Understanding Unexpected Behavior When Changing background-color in JavaScript Click Events

Learn why your div's background color doesn't change as expected on click events in JavaScript and how to fix it effectively. --- This video is based on the question https://stackoverflow.com/q/66700188/ asked by the user 'Calculon' ( https://stackoverflow.com/u/15358170/ ) and on the answer https://stackoverflow.com/a/66700251/ provided by the user 'Wendelin' ( https://stackoverflow.com/u/7448536/ ) at 'Stack Overflow' website. Thanks to these great users and Stackexchange community for their contributions. Visit these links for original content and any more details, such as alternate solutions, latest updates/developments on topic, comments, revision history etc. For example, the original title of the Question was: Changing background color of a div in click event gives unexpected (or is it expected?) result Also, Content (except music) licensed under CC BY-SA https://meta.stackexchange.com/help/l... The original Question post is licensed under the 'CC BY-SA 4.0' ( https://creativecommons.org/licenses/... ) license, and the original Answer post is licensed under the 'CC BY-SA 4.0' ( https://creativecommons.org/licenses/... ) license. If anything seems off to you, please feel free to write me at vlogize [AT] gmail [DOT] com. --- Understanding Unexpected Behavior When Changing background-color in JavaScript Click Events Have you ever encountered situations in your JavaScript projects where a simple click event seems to create unexpected results? If you've been working on a game or interactive web application, you might have come across a scenario like this: the background color of an element doesn't change as you intended, leading to an unexpected styling result. In this guide, we’ll explore why this happens and how you can resolve it in your own code. The Problem: Why Isn’t the Background Color Changing as Expected? Imagine you're developing a word guessing game, and you've created a visual keyboard for users to interact with. When a player clicks a letter, you want the letter's background color to change based on whether the guess was correct or incorrect: Correct Guess: Light green background Incorrect Guess: Grey background However, the background color sometimes seems to overlay the default without completely replacing it—leaving an unstyled box that looks odd and unprofessional. What’s going wrong here? Root Cause of the Issue The issue stems from how you're targeting the elements in the click event handler. Specifically, you're using e.target to access the clicked element, which might not actually be the parent element (the one with the letter class). Instead, it could be a child element within the target, like a <p> tag containing the letter. Since events bubble up through the DOM (Document Object Model), the target element might not always be the element you expect. This discrepancy can lead to styles not being applied correctly, resulting in the “unexpected” behavior you're seeing. The Solution: Using e.currentTarget To achieve the expected result, you should replace e.target with e.currentTarget. The e.currentTarget property refers to the element to which the event handler is attached, allowing you to ensure that the correct class styles and properties are modified. Here’s how you can adjust your event handler: [[See Video to Reveal this Text or Code Snippet]] Key Changes Made Replaced e.target with e.currentTarget: This ensures you are modifying the styling for the correct element, the one to which the event handler was added. Event Handling Logic Remains: The logic checking if the clicked letter was correct or not stays the same, ensuring that the game functionality operates seamlessly. CSS Style Considerations In conjunction with the JavaScript changes, make sure your CSS styles are correctly set up to ensure the game's visual elements remain appealing. Here's a brief overview of what your CSS might look like: [[See Video to Reveal this Text or Code Snippet]] Conclusion By utilizing e.currentTarget in your JavaScript code, you can ensure that your click events act on the intended elements and achieve the visual feedback you desire in your game. With these adjustments, your letters will toggle colors correctly as users click them, enhancing the overall user experience of your word guessing game. Hopefully, this helps clarify the underlying issue and the solution! Happy coding!