How can I highlight a selected list item with jquery?

Question

I have several items in a list and want to highlight the one a user clicks on by applying some css style, maybe a background color etc.

My HTML looks like this:

Answer 1

If you don't need the active to be persistent here's a CSS way:

li:focus{
  background: red;
}
li:active{
  background: gold;
}

  
Item 1
  
Item 2
  
Item 3


Now click here and see why it's not persistent.

in some situations the above might be useful - to only highlight the currently "click-active" item…