though, because I want to nest HTML inside the listed items  --  you can't do this with <option>.

I'm attempting to use onblur, which is not working...

Here is the HTML:

<ul id = "list">
    <li>asdf</li>
    <li>qwerty</li>
<ul>

...here is the CSS:

    #list {
        list-style-type: none;
    }

...and here is the jQuery/Javascript:

    function getEventTarget(e) {
        e = e || window.event;
        return e.target || e.srcElement; 
    }

    function highlightSelection(selection) {
        alert("It worked!");
        $(selection).css("background-color","#FFFF00");
    }

    // this function is not being triggered:
    function removeHighlight(selection) {
        $(selection).css("background-color","none");
    }

    var ul = document.getElementById("list");

    ul.onclick = function(event) {
        var target = getEventTarget(event);
        highlightSelection(target);
    };

    // this event is not working:
    ul.onblur = function(event) {
        var target = getEventTarget(event);
        removeHighlight(target);
    };

Walters

Answer 1

Since you're already using JQuery...

<ul id = "list">
     <li tabindex="1">asdf</li>
     <li tabindex="2">qwerty</li>
 <ul>


var ul = $("#list");
ul.on('click focus','li',function(){
    $(this)
        .css("background-color","#FFFF00")
        .siblings().css('background','');
}).on('blur','li',function(){
    $(this).css('background','');
});

http://jsfiddle.net/mc4tN/2/

I wasn't sure of what effect you wanted when you tab away from a list item... It seems you would just want to leave it highlighted. You can add focus-ability to your list items by giving them a tabindex attribute.

Aerology

That's awesome, thanks @Bluetoft! How might I do this using addClass and removeClass instead of css? – Walters

Ok nevermind, I got it -- $(this).addClass("highlighted").sibling().removeClass("highlighted"); in the contents of ul.on('click focus'... instead, where "highlighted" is a CSS class. – Walters

Answer 2

The lis don't blur because they don't focus. Try with mouseout or mouseleave.

Huggins

Thanks @Dek Dekku for the quick reply, is it possible to set the focus on the clicked li? – Walters

Now that I'm looking better, you're actually setting the listener on the ul. – Huggins

Okay, so I almost got it -- adding the attribute tabindex = "1" to ul, or whatever integer assignment, will give li's focus. However, this trick does not allow only one li to be highlighted at a time. – Walters

call the removeHighlight method from highlightSelection to remove highlight on the previoously selected item, them set it on the new target. – Huggins

Thanks again @Dek Dekku, do you mean to access the previously assigned target variable from the removeHighlight method? – Walters

Yes, you can save it (I guess a global variable would do for now, but protecting the scope with a closure would be better) and call the method on it. Otherwise, rewrite the remove method to remove the class from all the "li"s rather than just the target: that's less efficient, but more bulletproof. – Huggins