Question : Jquery Simple tabs

Hi,
I have to do a highly customized tabbed interface. I *dont* want to use the Jquery ui tabs - they're nice, but I need to do my own.
I am looking for ideas on how to implement this.

I am going to do something like:

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<div class="tabs">
  <ul>
      <li><a class='tab1_link' href='#'>Tab 1</a></li>
      <li><a class='tab2_link' href='#'>Tab 2</a></li>
      <li><a class='tab3_link' href='#'>Tab 3</a></li>
  </ul>
  <div class='tab1' >content for tab 1</div>
  <div class='tab2' >content for tab 2</div>
  <div class='tab3' >content for tab 3</div>
</div>

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$('.tab2').hide();
$('.tab3').hide();

$('.tab1_link').click(function(e){
  $('.tab1').show()
  $('.tab1').siblings().hide()
  e.preventDefault();
})

$('.tab2_link').click(function(e){
  $('.tab2').show()
  $('.tab2').siblings().hide()
  e.preventDefault();
})

$('.tab3_link').click(function(e){
  $('.tab3').show()
  $('.tab3').siblings().hide()
  e.preventDefault();
})

This is just my initial idea, the problem is that it doesnt scale - for every link I'd have to write a new function. The problem is that I don't know how to match a tabs link to a particular content div in a programmatic way.

Can anyone suggest a better way of achieving the above??

Cheers
John

Answer : Jquery Simple tabs

The way to match tab links to divs is to use the rel attribute of the anchor tag and the id of the div.

This should work as a rough version. You'd probably want to add styling so it's clear which tab is selected and which ones are not.

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<div class="tabs">
  <ul>
      <li><a class='tab_link' rel='tab1' href='#'>Tab 1</a></li>
      <li><a class='tab_link' rel='tab2' href='#'>Tab 2</a></li>
      <li><a class='tab_link' rel='tab3' href='#'>Tab 3</a></li>
  </ul>
  <div id='tab1' class='tab'>content for tab 1</div>
  <div id='tab2' class='tab'>content for tab 2</div>
  <div id='tab3' class='tab'>content for tab 3</div>
</div>

$('tab_link').click(function(e){
  $this = $(this);  // this is the link that was clicked.
  // hide all tabs.
  $(".tab").hide();
  $('#' + $this.attr('rel').val() ).show();  // show the clicked tab.
  e.preventDefault();
})