Unsure why jQuery .prev() is not working

Question

What I am trying to do is, when I hover over a link, make its right border change colour as well as make the previous link's border change colour.

<div id="navbar">
    <ul>
        <li><a href="#">News</a></li>
        <li><a href="#">Gigs</a></li>
        <li><a href="#">Gallery</a></li>
        <li><a href="#">About</a></li>
        <li><a href="#">Contact</a></li>
        <li><a href="#">Social</a></li>
    </ul>
</div>

And here's the JavaScript:

$("li a").hover(function() {
     $(this).animate({
         color: '#0099FF',
         borderRightColor: '#0099FF'
     }, 500);

     $(this).prev().animate({borerRightColor: '#0099FF'}, 500); 

}, function() {
    $(this).animate({
        color: '#FFFFFF',
        borderRightColor: '#FFFFFF'
    }, 500);

    $(this).prev().animate({borerRightColor: '#FFFFFF'}, 500);      
});

Any help or advice would be appreciated, thanks!

Answer 1

The selector li a selects each <a> element. .prev() selects the previous sibling, not the "previous element in the collection," and there is no previous element for the <a> s because they have no siblings, only parents. Try this instead:

$(this).closest('li').prev().children().animate(...);

Also, you've used borerRightColor instead of borderRightColor .

Answer 2

From the documentation for .prev() :

Description: Get the immediately preceding sibling of each element in the set of matched elements, optionally filtered by a selector.

The links are not siblings.

$("li").hover(function() { 
        $(this).children().animate({
                    color: '#0099FF',
                    borderRightColor: '#0099FF'
                        }, 500);
        $(this).prev().children().animate({borerRightColor: '#0099FF'}, 500);    
}, function () {    
        $(this).children().animate({
                    color: '#FFFFFF',
                    borderRightColor: '#FFFFFF'
                        }, 500);
        $(this).prev().children().animate({borerRightColor: '#FFFFFF'}, 500);    
});

Here's a demo on jsFiddle . I put the hover on the <li> while I was at it so you aren't traversing all over the place.

Answer 3

The this context refers to the <a> element being hovered, not the <li> . The <a> element doesn't have a previous sibling.

Use the parent method to access the <li> :

$(this).parent()......