How to Auto Refresh a Div Without Reloading the Page Using JavaScript

Learn how to add interactivity to your website by using JavaScript to highlight and automatically remove styles from elements without refreshing the entire page.
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Introduction

If you’re working on a web project and you want to enhance user experience, it’s crucial to know how to create dynamic interactions. One challenge many developers face, especially beginners, is how to refresh an element (like a div) on a page without reloading the entire webpage. In this guide, we will tackle this very problem by maintaining styles dynamically with JavaScript. By the end of this guide, you’ll understand how to highlight an element when interacting with navigation items, and remove that highlight after a few seconds.

The Problem

A user reached out for help with a particular situation: they wanted to highlight a specific image element when a navigation link is clicked and then automatically remove that highlight after a few seconds. They were baffled about how to accomplish this without refreshing the whole page.

The Solution Explained

To achieve this effect, we can use a combination of JavaScript and CSS. Here's a step-by-step breakdown of how we can implement this:

Step 1: Set Up Your HTML

Start with the HTML part that includes an image and navigation links. Here’s a simplified version of what this would look like:

[[See Video to Reveal this Text or Code Snippet]]

Step 2: Style the Highlight

Now we have the HTML setup, we need to create a CSS class that provides the highlight effect. Add the following CSS to your stylesheet:

[[See Video to Reveal this Text or Code Snippet]]

Step 3: Implement the JavaScript Functionality

Now, let’s write the JavaScript that will handle the click event and apply the highlight class. Here’s the code you need:

[[See Video to Reveal this Text or Code Snippet]]

Explanation of the JavaScript Code

Get the Image: We first gather the image element using getElementById.

Event Listener: We add an event listener to each of the navigation links that calls the dance function when clicked.

Highlight: When a link is clicked, the dance function adds a highlight class to the image, triggering the CSS animation.

Remove Highlight: A setTimeout is set for one second, after which the highlight class is removed, returning the image to its original state.

Conclusion

By following these steps, you’ve successfully created an interactive component that enhances the user experience without needing to refresh the entire webpage. This approach not only keeps your application responsive but also demonstrates a fundamental concept of JavaScript and how it interacts with HTML and CSS.

Feel free to tweak the timing and the styles to fit your project's needs. Happy coding!