The outerHTML property (IE only) could sometimes be very handy, especially if you're trying to replace an element entirely. Brandon Aaron has very kindly given us a outerHTML plugin that does half the job as it doesn't support replacements. The following code snippet fills in the blanks:
jQuery.fn.outerHTML = function(s) {
return (s)
? this.before(s).remove()
: jQuery("<p>").append(this.eq(0).clone()).html();
}
To get the outerHTML value of an element do this...
$('#myTag').outerHTML();
To replace #myTag entirely do this...
$('#myTag').outerHTML("<p>My brand new #myTag.</p>");
Hope this helps someone 
Update: There's now a demo page.
Hey Ca Phun!
Just wanted to let you know I found another implementation of outerHTML some days ago, while working with the SVG suff, and it also defines the setter, seems pretty robust (I used it).
Look here: http://webfx.eae.net/dhtml/ieemu/htmlmodel.html
Cheers
Thanks Paul. Definitely interesting to see how others are implementing this. Being able to do this.outerHTML = value is certainly much more elegant
What’s wring with good old DOM manipulation?
jQuery.fn.outerHTML = function() {
return $(this)[0].outerHTML;
};
Answer: incompatible across browsers.
Thanks for this great code…
Thanks for the help this is very useful.
The clone function might come in handy as an alternative
http://docs.jquery.com/Manipulation/clone
@drew: I think the replaceWith is a closer alternative:
http://docs.jquery.com/Manipulation/replaceWith
As I remember that wasn’t around when I made this post.
I like your implementation. Nice Job.