Question

I have a widget in which I can drop items into a trash can. I want to be able to add a unique ID to each item dropped in the trash can at the drop event. How can I do this and is there a way to have the output value the actual name of the list item? Thanks! Below is my code:

    $(function() {
    var $gallery = $( "#gallery" ),
        $trash = $( "#trash" );


    $( "li", $gallery ).draggable({
        cancel: "a.ui-icon", 
        revert: "invalid", 
        containment: $( "#demo-frame" ).length ? "#demo-frame" : "document", // stick to demo-frame if present
        helper: "clone",
        cursor: "move"
    });


    $trash.droppable({
        accept: "#gallery > li",
        activeClass: "ui-state-highlight",
        drop: function( event, ui ) {
            deleteImage( ui.draggable );
        }
    });

    $gallery.droppable({
        accept: "#trash li",
        activeClass: "custom-state-active",
        drop: function( event, ui ) {
            recycleImage( ui.draggable );
        }
    });

HTML

 <div class="demo ui-widget ui-helper-clearfix">

<ul id="gallery" class="gallery ui-helper-reset ui-helper-clearfix">
    <li class="ui-widget-content ui-corner-tr" a href="link/to/trash/script/when/we/have/js/off">
        <h5 class="fpheader">Red</h5>   

    </li>
    <li class="ui-widget-content ui-corner-tr">
        <h5 class="fpheader">Orange</h5>

    </li>
    <li class="ui-widget-content ui-corner-tr">
        <h5 class="fpheader"Yellow</h5>
    </li>
    <li class="ui-widget-content ui-corner-tr">
        <h5 class="fpheader">Green</h5>
    </li>
    <li class="ui-widget-content ui-corner-tr">
        <h5 class="fpheaderr">Blue</h5>
    </li>
    <li class="ui-widget-content ui-corner-tr">
        <h5 class="fpheader">Purple</h5>
    </li>
    <li class="ui-widget-content ui-corner-tr">
        <h5 class="fpheader">White</h5>

    </li>
</ul>

</div>

Answer 1

You can create a unique ID by using a date object like so

var uniqueId = new Date().getTime();

To get the name of the list item, you can access it in the drop event

var listNameId = ui.draggable.children('.fpheader').text().toLowerCase();

You can access the cloned item from the UI object

ui.helper

You can access the original item from the UI object

ui.draggable

The example below adds a unique ID to the cloned item

$trash.droppable({
    accept: "#gallery > li",
    activeClass: "ui-state-highlight",
    drop: function( event, ui ) {
        // unique ID based on ID
        var uniqueId = new Date().getTime();
        // set unique ID to cloned list item
        ui.helper.attr('id', uniqueId);
        deleteImage( ui.draggable );
    }
});

The example below adds a list name to the original item

$trash.droppable({
    accept: "#gallery > li",
    activeClass: "ui-state-highlight",
    drop: function( event, ui ) {
        // list item text, i.e "white"
        var listNameId = ui.draggable.children('.fpheader').text().toLowerCase();
        // set list name ID to orriginal list item
        ui.draggable.attr('id', listNameId);
        deleteImage( ui.draggable );
    }
});