DEV Community

Cover image for CSS Selector in just 10 minutes!
Abhis
Abhis

Posted on

CSS Selector in just 10 minutes!

Welcome again!

We are goid to explore CSS SELECTORS in just 10 minutes.

Because we don't want to style all our HTML elements at once, we need to be able to target a subset of these HTML elements.

CSS selectors define which elements we want our styling to be applied to.

Generic tag selectors

Targeting generic HTML tags is easy: just use the tag name.

a{ /* Links */ }
p{ /* Paragraphs */ }
ul{ /* Unordered lists */ }
li{ /* List items */ }
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

There's a direct connection between the name of the HTML tag and the CSS selector used.

Classes

Considering we probably don't want to style all paragraphs or all titles identically, we need to differentiate them.

Of all HTML attributes, the class attribute is the most important for CSS. It allows us to define a group of HTML elements that we can target specifically. Just put a dot . in front of the class name you want to use:

.date {
  color: red;
}
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

On one side, there is the HTML class attribute with the value date. It must match the name of the CSS class.

You can use any name for your CSS class, as long as it doesn't start with a number.

The .date class selector will target all HTML elements that have the class="date" attribute. So, the following HTML elements will all be styled:

<p class="date">
  Saturday Feb 21
</p>
<p>
  The event will be on <em class="date">Saturday</em>.
</p>
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

Saturday Feb 21


The event will be on Saturday.

Bear in mind that the tag name is irrelevant. Only the class HTML attribute is.

IDs

You can also use the id attribute in your HTML, and target it with a hash # in your CSS:

#tagline{ color: orange;}
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode
<h1 id="tagline">This heading will be orange.</h1>
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

ID are similar to Classes, as they rely upon an HTML attribute.

Example































HTML Possible CSS selectors What it means
<p></p>
p Every <p>
<div class="global"></div>

div

.global

div.global
Every <div>

Every elements with class=”global”

Every <div> with class=”global”
<ul id="menu">

#menu

ul#menu

The only element with id=”menu”

The only <ul> with id=”menu”

<ol class="dico">
<li>Un cobaye</li>
<li>Des cobaux</li>
</ol>


li

ol li

.dico li

Every <li>

Every <li> with an <ol> as ancestor

Every <li> with a class="dico" element as ancestor

Combining selectors

Let's reuse our previous example where we want our dates to be red:

.date {
  color: red;
}
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode
<p class="date">
  Saturday Feb 21
</p>
<p>
  The event will be on <em class="date">Saturday</em>.
</p>
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

Saturday Feb 21


The event will be on Saturday.

What if we want our dates that are in em elements to blue instead? We can add the following CSS rule:

em.date {
  color: blue;
}
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

The em.date combines:

  • a tag selector em
  • a class selector .date

It will only apply to <em class="date"></em> HTML elements. It won't affect other .date or em.

Hierarchy selectors

A space in a selector defines a ancestor/descendant relationship. Let's say we want the links in our header to be in red:

header a {
  color: red;
}
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

This can be read from right to left as: "Select all a elements that are within a header element". This will prevent all other links (that aren't in the header) from being affected.

Pseudo-class selectors

HTML elements can have different states. The most common case is when you hover over a link. It's possible in CSS to apply a different style when such an event occurs.

Pseudo-class selectors are attached to usual selectors and start with a colon ::

a {
  color: blue;
}

a:hover {
  color: red;
}
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

Read next:
Html syntax in 10 minutes!

Top comments (2)

Collapse
 
barbgegrasse profile image
barbgegrasse

Very well explained thank you.

Collapse
 
anicode profile image
Abhis

Yours welcome!
help me to share this with others too.