How do I change HTML table cell color on click

Question

I'm trying to change the background color of an HTML table cell when the user clicks on the cell. Any ideas on how to do this? I have access to the JS Prototype library, so any suggestions for Prototype or straight Javascript would be welcome.

Answer 1

Ugly, but demonstrates the effect:

  <table>
    <tr>
        <td onclick="this.style.backgroundColor = 'Red';">Sample</td>
        <td onclick="this.style.backgroundColor = 'Blue';">Data</td>
    </tr>
  </table>

Answer 2

I'm not well versed in the Prototype framework, but here's some raw Javascript that'll do what you're looking for:

var table = document.getElementsByTagName('table')[0];
if(table) table.onclick = function(e) {
    var target = (e || window.event).target;
    if (target.tagName in {TD:1, TH:1})
        target.setAttribute('style', 'background-color: #F00');
};​

Test it on jsFiddle

Answer 3

You could loop over all the children of the table and add an click event to them

with prototype the code is:

$('your_table').observe('click', function(event) {
  var clickedCell = event.findElement('td');
  if (clickedCell) {
   clickedCell.setStyle({ background: '#dfd' });
  }
});