Event Selector Showdown

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Simple Challenge: Find all the LI elements underneath two different elements (using their #ID as reference) and bind a click handler which changes the color of the LI’s text. Here is how you would do that in all of the popular event/selector libraries.

Behaviour + Prototype

Behaviour.register({
  '#item li': function(element) {
    Event.observe(element, 'click', function(event) {
      Event.element(element).setStyle({color: '#c00'});
    });
  },
    
  '#otheritem li': function(element) {
    Event.observe(element, 'click', function(event) {
      Event.element(element).setStyle({color: '#c00'});
    });
  }
});

Prototype 1.5.0

$$('#item li, #otheritem li').each(function(li){
  Event.observe(li, 'click', function(event) {
    Event.element(li).setStyle({color: '#c00'});
  });
});

event:Selectors

EventSelectors.start({
  '#item li:click, #otheritem li:click': function(){
    this.setStyle({'color': '#c00'});
  }
});

jQuery

$("#item li, #otheritem li").click(function(){
  $(this).css('color', '#c00');
});

I like to think that the code speaks for itself, as to which one is the easiest to use and understand. I find it interesting how Prototype is migrating closer to what jQuery has now – while jQuery itself is blasting away with some very cool new stuff. Definitely keep your eyes peeled for new releases, as they’ll be coming soon.

76 thoughts on “Event Selector Showdown”

  13. James on said:

    I realize this is an old article, but I just thought I would point out that with prototype 1.6.0, you can do the following:

    $$(‘#item li, #otheritem li’).invoke(‘observe’, ‘click’, function() {
    $(this).setStyle({color: ‘#c00’});
    });