I have the following code that I wrote, which I personally found to be pretty nice. It takes a <ul> and it drops down the contents when clicked. But I am having a disconnect here in comprehension, and one I had to do what I feel is a 'dirty hack' to solve.

The problem is that I do not want the class `'sidebar-dropdown-open' to be so 'hardwired' in the plugin. However I discovered that there is a very stark difference between...

$('.sidebar-dropdown-open') and 'sidebar-dropdown-open and even '.sidebar-dropdown-open.

I 'solved' this problem by including two different 'parameters' in my plugin, but I was wondering if someone might give me some insight as to how I could perform this better, and why this was behaving this way.

wiring (document load)

$(document).ready(function () {
                $('[data-role="sidebar-dropdown"]').drawer({
                    open: 'sidebar-dropdown-open',
                    css: '.sidebar-dropdown-open'
                });
        });

html

<ul>
    <li class=" dropdown" data-role="sidebar-dropdown">
        <a href="pages/.." class="remote">Link Text</a>
        <ul class="sub-menu light sidebar-dropdown-menu">
            <li><a class="remote" href="pages/...">Link Text</a></li>
            <li><a class="remote" href="pages/...">Link Text</a></li>
            <li><a class="remote" href="pages/...">Link Text</a></li>
        </ul>
    </li>
</ul>

javascript

(function ($) {
    $.fn.drawer = function (options) {
        // Create some defaults, extending them with any options that were provided
        var settings = $.extend({
            open: 'open',
            css: '.open'
        }, options);

        return this.each(function () {
            $(this).on('click', function (e) {
                // slide up all open dropdown menus
                $(settings.css).not($(this)).each(function () {
                    $(this).removeClass(settings.open);
                    // retrieve the appropriate menu item
                    var $menu = $(this).children(".dropdown-menu, .sidebar-dropdown-menu");
                    // slide down the one clicked on.
                    $menu.slideUp('fast');
                    $menu.removeClass('active');
                });


                // mark this menu as open
                $(this).addClass(settings.open);

                // retrieve the appropriate menu item
                var $menu = $(this).children(".dropdown-menu, .sidebar-dropdown-menu");
                // slide down the one clicked on.
                $menu.slideDown(100);
                $menu.addClass('active');
                e.preventDefault();
                e.stopPropagation();

            }).on("mouseleave", function () {
                $(this).children(".dropdown-menu").hide().delay(300);
            });
        })
    };

})(jQuery);

I have tried using settings.open and demanding that it just be a className (.open), etc. - but that does not seem to work. It seems to get ignored by the removeClass function.