Blog
15/07/2018
By Imran M
Understanding pseudo elements and pseudo classes is crucial to fully exploit the versatility and power of CSS. They provide a broad range of functionality that can bring your web designs to life with a level of detail and nuance that would be challenging to achieve otherwise. In this article, we’re going to delve into the world of pseudo elements and pseudo classes, shedding light on their roles and how to best utilize them in your web designs.
Understanding Pseudo Elements and Pseudo Classes
Pseudo elements target and style certain parts of an element, such as the first letter or the content after an element. Conversely, pseudo classes select elements based on their state or characteristics, like whether they have been visited, are being hovered over, or are the first child of their parent.
Pseudo Elements
In the world of web design, pseudo elements play an essential role. They create ‘imaginary’ elements that don’t exist within the document’s source code but appear in the rendering of the page. Their purpose is to apply styles to content that isn’t part of the DOM (Document Object Model).
For example, ::before and ::after are commonly used pseudo elements. They generate content before or after an element’s content. The CSS code might look something like this:
p::before {
content: "Read this:";
font-weight: bold;
}
This would insert “Read this:” before every paragraph, and the inserted text would be bold.
Pseudo Classes
Pseudo classes offer you the power to assign styles to elements depending on their specific state. These states can vary from being hovered over (:hover), in focus (:focus), or even if they are the first child within their parent element (:first-child).
To delve deeper, let’s explore some of these pseudo classes:
- :link: The :link pseudo class provides a valuable tool to identify and style links that have not been visited by the user. This pseudo class aids in differentiating between visited and unvisited links, enhancing user navigation.
- :visited: The :visited pseudo class serves the opposite purpose of the :link pseudo class. It is used to apply styles to links that the user has already navigated to. This feature provides a clear visual cue of the user’s browsing history on the webpage.
- :active: The :active pseudo class comes into play to style a link that is currently being clicked or activated. To ensure the correct application of styles, :active should be declared after :link and :visited in the CSS stylesheet.
- :focus: The :focus pseudo class targets the HTML input element that the user is currently interacting with or has selected. This feature is especially useful for enhancing user interaction and accessibility, by providing noticeable feedback during input operations.
- :optional: The :optional pseudo class comes in handy when you need to style input elements that are not mandatory in a form. This can assist users in distinguishing between required and optional fields.
- :empty: The :empty pseudo class selects and styles any element that does not have child elements or text. It is a useful tool when styling empty elements or creating specific visual effects based on an element’s content.
- :root: The :root pseudo class signifies an element that serves as the root of the document. In HTML, the root element is always the
<html>element. Utilizing :root is beneficial for defining global CSS variables that can be accessed throughout the document.
Each of these pseudo classes provides a different way to select and style elements based on their state or location in the document, enabling more dynamic and interactive user interfaces.
Unleashing the Power of These Unique CSS Features
The strength lies in their ability to provide dynamic styling based on the state of the element or specific characteristics. This dynamic nature of pseudo classes is especially useful in enhancing user interaction and experience.
Consider the :checked pseudo class. This can be used to style a checkbox or radio button when it’s selected. You could change the background colour, for instance, to provide clear visual feedback to the user.
When it comes to pseudo elements, the ::first-letter and ::first-line pseudo elements can be incredibly useful for styling the first letter or line of a block of text. This can be used to create drop caps or to apply unique styles to the first line of a paragraph.
When used individually, it brings a great deal of functionality and flexibility to your web designs. However, their power multiplies when you use them together. You can use a pseudo class to define a state, and then a pseudo element to control precisely how that state appears.
Consider a scenario where you want to add a special note at the end of every link that’s being hovered over. You could achieve this by combining the :hover pseudo class with the ::after pseudo element.
By understanding how to leverage these aspects of CSS, you’ll unlock a new realm of design possibilities, elevating the quality and interactivity of your web pages. So, get creative and start exploring the potential in your next project!
