Develop Reference

Changing inner text value of tab through javascript

I'm learning Javascript right now, and attempting to change the text title of a particular tab. It's actually part of a larger Shiny dashboard project, but I want to add some custom functionality to a few tabs. Below are the tabs in question:
Simple enough. I first access my tabs in my Javascript file:
var tabScrub2 = $(document).find('[data-value="scrubTab2"]');
console.log(tabScrub2);
When I use Firefox's developer console, I see that the tab is an object:
Moreover, it looks like I need to change the innerText property of 0, whatever this is, since that corresponds to the title of my tab (the innerText of 1 corresponds to the text inside scrubTab2). However, I'm not familiar with the actual object type being returned here:
Simply put, how the heck do I access and manipulate properties from this? And am I actually accessing an array? When I type in
var scrub2 = tabScrub2["1"];
console.log(scrub2);
I get an HTML element. I'm seen the a element in CSS and jQuery, but am not super familiar with how to manipulate its properties programmatically? How do I go about accessing and manipulating the innerText properties of this via Javascript? For instance, how would I hide scrubTab2, or change its title to something else?

The first object you're seeing is jQuery's wrapper around the real DOM elements. It's not an actual array, but it does contain all of the elements that matched your query under zero-indexed properties (e.g. "0" and "1") which allows you to access to them via an array-like API (e.g. tabScrub[1]).
Your method of grabbing a node using tabScrub2["1"] is correct (see this question in the jQuery FAQ). It's more likely to see that done with a numeric key though (i.e. tabScrub[1]) because that matches the way you would access an element in a normal array.
As far as manipulating properties of the DOM node, the DOM's API is notoriously inconsistent and quirky (hence the need for things like jQuery in the first place). However, for your use case you can just assign a string to the innerText property directly (e.g. tagScrub2[1].innerText = "Tab title"). MDN is a great resource if you're looking for reference material on other parts of the DOM.
A side note: if you're looking for a specific element you should use a query that will only match that element. It's generally a bad sign if you're grabbing extra elements and then accessing the element you want at a key other than 0. If you're doing this then your code depends on other (potentially unrelated) nodes in the DOM existing before your node, and if/when you change those nodes your original code will break.

Just use jQuery eq method to get the relevant object index from the array.
For an example
//Query and get first element.
var tabScrub2 = $(document).find('[data-value="scrubTab2"]:eq(0)');
//Hide
tabScrub2.hide();
//Change title
tabScrub2.attr("title", "New Title Text");
Lean more about jQuery eq here.
https://api.jquery.com/eq/
Since you use jquery selectors tabScrub2[0] returns the native DOM element instead of another jQuery object. Therefore the hide function won't work in that object since the native DOM element doesn't implement such type of functionality for an element. That's why you have to use jQuery pseudo selector as above. Because hide will only work with a jQuery object.

Using variables with jQuery's replaceWith() method

Ok this one seems pretty simple (and it probably is). I am trying to use jQuery's replace with method but I don't feel like putting all of the html that will be replacing the html on the page into the method itself (its like 60 lines of HTML). So I want to put the html that will be the replacement in a variable named qOneSmall like so
var qOneSmall = qOneSmall.html('..........all the html');
but when I try this I get this error back
Uncaught SyntaxError: Unexpected token ILLEGAL
I don't see any reserved words in there..? Any help would be appreciated.

I think the solution is to only grab the element on the page you're interested in. You say you have like 60 lines. If you know exactly what you want to replace..place just that text in a div with an id='mySpecialText'. Then use jQuery to find and replace just that.
var replacementText = "....all the HTML";
$("#mySpecialText").text(replacementText);
<script src="https://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/2.1.1/jquery.min.js"></script>
<div id="mySpecialText">Foo</div>

If you're only looking to replace text then jaj.laney's .text() approach can be used. However, that will not render the string as HTML.
The reason the way you're using .html() is likely illegal is that qSmallOne is not a JQuery object. The method cannot be performed on arbitrary variables. You can set the HTML string to a variable and pass that string to the .html() function like this:
var htmlstring = '<em>emphasis</em> and <strong>strong</strong>';
$('#target').html(htmlstring);
To see the difference between using .html() and .text() you can check out this short fiddle.
Edit after seeing the HTML
So there is a lot going on here. I'm just going to group these things into a list of issues
The HTML Strings
So I actually learned something here. Using the carriage return and tab keys in the HTML string is breaking the string. The illegal-ness is coming from the fact the string is never properly terminated since it thinks it ends at the first line. Strip out the white space in your strings and they're perfectly valid.
Variable Names
Minor thing, you've got a typo in qSmallOne. Be sure to check your spelling especially when working with these giant variables. A little diligence up front will save a bunch of headache later.
Selecting the Right Target
Your targets for the change in content are IDs that are in the strings in your variables and not in the actual DOM. While it looks like you're handling this, I found it rather confusing. I would use one containing element with a static ID and target that instead (that way you don't have to remember why you're handling multiple IDs for one container in the future).
Using replaceWith() and html()
.replaceWith() is used to replace an element with something else. This includes the element that is being targeted, so you need to be very aware of what you're wanting to replace. .html() may be a better way to go since it replaces the content within the target, not including the target itself.
I've made these updates and forked your fiddle here.

JQuery: What's the difference between referencing an element using #[objectId] or [id=objectId]

Can anybody tell me what's the difference between referencing an element using #[objectId] or [id=objectId]?

The first one is very fast, as jQuery internally uses getElementById when it recognizes the pattern (using a regular expression).
The second one asks jQuery to iterate over all objects having an id. It's very slow. jQuery doesn't even stop iterating when it find one match in that case.
The only legitimate reason to use a [id... selector is when you don't just search by an exact id, for example you might want to search all elements whose id starts with "something" using $('[id^=something]').
Assuming you have a valid HTML (no reused id) and a valid id, you can still have problems with $('#'+someId) (for example when your id contains a quote, or anything that breaks Sizzle's pattern recognition system). In that case, use $(document.getElementById(someId)).
Following your comment : Yes, a "#" in an ID makes it impossible for Sizzle (jQuery's selector engine) to understand your selector. Sizzle uses the following regex :
rquickExpr = /^(?:\s*(<[\w\W]+>)[^>]*|#([\w-]*))$/,
and /^(?:\s*(<[\w\W]+>)[^>]*|#([\w-]*))$/.test('#som#thing') returns false.

Select class name (number) using RegEx & Jquery

I have a element like this
<div class="th-class2 th-hhjjsd th-context-78474378437834873"></div>
(Note: I know class names should not be pure numbers)
I want to get the numerical number from this div.
id = 78474378437834873
Is there a way I can use regular expressions to do it. I am nearly there but it only returns the first 4 numbers.
I use a clickevent to target the div and try and get the class like this
var classString = $(this).prop("class").match(/([0-9]+)/)[1];;
console.log(classString)
result is 7847
I am just not understanding how to get the rest of the number.
Thanks

You shouldn't use integers for class names because using a class typically means you are going to use the element more the once and adding a dynamic number defeats the purpose of classes, also working with someone else code and they use integers it's very hard to understand their code. As far as your questions goes, you shouldn't really use regular expressions to get a value of a class you should either store the value as an id so your element would look like this,
HTML
<div id="78474378437834873" class="th-class2 th-hhjjsd"></div>
or you could use a data object which is how I would do it like so,
HTML
<div class="th-class2 th-hhjjsd" data-object='{"value":78474378437834873}'></div>
and then when you select your element with your click event to get the value of the element you clicked console log the elements data object like so
jQuery
$('.th-class2').click(function() {
console.log($(this).data('object').value);
});

You should not use number only class names, they must start with an Alpha character [a-Z]
You can find what are the allowed characters in this discussion: Which characters are valid in CSS class names/selectors?
(Please make sure to read also the comments).
As per a solution for you,
The easy solution would be to use data attributes as so:
<div data-id="1000"></div>
and then you could get your id as simple as:
$(this).on('click', function() { console.log($(this).data('id')); } );
Happy Coding.

How to add/update an attribute to an HTML element using JavaScript?

I'm trying to find a way that will add / update attribute using JavaScript. I know I can do it with setAttribute() function but that doesn't work in IE.

You can read here about the behaviour of attributes in many different browsers, including IE.
element.setAttribute() should do the trick, even in IE. Did you try it? If it doesn't work, then maybe
element.attributeName = 'value' might work.

What seems easy is actually tricky if you want to be completely compatible.
var e = document.createElement('div');
Let's say you have an id of 'div1' to add.
e['id'] = 'div1';
e.id = 'div1';
e.attributes['id'] = 'div1';
e.createAttribute('id','div1')
These will all work except the last in IE 5.5 (which is ancient history at this point but still is XP's default with no updates).
But there are contingencies, of course.
Will not work in IE prior to 8:e.attributes['style']
Will not error but won't actually set the class, it must be className:e['class'] .
However, if you're using attributes then this WILL work:e.attributes['class']
In summary, think of attributes as literal and object-oriented.
In literal, you just want it to spit out x='y' and not think about it. This is what attributes, setAttribute, createAttribute is for (except for IE's style exception). But because these are really objects things can get confused.
Since you are going to the trouble of properly creating a DOM element instead of jQuery innerHTML slop, I would treat it like one and stick with the e.className = 'fooClass' and e.id = 'fooID'. This is a design preference, but in this instance trying to treat is as anything other than an object works against you.
It will never backfire on you like the other methods might, just be aware of class being className and style being an object so it's style.width not style="width:50px". Also remember tagName but this is already set by createElement so you shouldn't need to worry about it.
This was longer than I wanted, but CSS manipulation in JS is tricky business.

Obligatory jQuery solution. Finds and sets the title attribute to foo. Note this selects a single element since I'm doing it by id, but you could easily set the same attribute on a collection by changing the selector.
$('#element').attr( 'title', 'foo' );

What do you want to do with the attribute? Is it an html attribute or something of your own?
Most of the time you can simply address it as a property: want to set a title on an element? element.title = "foo" will do it.
For your own custom JS attributes the DOM is naturally extensible (aka expando=true), the simple upshot of which is that you can do element.myCustomFlag = foo and subsequently read it without issue.