How to use JavaScript to change div backgroundColor

Answer 1

If you are willing to insert non-semantic nodes into your document, you can do this in a CSS-only IE-compatible manner by wrapping your divs in fake A tags.

<style type="text/css">
  .content {
    background: #ccc;
  }

  .fakeLink { /* This is to make the link not look like one */
    cursor: default;
    text-decoration: none;
    color: #000;
  }

  a.fakeLink:hover .content {
    background: #000;
    color: #fff;
  }

</style>
<div id="catestory">

  <a href="#" onclick="return false();" class="fakeLink">
    <div class="content">
      <h2>some title here</h2>
      <p>some content here</p>
    </div>
  </a>

  <a href="#" onclick="return false();" class="fakeLink">
    <div class="content">
      <h2>some title here</h2>
      <p>some content here</p>
    </div>
  </a>

  <a href="#" onclick="return false();" class="fakeLink">
    <div class="content">
      <h2>some title here</h2>
      <p>some content here</p>
    </div>
  </a>

</div>

Answer 2

var div = document.getElementById( 'div_id' );
div.onmouseover = function() {
  this.style.backgroundColor = 'green';
  var h2s = this.getElementsByTagName( 'h2' );
  h2s[0].style.backgroundColor = 'blue';
};
div.onmouseout = function() {
  this.style.backgroundColor = 'transparent';
  var h2s = this.getElementsByTagName( 'h2' );
  h2s[0].style.backgroundColor = 'transparent';
};

Answer 3

To do this without jQuery or any other library, you'll need to attach onMouseOver and onMouseOut events to each div and change the style in the event handlers.

For example:

var category = document.getElementById("catestory");
for (var child = category.firstChild; child != null; child = child.nextSibling) {
    if (child.nodeType == 1 && child.className == "content") {
        child.onmouseover = function() {
            this.style.backgroundColor = "#FF0000";
        }

        child.onmouseout = function() {
            // Set to transparent to let the original background show through.
            this.style.backgroundColor = "transparent"; 
        }
    }
}

If your h2 has not set its own background, the div background will show through and color it too.