Need to replace +/- characters with html codes (fo

I have a fairly mundane piece jQuery that toggles a div's visibility when a + is clicked and hides it when a - is clicked (the + changes to a - when clicked). The problem is that the +/- toggler follows some text that sometimes has a + or - in it and both toggle. For instance: Find out more about blah-blah +. When clicked, the plus changes to a minus. When clicked again, both minuses change to pluses.

I thought if i just changed the + to a + and a minus to a &#8212; in the jquery it would solve the problem, but it doesn't work. The div visibility toggles on/off but the plus/minus symbols don't change.

Here is the script:

function toggleSpecial(element)
{
    jQuery(element).next(".hidden").slideToggle("fast"); 
    jQuery(element).html(function(i,html) {
        if (html.indexOf('+') != -1 ){
           html = html.replace('+','-');
        } else {
           html = html.replace('-','+');
        }
        return html;
    });
}

Here is the script with HTML codes replacing the + and - which doesn't work.

function toggleSpecial(element)
{
    jQuery(element).next(".hidden").slideToggle("fast"); 
    jQuery(element).html(function(i,html) {
        if (html.indexOf('&#43;') != -1 ){
           html = html.replace('&#43;','&#8212;');
        } else {
           html = html.replace('&#8212;','&#43;');
        }
        return html;
    });
}

Any ideas about what I am doing wrong or suggestions? Thanks!

You're basing your visibility toggling off of something totally arbitrary. Why not just see if it's visible or not? Additionally, you can just wrap the character in a span and then do something like this:

$('#iamelement').click(function() {
    var $this = $(this);
    $this.next(".hidden").slideToggle("fast", function() {
        $this.find('span').text($(this).is(':visible') ? '-' : '+');
    }); 
});

This would be for something like this:

<a href="#" id="iamelement">toggle thing <span>+</span></a>
<div class="hidden">
    thing
</div>

The proof is in the fiddle: http://jsfiddle.net/rFeeJ/1/

ADDITIONS: To make it generic, you need to use classes instead of IDs. I was merely trying to be illustrative.

<a href="#" class="toggler">toggle thing <span>+</span></a>
<div class="hidden">
    thing
</div>
<a href="#" class="toggler">toggle thing 2 <span>+</span></a>
<div class="hidden">
    thing 2 
</div>
<a href="#" class="toggler">toggle thing 3 <span>+</span></a>
<div class="hidden">
    thing 3
</div>

$('a.toggler').click(function() {
    var $this = $(this);
    $this.next(".hidden").slideToggle("fast", function() {
        $this.find('span').text($(this).is(':visible') ? '-' : '+');
    }); 
});