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Tilak Jain
Tilak Jain

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CSS Pseudo Selectors

What are Pseudo-classes?

A pseudo-class also known as Pseudo-selector is used to define a special state of an element.

For example, it can be used to:

  • Style an element when a user mouses over it
  • Style visited and unvisited links differently
  • Style an element when it gets focus

Pseudo classes

Anchor Pseudo-classes

Links can be displayed in different ways:

/* unvisited link */
a:link {
  color: #FF0000;
}

/* visited link */
a:visited {
  color: #00FF00;
}

/* mouse over link */
a:hover {
  color: #FF00FF;
}

/* selected link */
a:active {
  color: #0000FF;
}
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Pseudo-classes and HTML Classes

Pseudo-classes can be combined with HTML classes like :hover pseudo selector.
Ex.

div:hover {
  background-color: blue;
}
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Hover on

An example of using the :hover pseudo-class on a

element is shown above👆. On Hover the div's background color will change to blue.

The :first-child Pseudo-class

The :first-child pseudo-class matches a specified element that is the first child of another element.

Ex.

p:first-child {
  color: blue;
}

In above Example, the selector matches any

element that is the first child of any element and it will turn it into blue color.

The :lang Pseudo-class

The :lang pseudo-class allows you to define special rules for different languages.

In the example below, :lang defines the quotation marks for elements with lang="no".

Ex.

<html>
<head>
<style>
q:lang(no) {
  quotes: "~" "~";
}
</style>
</head>
<body>

<p>First text <q lang="no">
A quote in a paragraph
</q> Last text.</p>

</body>
</html>

Output ->

Lang output

::before and ::after Pseudo-Selector

::before

The ::before selector inserts something before the content of each selected element(s).
Syntax:

::before {
  css declarations;
}

Ex.

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<style>
p::before { 
  content: "Read this -";
  background-color: yellow;
  color: red;
  font-weight: bold;
}
</style>
</head>
<body>

<h1>Demo of the ::before selector</h1>

<p>My name is Donald</p>
<p>I live in Ducksburg</p>

</body>
</html>

Remember to put a content property bcoz it's important!

Output ->

::before Example

::after

The ::after selector inserts something after the content of each selected element(s).
Syntax:

::after {
  css declarations;
}

Ex.

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<style>
p::after { 
  content: " - Remember this";
  background-color: yellow;
  color: red;
  font-weight: bold;
}
</style>
</head>
<body>

<h1>Demo of the ::after selector</h1>

<p>My name is Donald</p>
<p>I live in Ducksburg</p>

</body>
</html>

Output ->

::after Example

Other CSS Pseudo-Classes:

Other Pseudo Selectors

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References:
w3schools CSS Pseudo-Classes

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