Question

I am trying to have a form of text inputs. All inputs will in an ordered list OL/LI structure.
There will be a + symbol next to the input that when you click on it, it should create a sub-OL and make a secondary list with another input. If you click it again, it adds another input. The new inputs have + symbols as well and you can do the same thing. I only technically want it to go three deep, but I think I can figure that part out later on, but what I’m really after is how to make this happen.

I have a beginning phase of it, but it’s duplicating too much of the LI and I’m not sure what’s going on.
This is what I have.

    $('.add_sub_page').live('click',function(e){
    $("<ol>").append($(this).parent().clone()).insertAfter(this);
    e.preventDefault();
});

I brought this up an IRC chat room and I was provided with this solution, but it has the same issue as my first solution, so I’m not sure if it’s easier to work with or not, so I will provide it as well.

    $('.add_sub_page').live('click',function(e){
    var ol = $("ol",this), new_ol = ol.length ? false : true;

    ol = new_ol ? $("<ol>") : ol;

    ol.append($(this).parent().clone());

    if (new_ol) {
        ol.insertAfter(this);
    }

    e.preventDefault();
});

And just so you can see what HTML I am working with…

<form id="sitemap" action="" method="post">
<ol>
    <li class="page-title"><label>Page Name: </label><input type="text" name="pages[]" value=""><a class="add_sub_page">+</a></li>
    <li class="page-title"><label>Page Name: </label><input type="text" name="pages[]" value=""><a class="add_sub_page">+</a></li>
    <li class="page-title"><label>Page Name: </label><input type="text" name="pages[]" value=""><a class="add_sub_page">+</a></li>
    <li class="page-title"><label>Page Name: </label><input type="text" name="pages[]" value=""><a class="add_sub_page">+</a></li>
    <li class="page-title"><label>Page Name: </label><input type="text" name="pages[]" value=""><a class="add_sub_page">+</a></li>
</ol>
<p><input type="submit" name="submit_step1" value="Next Step"></p>
</form>

You can preview the issue at http://jsbin.com/everu3 — click the same Plus (+) sign twice to see the issue.

Thanks for any help you can provide!

Answer 1

You just need to remove those child <ol> elements you added earlier when appending, like this:

$('.add_sub_page').live('click',function(e){
  $("<ol>").append($(this).parent().clone().children('ol').remove().end())
           .insertAfter(this);
  e.preventDefault();
});​

You can give it a try here, all we’re doing different is when you’re cloning it looks for .children() that are <ol> elements, perform a .remove() on them from the cloned set and use .end() to hop back up the chain to the original cloned element, since that’s the one you want to append.

---

Edit: The original version created an <ol> per, to get the current numbering, we need one <ol> beside the <a> we’re clicking. To do that change it up a bit like this:

$('.add_sub_page').live('click',function(e){
  $(this).parent(':not(:has(ol))').append('<ol></ol>');
  $(this).next().append($(this).parent().clone().children('ol').remove().end());
  e.preventDefault();
});​

Give it a try here. What this does is it goes to the parent, only if it doesn’t have a <ol> and appends an <ol> (if it already has one the .append() wouldn’t run in anything). Then we’re just looking for that <ol> which should be the .next() element and appending to it.

Also here’s a slightly modified version that stops at 3 levels:

$('.add_sub_page').live('click',function(e){
  $(this).parent(':not(:has(ol))').append('<ol></ol>').end()
         .next().append($(this).parent().clone().children('ol').remove().end());
  if($(this).parents('.page-title').length == 2)
     $(this).next().find('.add_sub_page').remove();
  e.preventDefault();
});​