HTML table highlight row on hover except first row (header) - html

Question

All,
I have an ASP.NET GridView that is rendered to an HTML table.
<table>
<tr><th>Col 1 Head</th><th>Col 2 Head</th></tr>
<tr><td>Data 1</td><td>Data 2</td></tr>
<tr><td>Data 3</td><td>Data 4</td></tr>
</table>
I want to highlight the row when the mouse is hovered over it - except for the first row which is the header.
I am just getting my head wet with JQuery, and have dabbled a bit with CSS (either CSS2 or CSS3). Is there a preferred way to do this?
Can anyone give me a starting point for this?
Cheers
Andez

Answer 1

There is a way to achieve the desired behavior without class-ing each row separately. Here's how to highlight each table row except for first one (header) on hover using the CSS :not and :first-child selectors:
tr:not(:first-child):hover {
background-color: red;
}
Unfortunately, IE < 9 does not support :not, so to do this in a cross-browser way, you can use something like this:
tr:hover {
background-color: red;
}
tr:first-child:hover {
background-color: white;
}
Basically, the first CSS rule includes all rows. To avoid highlighting the first row, you override the its hover style by selecting with tr:first-child and then keeping its background-color to white (or whatever the non-highlighted row's color is).
I hope that helped, too!

Answer 2

To expand on user2458978's answer surely the best way of doing this is to code up the tables correctly.
<table>
<thead>
<tr><th></th></tr>
</thead>
<tbody>
<tr><td></td></tr>
<tr><td></td></tr>
</tbody>
</table>
Then the CSS is simply
table tbody tr:hover { background-color: red; }
Here's a jsFiddle example

Answer 3

You can do this using the CSS :hover specifier. Here's a demonstration:
<table>
<tr><th>Col 1 Head</th><th>Col 2 Head</th></tr>
<tr class = "notfirst"><td>Data 1</td><td>Data 2</td></tr>
<tr class = "notfirst"><td>Data 3</td><td>Data 4</td></tr>
</table>
CSS:
.notfirst:hover {
background-color: red;
}

Answer 4

1. Place header tr inside thead tag
2. Place other tr inside tbody tag
3. Use following css
table tr:not(thead):hover {
background-color: #B0E2FF;
}

Answer 5

Use TH tag for first row and do that:
th {
background-color:#fff;
}
For all others rows:
tr:not(:first-child):hover {
background-color:#eee;
}
or
tr:hover td {
background-color:#eee;
}

Answer 6

Use jQuery to add a class to the parent element of the td (wont select th)
$('td').hover(function(){
$(this).parent().addClass('highlight');
}, function() {
$(this).parent().removeClass('highlight');
});
Then add the CSS class
.highlight {
background:red;
}

Answer 7

Why not simply use
tr>td:hover {
/* hover effect */
background-color: lightblue;
}
This will only affect table rows with td's inside, not table rows with th's inside.
Works in all browsers. Cheers, guys.

Answer 8

Why not something like:
tr:first-child ~ tr { background-color:#fff; }

Answer 9

As of my requirement, I have to highlight all the even rows except header row.
Hence, this answer might not be suitable to the above question.
Even then, I am giving my answer here with the hope that somebody else can use my answer if they encounter this page in search engine search.
My answer is:
$("#tableName tr:even").not("tr:nth(0)").addClass("highlight");

Answer 10

If your table is standard, you have a table like this:
<table>
<thead>
<tr>
<th>title</th>
</tr>
</thead>
<tbody>
<tr>
<th>cell</th>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
so you can use this css code:
table > *:not(thead) tr:hover{
background-color: #f5f5f5;
}