Animate Link underline on click as opposed to on h

Question

Having trouble getting my head around how I can recreate this effect as an on click as opposed to on hover?

I'm not great with jQuery so having trouble working out how I can trigger this to happen on click. I came across this website to help create the effect I'm going for (Underline Left to Right). The demo can be seen in the following link...

http://bradsknutson.com/blog/css-sliding-underline/

I'm currently using the following js to fade in a div and I want the line to slide in at them same time.

New jsfiddle - http://jsfiddle.net/tfgou78c/4/

JS:

$(function() {
    $('.submit_button').click(function() {
        var elem = $('.form_wrap');
        if (elem.css('display') == 'none') {
            elem.fadeIn(1750);
        }
        else {
            elem.fadeOut(1750);
        }
    });
});

CSS:

.form_wrap {
 display: none;
 }

/* sliding underline LEFT TO RIGHT */
.sliding-u-l-r {
display: inline-block;
}

.sliding-u-l-r:after {
content: '';
display: block;
height: 3px;
width: 0;
background: transparent;
transition: width .5s ease, background-color .5s ease;
}

.sliding-u-l-r:hover:after {
width: 100%;
background: blue;
}

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Answer 1

On click you wouldn't want it to stay would you?
Here's a pure css version that gets underlined on click:

a:active{
  text-decoration:underline;
}
a{
  text-decoration:none;
}

<a href="#">click me and hold!</a>

Answer 2

Something like http://jsfiddle.net/y4wuurt9/ ?

$('.underline-thing').on('click', function(e) {
    e.preventDefault();
    $(this).addClass('lined');
});

.underline-thing {
    position: relative;
    text-decoration: none;
}

.underline-thing:after {
    content: "";
    position: absolute;
    bottom: 0;
    left: 0;
    width: 0;
    height: 3px;
    background: blue;
    -webkit-transition: width 250ms ease-in-out;
    -moz-transition: width 250ms ease-in-out;
    -o-transition: width 250ms ease-in-out;
    transition: width 250ms ease-in-out;
}

.underline-thing.lined:after {
    width: 100%;   
}

<script src="https://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/2.1.1/jquery.min.js"></script>
<a class="underline-thing" href="#">Test Link</a>

Answer 3

Since this method are using the CSS event :hover you can't change that for click just on the code because there is no method for click on CSS. You can have:

1. You tag this with Jquery so you can change the CSS match to:

   .sliding-u-l-r:hover:after
   

   to

   .sliding-u-l-r.clicked:after
   

   And then with Jquery:

   $('.sliding-u-l-r').on('click',function(){
      $(this).toggleClass('clicked');
   })
   

   Check this Demo Fiddle