How to apply css to three different classes hovering one of them - html

Question

Here is my code.
<div class="start">start</div>
<div>middle-1</div>
<div>middle-2</div>
<div>middle-3</div>
...................
...................
<div>middle-n</div>
<div class="end">end</div>
I want to apply css to all div's when mouse hover the first div with class start.

Answer 1

With the current HTML structure you can use couple of sibling selectors for this.
.start:hover ~ div {
color: red; /* styles you want to apply */
}
/* reset styles back for all other divs after .end */
.start:hover ~ .end ~ div {
color: inherit;
}
Demo: http://jsfiddle.net/3c6V6/1/
However I would recommend to change HTML structure if you can. For example:
<div class="start">start</div>
<div class="middles">
<div>middle-1</div>
<div>middle-2</div>
<div>middle-3</div>
<div>middle-n</div>
<div class="end">end</div>
</div>
<div>after-1</div>
<div>after-2</div>
and CSS:
.start:hover + .middles > div {
color: red;
}
You would just have much more flexibility.
Demo: http://jsfiddle.net/3c6V6/2/

Answer 2

Could it be as simple as putting a parent container around it, and putting the hover on that, or do you wish to single out some of the siblings directly?
In this case, try putting :hover on the parent container like this:
.parent:hover div {/*style*/}

Answer 3

This is for your second version found in the comments: JSFiddle DEMO
div.start:hover~div.middles div:not(.end) {
font-weight: bold;
}
(This is for your original question):
div.start:hover~div:not(.end) {
font-weight: bold;
}
JSFiddle DEMO
This is where I found the information to do it. Didn't know there were so many CSS selectors.