Making jQuery's .prev().prev().prev().find("selector") calls easier

Question

How can I avoid the .prev().prev().prev() calls? Is there a shortcut for this?

Answer 1

You can use .prevAll, combined with eq or :eq, since prevAll returns a set of element in the reverse order starting with the element that's closest to the current element being [0], the equivalent to .prev().prev().prev() would be .prevAll().eq(2) or .prevAll(':eq(2)').

See this simple demo: http://www.jsfiddle.net/QZYHN/