prevent all elements within a div from being selected. \

Question

i am trying to prevent all elements within a div from being selected. this is not working.

$('*').not('#someid > *')

Answer 1

Use filter():

$("*").filter(function() {
    return !$(this).closest("#someid").length;
})

...actually doing some more testing, this should also work:

$("*:not(#someid *)")

Answer 2

The only problem with your approach is that you're asking for immediate children. If you remove the > it should work fine:

$('*').not('#someid *');