jQuery tabs - getting newly selected index

javascript, jquery, jquery-plugins, jquery-ui, jquery-ui-tabs

Solution

I would take a look at the events for Tabs. The following is taken from the jQuery docs:

 $('.ui-tabs-nav').bind('tabsselect', function(event, ui) {
     ui.options // options used to intialize this widget
     ui.tab // anchor element of the selected (clicked) tab
     ui.panel // element, that contains the contents of the selected (clicked) tab
     ui.index // zero-based index of the selected (clicked) tab
 });

Looks like ui.tab is the way to go.

Problem

I've previously used `jquery-ui tabs` extension to load page fragments via `ajax`, and to conceal or reveal hidden `div`s within a page. Both of these methods are well documented, and I've had no problems there. Now, however, I want to do something different with tabs. When the user selects a tab, it should reload the page entirely - the reason for this is that the contents of each tabbed section are somewhat expensive to render, so I don't want to just send them all at once and use the normal method of toggling 'display:none' to reveal them. My plan is to intercept the tabs' `select` event, and have that function reload the page with by manipulating document.location. How, in the `select` handler, can I get the newly selected tab index and the html LI object it corresponds to? ``` $('#edit_tabs').tabs( { selected: 2, // which tab to start on when page loads select: function(e, ui) { var t = $(e.target); // alert("data is " + t.data('load.tabs')); // undef // alert("data is " + ui.data('load.tabs')); // undef // This gives a numeric index... alert( "selected is " + t.data('selected.tabs') ) // ... but it's the index of the PREVIOUSLY selected tab, not the // one the user is now choosing. return true; // eventual goal is: // ... document.location= extract-url-from(something); return false; } }); ``` Is there an attribute of the event or ui object that I can read that will give the index, id, or object of the newly selected tab or the anchor tag within it? Or is there a better way altogether to use tabs to reload the entire page?

Original source