Creating a Next button for switching through jQuery tabs

Question

How can I create a button that will scroll to the next jQuery tab. I want to have a next button within the tabs that will scroll to the next tab, sort of like a step-by-step tutorial.

How can this be done? My code so far is below.

HTML

<div id="tabs">
    <ul>
        <li><a href="#fragment-1"><span>One</span></a></li>
        <li><a href="#fragment-2"><span>Two</span></a></li>
        <li><a href="#fragment-3"><span>Three</span></a></li>
    </ul>
    <div id="fragment-1">
        <p>First tab is active by default:</p> <a href="nexttab">Next Tab</a>
    </div>
    <div id="fragment-2">Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit, sed diam nonummy nibh</div>
    <div id="fragment-3">Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit, sed diam nonummy nibh</div>
</div>

JS

$(document).ready(function () {
    $("#tabs").tabs();
});

Answer 1

You can use the selected option to move around, like this:

$(".nexttab").click(function() {
    var selected = $("#tabs").tabs("option", "selected");
    $("#tabs").tabs("option", "selected", selected + 1);
});

Just change your anchor to match, like this:

<a class="nexttab" href="#">Next Tab</a>

You can view a demo here

---

Alternatively, make each "Next Tab" link point to a specific tab and use the select method, like this:

<a class="nexttab" href="#fragment-2">Next Tab</a>

Then you can use a bit shorter jQuery, and move to any tab you want:

$(".nexttab").click(function() {
    $("#tabs").tabs("select", this.hash);
});

Here's a demo of this approach

Answer 2

I found that with UI 1.10.0 this solution no longer works, as "selected" was deprecated. The following will work in both 1.10 and earlier versions-

$("#tabs").tabs();
$(".nexttab").click(function() {
    var active = $( "#tabs" ).tabs( "option", "active" );
    $( "#tabs" ).tabs( "option", "active", active + 1 );

});