removing div from a jquery sortable

Question

Hi guys,

I've developed a "Google-Maps-like" user interface for my intranet where users can add steps to calculated routes and distances. I'm using sortable divs to reorder steps. Now I want to remove steps, but my JavaScript/jQuery code doesn't work at all. Can you help me?

My jQuery code:

$(document).ready(function() {
        $("#sortable").sortable();
        $("#sortable").disableSelection();
});



    function addStep() {
        var temp = $('.template').clone();
        $(temp).removeClass("template");
        $(temp).addClass("sort");
        $('#sortable').append(temp);

    }
    function removeStep() {

        $(this).closest('div.sort').remove();
        $("#sortable").sortable('refresh');
    }

And my HTML:

//template to add new step
 <div class="template">
        <input type="text" name="addressN" value="" class="address" />
        <input type="button" class="remove" value="Remove" onclick="removeStep();" />
    </div>
//sortable list of step
    <div id="sortable">
        <div class="sort">
            <input type="text" name="Start" value="" class="address" />
        </div>
        <div class="sort">
            <input type="text" name="End" value="" class="address" />
        </div>
    </div>
    <input type="submit" value="Get Route!" onclick="showLocation(); return false;" />
    <input type="submit" value="Add Step" onclick="addStep(); return false;" />

Thanks in advance!

Answer 1

There’s something wrong with your addStep() function. I’ll try to explain by adding some comments to your original code:

function addStep() {
 // Here, you store a reference to the jQuery Object containing the clone in the var temp.
 var temp = $('.template').clone();
 // Here, you wrap temp (which already is a jQuery Object) inside $().
 // Fix: replace '$(temp)' by 'temp'
 $(temp).removeClass('template');
 $(temp).addClass('sort');
 $('#sortable').append(temp);
}

After fixing this, plus some additional optimizations, this becomes:

function addStep() {
 $('.template').clone().removeClass('template').addClass('sort').appendTo('#sortable');
}

---

Also, your removeStep() function incorrectly uses this. You probably want to do the following:

$.fn.removeStep = function() {
 // `this` is now a reference to the jQuery Object on which `.removeStep()` was invoked 
 this.closest('div.sort').remove();
 $('#sortable').sortable('refresh');
 // Allow chaining
 return this;
}

Now, you can omit the onclick="removeStep();" from your HTML template, and use something like this in jQuery:

$('.remove').live('click', function() {
 $(this).removeStep();
}