Is it possible to reset all inherited CSS propeties? - html

How do you reset ALL inherited properties for a class in a CSS file? I need to be able to set new properties on elements without pre-defined properties having an effect on it.
Is this possible using only CSS?
I am not talking about a CSS reset, such as:
body {
margin:0px;
padding:0px;
}

Simple answer - you can't.
Unless you override ALL the properties with something more specific, you cannot do this efficiently. This is extremely redundant, and I don't suggest doing it.
Instead you should avoid this completely. Don't set properties in the first place and you won't have this problem.
Also, don't do what other are suggesting and use !important this is a bad practice.

You cannot reset css properties, you can overwrite your css properties one by one, nothing automatic so far.
* {
property:inherit
...
... long list of all .css properties ...
propertyZ:inherit
}
and maybe (wishing)) comming soon :initial
See this answer : Reset/remove CSS styles for element only

A class can't inherit properties. Inheritance is done through the DOM tree from the parent element. This will only happen if the default style for an element is to inherit, or if you have explicitly said some-property: inherit;.
If you are asking how to stop rules from CSS rulesets that have selectors which match a given element from applying, then you can use the initial value. Note that:
It is from a working draft specification, so browser support may be weak to non-existent (I haven't see any documentation or performed any tests on support levels for it)
You still need to use a more specific selector (or some other method to win the cascade) for it to override any other styles.
You'd probably be best off rewriting your stylesheet to be less broad in the elements it affects in the first place though. That approach will certainly have the best browser support.

You Cant reset properties, as they will always be inherited
You can surely Override them by using !important
ex:
childselector
{
height:auto !important;
}

Related

How to debug CSS specificity problems?

I've developing an app with Vue, and a third-party template, and dynamic plugins, and all kinds of trickery. I'm have a really hard time with the CSS.
Often I need to style particular element on the page, an <input> for example, and I can't figure out how to write a selector that actually works. The input may have been created dynamically by some Javascript and may have had CSS applied programmatically.
So I go to Firefox Web Developer, click on the element, and see a bunch of CSS classes. I create a rule:
.myCustomClass {
color: red;
}
put myCustomClass in the class="" tag in the <input>, and... nothing.
I'm thinking I need to prefix it like this:
.someOuterClass .someInnerClass .myCustomClass {
color: red;
}
but that rarely works. Sometimes I give up and add !important. Sometimes that works, and sometimes it doesn't.
So my question is, can I examine the classes that I can see in Web Developer and somehow derive a rule that is specific enough that it will always work?
I've read about specificity, but it's not helping.
Specificity is a PITA sometimes, especially when other 3rd party libraries are adding stuff to the mix.
Here are a few things you can try:
Make sure to add your styles to the END of the CSS. Theoretically, you can affect the order Webpack includes CSS (I've never tried it)
Add an ID not a class to a wrapper outside the elements you want to change. Then reference this ID in the CSS chain eg: #myAppID .className .subClassName {} Basically ID's are stronger than classes in CSS specificity. I would try to do this at a page/view level to make life easier.
If elements are already getting classes (as you see them in the inspector) try to reuse those classes with your "override" CSS. If the classes are modularized (Have a random suffix like someClass__34xft5) you shouldn't use those exact classes since they can change if the source is recompiled. In that case, use a "matching" selector [class^=”someClass__”] to match any selector with that prefix.
Not sure how deep you want to go, but here's an article about overriding Amplify-Vue prebuilt styling.
One caveat, if the CSS is being added inline via javascript somewhere, it's going to be very hard to override. You may want to use !important in conjunction with the above.
"...can I examine the classes that I can see in Web Developer and somehow derive a rule that is specific enough that it will always work?"
Probably, but why bother? You're already adding class attributes to elements. Why not add inline style attributes instead? Adding a bunch of classes or ids just to create a specificity chain to touch up styles is pretty messy...inline styles are barely if at all worse and are clearer to understand.
Inline attributes are the most specific CSS instructions you can give.

More important than !important (a higher level !important)?

The title says most of it. Is there a CSS keyword which overrides !important at one higher level or is there some feature like this planned in any newer CSS spec?
Of course, I know that !important is a bit likely to be used by noobs and that in many cases it is not the best way to go as stylesheets may really suck if badly written. However, sometimes it's useful and even needed.
The strongest style in CSS I can think of is an inline style with !important like this:
<span id="bluebeaver" style="color: red !important;">I am a happy blue beaver</span>
Now let's assume that I cannot edit the HTML and must modify the style from an external stylesheet.
It would be really great to have something like:
#bluebeaver {
color: blue !important 2;
}
If they had levels for it like for instance with z-index.
Is there any solution to this or anything planned with newer CSS specifications?
So far I did not find anything.
Can you show a CSS solution to override an !important inline style or is there definitely no possibility?
Simply remove the style attribute from the element using JavaScript:
document.getElementById("bluebeaver").removeAttribute('style');
Then use your external stylesheet to apply whatever CSS you want.
Two reasons why creating higher levels of !important is not a good idea:
It sets a bad precedent.
Adding !important2 would be caving in to poor-coding habits on a global scale. It would be the W3C sending a signal that anything goes.
You've also opened the door to !important3, !important4, etc. Where does it end?
Lowering standards and expectations is not a good way for the industry to make progress.
It may not even solve your problem.
Consider this: The person who set that inline style to color: red !important, obviously wanted that rule to have the highest priority.
If your idea became real, and there were higher levels of !important, let's say going up to !important10, guess what that person would have used? And you'd still have the same problem, but you'd be here asking if there were any plans for !important11.
No, there is no keyword or other way to make a declaration more important than !important. There is no known activity to change this.
In general, it is possible to override a declaration that has !important by using a rule that also has it and that has higher specificity. However, a declaration in a style attribute has, by definition, higher specificity than any other author declaration. The only way to defeat it is in CSS is to use a user style sheet with !important.
There are non-CSS solutions, but they are rather obvious, such as using JavaScript to simply remove or modify the style attribute.
The highest order I know of is targeting elements that have inline styles applied. You can actually select the element's style data attribute in the CSS selector to override its style! Check this out:
.blue[style]{
color:blue !important;
}
<div class="blue" style="color:red;">SO VERY IMPORTANT</div>
Of course you can even get more specific by targeting the style specifically, such as .blue[style="color:red;"].
You can modify the colour of HTML element using javascript.
document.getElementById('bluebeaver').style.color=blue;
Demo : https://jsfiddle.net/041fhz07/
Try Specificity: If two selectors apply to the same element, the one with higher specificity wins.
Try to style your element the more specific you can. Maybe use:
#bluebeaver span {}
Take a look to this link: CSS Specificity: Things You Should Know
if you want to use CSS only you just declare the new style with !important, the last "important" wins. though I'd avoid using it in the first place unless completely necessary.
it should only be used for styles that are essential for your page/app to work, not things that are expected to change.
another solution is to use JS to remove and/or add classes/id to change the style of the element when you don't want to change the CSS itself.
div.prop1.imp1.imp2 {
background-color: red !important;
}
div.prop1 {
background-color: black;
}
div.prop1.imp1 {
background-color: white !important;
}
If you can't do this since not all elements have the .imp1 class on the list in JavaScript, and you are adding say a highlight on something with a button click (.imp2) . You can specify the 'more important' .imp2 class above the others with !important on it.
This makes the property with the additional imp2 class more important than the .prop1.imp1 style because it is loaded first in the css.

Clearing All Previous Styles on an Element and Applying New Ones

I am currently merging functionality of 2-3 open-source projects and am dealing with a couple of large CSS files. To make a long story short, there are a couple of textboxes that are not being styled correctly. Namely, they seem to inherit styles from both libraries.
Hence, I am wondering if there is a Jade or CSS way of disabling all styles on those boxes and then applying only the ones indicated in its class property. That is, somehow I need to make sure that the only thing that are applied are those that are specified within the class property.
Check out this link on 'unset', 'initial', and 'inherit'.
Likewise, check this out as well. There is always the option of using '!important' in your own CSS file to override existing styles.
Hope that helps!
the all property offers the ability to force a reset off all properties, but browser support is limited. Because of the nature of CSS, the element will always inherit any properties that are not overridden. I'm assuming if you are using jade you are also using a css pre-processor, so you can mange some of this by name-spacing your libraries. For example
//sass
.foo {
#import 'bar';
}
//csss
.foo .class-from-bar {...}
.foo .class-from-bar-2 {...}

How to use "all" property in CSS

How is the all property used in CSS?
This question is related to this one.
According to this:
The ‘all’ property is a shorthand that resets all CSS properties.
Name: all
Value: initial | inherit | default
Initial: See individual properties
Applies to: See individual properties
Inherited: See individual properties
Percentages: See individual properties
Media: See individual properties
Computed value: See individual properties
Animatable: See individual properties
So, it has to reset CSS properties for a selector.
This means, for example, that if we import Twitter Bootstrap and add the style below, the .btn class has to be reseted:
.btn {
all: default;
}
This doesn't happen. See this jsFiddle.
Am I correct? Isn't this implemented in web browsers?
The W3C specification you linked to says it's currently in "Working Draft" stage. Also, there's no mention of the all property on CanIUse.com, so I think it's safe to say it's experimental.
You might want to try -webkit-all or -moz-all.
Y'know, reading the spec for this feature, it feels like a hack. If you design your style cascade appropriately there shouldn't be a need for this property.
Right now I believe only Firefox supports all (as of version 27). You can use the all property (e.g. all: unset;) to apply the value to every property (except direction and unicode-bidi).
See this pen in latest FireFox: http://codepen.io/tomliv/pen/AejFH
There are 3 inputs in the grey area (really!).
This is not what I was expecting, but maybe setting all to initial will be more what you need?
There really is no default value for every property - at least one that is consistent across all browsers.
That's really where a CSS reset comes in. I'd recommend looking at Eric Meyer's CSS reset: http://meyerweb.com/eric/tools/css/reset/. Typically, these types of resets are used to reduce browser inconsistencies.
If you're looking to apply something to all elements (you'll still need to individually list each property), use
* { /* Universal Selector */ }
Using a reset stylesheet or some CSS framework like bootstrap is probably a better solution for both normalizing your CSS and cross browser consistency.

When to use the !important property in CSS [duplicate]

This question already has answers here:
What are the implications of using "!important" in CSS? [duplicate]
(9 answers)
What does !important mean in CSS?
(5 answers)
Closed 4 years ago.
Consider:
#div p {
color: red !important;
}
...
#div p {
color: blue;
}
I understand how !important works. In this case the div will render red because now it has priority (!important). But I can't still figure out an appropriate situation to use it in. Is there an example where !important saves the day?
This is the real life scenario
Imagine this scenario
You have a global CSS file that sets visual aspects of your site globally.
You (or others) use inline styles on elements themselves which is usually very bad practice.
In this case you could set certain styles in your global CSS file as important, thus overriding inline styles set directly on elements.
Actual real world example?
This kind of scenario usually happens when you don't have total control over your HTML. Think of solutions in SharePoint for instance. You'd like your part to be globally defined (styled), but some inline styles you can't control are present. !important makes such situations easier to deal with.
Other real life scenarios would also include some badly written jQuery plugins that also use inline styles...
I suppose you got the idea by now and can come up with some others as well.
When do you decide to use !important?
I suggest you don't use !important unless you can't do it any other way. Whenever it's possible to avoid it, avoid it. Using lots of !important styles will make maintenance a bit harder, because you break the natural cascading in your stylesheets.
Overwriting the Style Attribute
Say in the example that you are unable to change the HTML source code but only provide a stylesheet. Some thoughtless person has slapped on a style directly on the element (boo!)
div { background-color: green !important }
<div style="background-color:red">
<p>Take that!</p>
</div>
Here, !important can override inline CSS.
This is a real, real life scenario, because it actually happened yesterday:
Z-index in jQuery dialog. Autosuggest list not displayed properly
Alternatives to not using !important in my answer included:
Hunting down in JavaScript/CSS where a certain elusive property was being applied.
Adding the property with JavaScript, which is little better than using !important.
So, a benefit of !important is that it sometimes saves time. If you use it very sparingly like this, it can be a useful tool.
If you're using it just because you don't understand how specificity works, you're doing it wrong.
Another use for !important is when you're writing some kind of external widget type thing, and you want to be sure that your styles will be the ones applied, see:
Appended control's CSS
You generally use !important when you've run out of other ways to increase the specificity of a CSS selector.
So once another CSS rule has already dabbled with Ids, inheritance paths and class names, when you need to override that rule then you need to use 'important'.
!important is somewhat like eval. It isn't a good solution to any problem, and there are very few problems that can't be solved without it.
I have to use !important when I need to overwrite the style of an HTML generated by some JavaScript "plugin" (like advertising, banners, and stuff) that uses the "style" attribute.
So I guess that you can use it when you don't control the CSS.
Strictly speaking you shouldn't need to use !important if you've structured your CSS well and don't have too many degrees of specificity.
The most appropriate time to use !important is when you have one exceptional style that you want to style outside of your site's normal cascade.
Using !important is generally not a good idea in the code itself, but it can be useful in various overrides.
I use Firefox and a dotjs plugin which essentially can run your own custom JS or CSS code on specified websites automatically.
Here's the code for it I use on Twitter that makes the tweet input field always stay on my screen no matter how far I scroll, and for the hyperlinks to always remain the same color.
a, a * {
color: rgb(34, 136, 85) !important;
}
.count-inner {
color: white !important;
}
.timeline-tweet-box {
z-index: 99 !important;
position: fixed !important;
left: 5% !important;
}
Since, thankfully, Twitter developers don't use !important properties much, I can use it to guarantee that the specified styles will be definitely overridden, because without !important they were not overridden sometimes. It really came in handy for me there.
The use of !important is very import in email creation when inline CSS is the correct answer. It is used in conjunction with #media to change the layout when viewing on different platforms. For instance the way the page looks on desktop as compare to smart phones (ie. change the link placement and size. have the whole page fit within a 480px width as apposed to 640px width.
This is a real-world example.
While working with GWT-Bootstrap V2, it will inject some CSS file, which will override my CSS styles. In order to make my properties to be not overridden, I used !important.
I'm using !important to change the style of an element on a SharePoint web part. The JavaScript code that builds the elements on the web part is buried many levels deep in the SharePoint inner-workings.
Attempting to find where the style is applied, and then attempting to modify it seems like a lot of wasted effort to me. Using the !important tag in a custom CSS file is much, much easier.
I am planning to use !important for a third-party widget meant to be embedded in a large number of websites out of my control.
I reached the conclusion !important is the only solution to protect the widget's stylesheet from the host stylesheet (apart from iframe and inline styles, which are equally bad). For instance, WordPress uses:
#left-area ul {
list-style-type: disc;
padding: 0 0 23px 16px;
line-height: 26px;
}
This rule threathens to override any UL in my widget because id's have strong specificity. In that case, systematic use of !important seems to be one of the few solutions.
You use !important to override a css property.
For example, you have a control in ASP.NET and it renders a control with a background blue (in the HTML). You want to change it, and you don't have the source control so you attach a new CSS file and write the same selector and change the color and after it add !important.
Best practices is when you are branding / redesigning SharePoint sites, you use it a lot to override the default styles.