Question

How can I select the first 5 random elements

<ul>
    <li>First</li>
    <li>Second</li>
    <li>Third</li>
     ...
    <li>N</li>
</ul>

I’m using this plugin:

alert($("li:random").text());

but it takes all random elements. I only want the first 5.

Is there another way to do the same thing?

Answer 1

Here’s how to get 5 random elements from a jQuery selection, no need of plugins!

randomElements = jQuery("li").get().sort(function(){ 
  return Math.round(Math.random())-0.5
}).slice(0,5)

At this point you have 5 DomElements that have been selected randomly from all the LIs that jQuery returned

You can then do whatever you like with them,
e.g change their color:

$(randomElements).css("color","red")

or display their combined text contents:

$(randomElements).text()