Hi
As most people probably know the option for conditional formatting is no longer available in SharePoint Designer 2013. I was looking at some JavaScript and JQuery examples and found this:
<script src=”https://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.11.1/jquery.min.js” type=”text/javascript”></script><script>
   $(document).ready(function(){
     $Text = $(“td .ms-vb2:contains(‘Bristol’)”).filter(function() {
     return $(this).text() == “Bristol”;})
     $Text.parent().css(“background-color”, “#00FF66”);
     $Text = $(“td .ms-vb2:contains(‘Thames’)”);
     $Text.parent().css(“background-color”, “#FFFF66”);Â
    }); </script>
In this example and the  examples I find, it seem to be checking the entire list for a value and not searching for the value in a particular column. Being very new to JavaScript or JQuery is there a way I can alter this to search on a particular column.
I agree with Paul, CSR is the documented approach.
An (undocumented) alternative is to stuff the layout in a Calculated Column Formula which gets executed for every List Item in a View (and only in a View!)
In your case where you want to highlight a row based on a Text value, you can do without jQuery and no need to add JS files to your environment.
Beginners explanation of coloring a Row is at http://ViewMaster365.com/#/How
If you are sattisfied with only coloring the current Calculated Column then the Formula gets even simpler and only requires HTML+CSS:
  =”<div style=’background-color:” & IF( [Town]=”Bristol” , “#00FF66″ , IF( [Town]=”Thames” , “#00FF66” , “none” )) & “;’>” & [Town] & “</div>”
The only thing to remember is set the Calculated Column Datatype to Number, as Text will display the HTML as text. (this trick goes back to 2010 and works in 2013/Online as well)
If you have more then 7 Towns you will run into the 7 levels maximum nesting in Formula. Then extract the needed color from a long string:
“Bristol00FF66ThamesFFFF66”
Find the Town in the string, and get the 6 characters after it…
“strings” can be a maximum of 255 characters in Formulas, but you can concatenate with: “string1” & “string2”. The total number of characters in a Formula is 4000Â
My favourite list of Formula Functions you can use:Â http://ViewMaster365.com/functions