Change background color on click using JavaScript

Table of Contents #

Change the pages's background color on click #

To change the page's background color on click:

Add a click event listener to an element.
Each time the element is clicked, set the document.body.style.backgroundColor property to a specific color.

Here is the HTML for the example in this article.

index.html

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<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
  <head>
    <meta charset="UTF-8" />
  </head>

  <body>
    <div id="box">Some text here</div>
    <button id="btn">Button</button>

    <script src="index.js"></script>
  </body>
</html>

And here is the related JavaScript code.

index.js

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const btn = document.getElementById('btn');

btn.addEventListener('click', function onClick(event) {
  // 👇️ change background color
  document.body.style.backgroundColor = 'salmon';

  // 👇️ optionally change text color
  // document.body.style.color = 'white';
});

We added a click event listener to the button, so a function is invoked every time the button is clicked.

Each time the button is clicked, we set the document.body.style.backgroundColor property to salmon and change the page's background color.

Change the element's background color on click #

To change an element's background color on click:

Add a click event listener to the element.
Assign the event object to a variable in the function.
Set the event.target.style.backgroundColor property to the specific background color.

index.js

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const btn = document.getElementById('btn');

btn.addEventListener('click', function onClick(event) {
  // 👇️ change background color
  event.target.style.backgroundColor = 'salmon';

  // 👇️ optionally change text color
  // event.target.style.color = 'white';
});

Every time the button from the example is clicked, its own background color gets set.

In the example, we used the target property on the event object. The target property is a reference to the object (element) on which the event was dispatched.

In other words event.target gives us access to the DOM element the user clicked.

You can console.log the target property to see the DOM element which was clicked by the user.

index.js

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const btn = document.getElementById('btn');

btn.addEventListener('click', function onClick(event) {
  console.log(event.target);

  // 👇️ change background color
  event.target.style.backgroundColor = 'salmon';

  // 👇️ optionally change text color
  // event.target.style.color = 'white';
});

If you click on the button and look at your console output, you'll see the button element being logged.

Change another element's background color on click #

To change another element's background color on click:

Add a click event listener to one of the elements.
Each time the element is clicked, change the style.backgroundColor property of the other element.

Here is the HTML for the example.

index.html

Copied!
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
  <head>
    <meta charset="UTF-8" />
  </head>

  <body>
    <div id="box">Some text here</div>
    <button id="btn">Button</button>

    <script src="index.js"></script>
  </body>
</html>

And here is the related JavaScript code.

index.js

Copied!
const btn = document.getElementById('btn');

btn.addEventListener('click', function onClick(event) {
  const box = document.getElementById('box');

  box.style.backgroundColor = 'coral';

  // 👇️ optionally change text color
  // box.style.color = 'white';
});

Each time the button is clicked, we change the div's background color to coral.

Change background color on click using JavaScript

Table of Contents #

Change the pages's background color on click #

Change the element's background color on click #

Change another element's background color on click #

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Borislav Hadzhiev