<!doctype html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
<meta charset="utf-8"/>
<style>
form:focus{
background:red;
}
</style>
<title>Home, sweet home</title>
</head>
<body>
<form>
<input type="text"/>
<input type="submit"/>
</form>
<form>
<input type="text"/>
<input type="submit"/>
</form>
<form>
<input type="text"/>
<input type="submit"/>
</form>
</body>
</html>
This obviously doesn't work, as is why I'm asking the question. How can I get the form which has one if it's inputs as the focus to highlight? That is, I want to be able to apply styles to the active FORM, not the active INPUT - is that doable without JS or something?
This is an older question, but as of now, some of the more popular browsers are supporting a css pseudo selector called :focus-within, which can style a form (without javascript) that has a focused input.
Here is the current support for the selector: http://caniuse.com/#search=focus-within
If you're using a supported browser, here is an example: https://codepen.io/jumprope-design/pen/LjxORX
This code works as an exercise but probably not a solution you should use. The version relying on legend actually seems acceptable.
There is no form:focus selector so I thought instead the individual input:focus could create the desired effect using pseudo-elements. However, pseudo-elements can only be used on elements with content, like if I were to replace input[type=submit] with button
form {
position:relative;
}
/*style the pseudo-element before a button that is a general sibling
of any element that currently has focus within a form*/
form *:focus~button:before{
content:"";display:block;background:red;
/*take up the entire space of the form*/
position:absolute;top:0;right:0;bottom:0;left:0;
/*but render behind its children*/
z-index:-1;
}
Fiddled, but it instantly looked pretty crazy, so I've refactored the solution to rely onto a legend element. Enjoy :)
There is no parent selector in CSS so javascript is required. CSS 4 is planned to get this feature, however.
I've been looking for the same styling technique for a while. From a UI/UX standpoint - simplifying search forms to a single element makes a lot of sense in certain situations.
Consider the example below:
When you approach it from a development standpoint the knee-jerk is to decide to style the form itself instead of the input elements. A transparent input[type=text] to the left, and a transparent .PNG submit button to the right and you've got a sharp looking search field.
As you've discovered though, you give up the CSS style capabilities associated with :focus because the input field isn't the one controlling the background / color etc - the form element is instead.
The form:focus selector would be a perfect way to handle that. Unfortunately, we've got to wait to CSS4 for that (thanks to matt3141 for the tid-bit).
In the meantime, you have a few options available
Option 1 - Forgo the Clickable Submit Button
I usually try and avoid this if possible, but you have the option to forgo the submit button altogether. Style the text field as you intended, and use a background image with the position limited to the left or of the field right. When the user types in their query, and presses enter, you can still fire a GET action. The example image above uses this technique.
Example: http://designdisease.com/
Pros: Easiest to set up.
Drawbacks: Users who still click search buttons might be confused.
Option 2 - Use an Alternate Element to Style the Background
Your next option is to take advantage of the sibling selector and content tags as o.v. has so generously explained in his/her previous answer. This in effects adds a new element and styles it to act as a new background for a specified area when the :focus effect is applied to an input field.
Example: http://jsfiddle.net/ovfiddle/PEK7h/2/
Pros: Extendable to larger forms with multiple fields more easily.
Drawbacks: The intensive selectors may not degrade as gracefully as we'd like.
Option 3 - Use Absolute Positioning to Stack the Elements
In situations where the text field will encompass the full width of the form, you can use a the position:absolute; attribute to simply load the submit button over top of the input element, and then a few css tweaks on the button to remove the background / border - giving the same effect as our example image above, but with added benefit of making it clickable.
Step One: Give the form a position - relative/absolute/fixed.
Step Two: Give the text field a width of 100%.
Step Three: Give the button an absolute position, and right position of 0.
I've updated o.v.'s fiddle to incorporate the new technique:
Example: http://jsfiddle.net/PEK7h/17/
Pro's: Degrades gracefully, gives us what we want in most single input field cases.
Drawbacks: Not as easily extendable to large forms like o.v.'s fix is.
--
As you can see, each option has its own drawbacks - but if you know about them ahead of you can usually lessen their impact. Hope this helps!
If you have multiple forms in the page, without JS, the renderer will not be able to link the stylesheet and the form. The best way to do it is to have the form name/ID and have JavaScript to apply the stylesheet when form get focus.
You cannot "focus" on a form. You can only "focus" on the form elements inside the form (that are editable and enabled) using CSS. Hope this helps.
Related
I am trying to get rid of HTML validation completely. This question would help if I had all inputs inside some forms. But I don't, as with angularjs I only need a form if I want to know if all fields in some set are valid. Moreover, HTML form elements don't stack, so I'm using ng-form only.
I actually don't care if the form gets validated or not; I only want to get rid of the red border in Firefox just like in this question. Is there a way how to style the glowing red to zero size or transparency or whatever? In Firefox I can't see it.
Alternatively, is there a possibility to teach angularjs work with some other attribute name rather than required, so that HTML5 doesn't jump in to visually destroy my page?
You can use :
:invalid {
box-shadow: none;
}
:invalid
Migrating OP's solution from the question to an answer:
Actually, there's a simpler possibility: As I'm using no HTML forms at all and I need some top-level container anyway, it can be a <form novalidate> instead of a <div>. Too simple to be seen.
Is there any alternative to <div>? My website is losing "accessibility" because I cannot set focus on a <div>. What control should I use in order to replicate <div> and still hold focus?
This is what my HTML looks like:
<div style="height:70px; overflow:hidden" id="divMsg">
<div class="DivClass">abcdefg abcdkfjghfjdfkj</div><br>
<div class="DivClass">abcdefg abcdkfjghfjdfkj</div><br>
</div>
You can add tabindex to make it focusable; however, this is usually not enough. If you want the element to be clickable, you will also need to add a keydown or keypress handler so that the user can activate it using ENTER, similar to a A link. Otherwise the user will be able to tab to it, but may not be able to do anything with the link after.
If you are trying to create a clickable element, it is sometimes simpler to start with a A tag, and then style it so that doesn't look like a link. A elements respond to both keyboard and mouse and fire onclick for both, so you don't have to do additional keyboard input handing like you do with a DIV.
Finally, if you are making a DIV or A that visually looks like a button or some other control, add the appropriate ARIA role so that a screenreader will call out the appropriate element type - eg.
Complete Transaction
Just give it a tabindex attribute.
If you are specifically looking for accessibility, try out the new HTML 5 tags like <article>. So for example a textreader knows what to read, and your page is much better structured.
Check out this site.
To answer your exact question, it depends why you are using the div; I'm guessing for layout. The tab ordering is dependent upon more than tabindex, as defaults and overflow affects positioning and focus.
To be more specific, you won't use a div to latch onto for tabindex. Rely upon JavaScript and a unique ID; <div class="content" id="page1">
This will also provide you an anchor so you could use http://index.html#divMsg to link focus to the exact place in your HTML document. Note you have only one div ID and reuse the same div class twice in your example.
If this is all new to you the article on difference between ID and CLASS may be of interest to you
Links (element a) and form elements (input text and alike, file, radio and checkbox, submit, image and type button, select, textarea, button element, etc) are focusable by default.
Thumb rule: if an element does something, it should be a link or a form element part of a form. (OT: I guess I've a problem with conjugation here but can't find exactly what - english isn't my mothertongue)
Think twice (at least :)) before using the tabindex attribute: it'll work for a while in your project and then you make some modification elsewhere and suddenly all is broken. And it'll break again, again and again.
For testing with Safari, you'll need to modify Preferences: this browser (maybe also Chrome?) only cycle by default through form elements and not links. Users of keyboard cycle through every focusable elements I guess, like in IE and Firefox.
To learn further, Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0 (WCAG 2.0) have Sufficient Techniques (and "Failure(s)" also) about keyboard use.
I've created a nice set of form elements in Photoshop and am looking to convert them into HTML and CSS. The simple input-text form will have a background image, as the field does not change in size. However, the text-area form will dynamically change size as the user types.
Normally, to build out this sort of style, I'd wrap the form field in divs, as such:
<div class = "textarea-top">
<div class = "textarea-bottom">
<textarea></textarea>
</div>
</div>
Or by using multiple background-images in one wrapping div:
<div class = "textarea">
<textarea></textarea>
</div>
Is there a better way to approach this? To restate, the field styles are advanced images that can be repeated (for the body of the field), and have styling for the top and bottom. The question is, what is the best practice in dealing with these advanced form styling?
I'm not entirely sure what you mean by "best practice", but one thing I'd improve are the semantics.
You could (should?) use <fieldset>'s instead of a, rather meaningless, <div>.
And you don't need to use two <div>'s around the textarea, or even multiple background images on a single <div> (which is a CSS3 property, and not widely-supported).
Instead, you should wrap the <textarea> in a <label> element, and nest your background-images as I've described below:
Try this:
<fieldset class="expandableInput">
<label>
Semantic text:
<textarea></textarea>
</label>
</fieldset>
Bonus: wrapping form elements in <label>'s like this, affords a larger click area, for the user to gain focus on the form element at hand. Just be wary of <select>'s, which doesn't play nice (even though it's valid HTML)
The CSS would be something like:
.expandableInput {background: url(/path/to/first/img);}
.expandableInput label {display: block; background: url(/path/to/second/img);}
.expandableInput textarea {display: block; margin-top: 3px; background: url(/path/to/third/img);}
Also;
For consistent looks on form elements, in every browser & platform, I can highly recommend Nathan Smith's Formalize CSS (it requires JS for HTML5 support in older browsers).
I'm working with an <input> field and I'd like to style part of the field as the user's typing in a different color. For example, let's say the <input> has a style declaration of color: red; and I want to change part of it to color: blue;. Is there any way this is possible?
If there isn't (as I suspect), any creative ideas on how I can simulate this effect while still preserving semantic mark-up?
Your suspicions are correct: styles will apply to the whole input only.
As styles can apply to the entirety of an element only, a solution will require at least one element per required colour.
Consider the division of the input field with respect to the point at which the user is making changes. There are three sections of the input:
that before the point at which changes are being applied
that after the point at which changes are being applied
that at the point the changes are being applied
You cannot achieve this with a single input element. And as the point at which the changes are being applied can change, the portions of the 'input' wrapped by the three elements will also change. JavaScript is required for a solution.
You should initially include a regular input element and forgo any of the required colouring. Use JavaScript to replace the input with a suitable container element. This can be styled to mimic an input element.
As changes occur, use JavaScript to identify the above-mentioned three divisions. Wrap them in suitable elements (spans would be ideal) and colour as needed.
Consider the following starting point for the generated replacement markup:
<div class="input">
<span class="nonEdited before">foo</span>
<span class="edited">fizz</span>
<span class="nonEdited after">bar</span>
</div>
Use click, keydown and keyup events to figure out the three divisions for the input and to apply wrap the three portions of the faked input as required.
As others have said, you can't do this with styles and static markup.
You could probably do it with a Flash-based form.
But, if I had to this, I'd use jQuery to overlay divs, with the colorized text, atop the <input>.
Algorithm:
Use a normal <input> with whatever default styles are desired. The contents of this input will never change except by user action.
jQuery monitors that <input>. When it detects trigger word(s), it adds a <div> after the input and fills it with the trigger word(s) -- styled as desired. Probably one <div> per word or phrase is best.
jQuery then positions the new <div>, absolutely, directly over the trigger word(s).
Getting the trigger word(s) offset within the <input> might not even be necessary, because the previous words could also be in the overlay <div> -- either styled defaultly or with visibility: hidden.
But, if only the trigger word(s) are desired in the overlay, then using a fixed-width font, like Courier, will help with the sub-positioning.
Take care that the overlay does not interfere with the user trying to mouse or key to certain parts of the <input>. IE, probably don't want to cover any more of the <input> than necessary, and set a click() handler to relay focus.
Alternate, user friendly and simpler approach:
Rather than try to do funky, non-user-expected things to the input, take a page from Jakob Nielsen and from sites like StackOverflow.
Just have a plain ol' <input>, but underneath it, show the formatted text as it comes in.
You can achieve this with (a lot of effort and) a div with the contentEditable attribute present. This is how most web-based WYSIWYG editors achieve rich formatting of inputs. See here for more info: http://ajaxian.com/archives/on-browser-wysiwyg
You can keep differently styled divs side by side in a container overlapped by a transparent input. Modify the widths of the styled divs on the basis of your input entry.
For example, to color input background for leading and trailing spaces:
<div class="bckg-container">
<div id="bckg-leading" class="bckg spaces">
</div>
<div id="bckg-middle" class="bckg">
</div>
<div id="bckg-trailing" class="bckg spaces">
</div>
<br style="clear: left;" />
</div>
<input id="inpt" type="text" placeholder="Add leading/trailing spaces" maxlength="20" />
The three divs inside the container will change their width with input change.
Check the working example in jsfiddle http://jsfiddle.net/TalhaAwan/ywyw4qq5/
You might be able to do it with some edit in place javascript (if it's not possible in pure html/css):
http://www.appelsiini.net/projects/jeditable/default.html
That jQuery plugin doesn't use html input fields so it could be possible to style different parts of the input. It has a couple of hooks for callbacks which you could use to style the input. Hope that helps as an idea.
You can have a label mocking that input and the real input to be hidden, then you can do a lot of things beteen label tags (e.g. colored spans).
I want to practive, and even best-practice, with Html+JS+CSS.
I use a one page client-only Sudoku page.
My Sudoku markup is basically a <table>, with <td>.
(I'm open to suggestions to improve this).
My requirements :
Have a cell under focus (the keyboard notion of focus) (highlighed with css to a yellow background)
Navigate through cells with arrow keys (plus Home etc).
type-in an integer value sets that value to the currently focused cell
I use an input button inside each cell.
The Javascript works fine.
My only problem is with the display.
When a cell has the focus, it's highlighted display doesn't cover the whole TD, rather only the visual space included in the input button. I have some space around the button that isn't 'yellow'.
I don't think I could go up in the CSS selection, to select the parent of the input, could I ? Such as :
input:focus '?? how to go up ??' td { background-color:yellow;
I tried a few tricks, like having always 5 characters in each button display (5 spaces when empty, changing the middle character when set), but nothing is visually satisfying.
Even worse, it is clearly against best-practices to alter the content for the sake of visualizing. That's what the MVC distinction between Html/Css/Js is for !
I already searched this site for answer, I found close but distinct questions and answer.
I'm hoping someone could help improve my page ... and my markup skill :-)
It is not possible to construct a css selector which matches a parent node dependent on a (pseudo-)class of child node.
Basically you have two options to choose from:
Try to fill the td with the input completely using height and width rules in your css.
Set 'focused' and 'unfocused' class on your tds with javascript using the onfocus and onblur events of the inputs.
Could you not use a dash of jQuery to set a .focused class and then apply some style to it?