beginner's question about CSS - html

I am creating a website and i want to allow personalization to individual users upto some extent like changing font family, background color etc. The problem with this is that, my default css file that i load has already default classes for everything. Now when i fetch the background color from my database, then if there is null value for background color then default css class of mystylesheet.css should be loaded and if the value is not null, then i want to override this with my default css. How is it possible? Thanks in advance :)

Load the default stylesheat in a style tag, and put your dynamic styles in a style tag after that.
Which style to use when different styles target the same element is determined by specificity, and if the selectors are the same, by order. The style that is found last is used.

The approach mentioned by zaf would require that you reload the page when you want to switch styles sheets. What I find to be a better approach is to add a classname to the body
if you have the option of using javascript
<body class="theme-1">
<div class="main"><div>
</body>
Then each of your style sheets should contain the theme name in the declarations:
--theme1.css
.theme-1 div.main {
background-color: #eee
}
--theme2.css
.theme-2 div.main {
background-color: #f30
}
To switch style sheets, you just remove the old theme name and add the theme you want to use.
Then you can even add style sheets dynamically if you provide an interface for the user to customize the look and feel of your page.
New Improved Answer:
I just found a nice solution implemented by the folks at extjs. It involves loading all the stylesheets you want using <link> tags. The trick is that you can set a disabled property on the link element which will cause it not to apply.
For an example, use firebug and look at
http://www.extjs.com/deploy/dev/examples/themes/index.html
Look for styleswitcher.js and look at the function setActiveStyleSheet
function setActiveStyleSheet(title) {
var i,
a,
links = document.getElementsByTagName("link"),
len = links.length;
for (i = 0; i < len; i++) {
a = links[i];
if (a.getAttribute("rel").indexOf("style") != -1 && a.getAttribute("title")) {
a.disabled = true;
if (a.getAttribute("title") == title) a.disabled = false;
}
}
}

EDIT:
Reason for CSS property precedence?
One way is to produce the css file dynamically from a php script.
You would include the file like:
<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="css.php">
And the css.php file would look something like this:
<?php
header('Content-type: text/css');
// whatever you want to ouput depending on the user
?>

Related

Pseudoclass on child conditional on data attribute of parent

I am trying to disable a button dynamically based on a data attribute that's present on the body, code looks sort of like this:
<body data-online="true">
<button disabled></button>
</body>
What I want is to set the pseudoclass disabled based on the value of the body's data attribute. I'm looking for the simplest possible way to do this. I know that conventionally this would be done asynchronously with JS, but for annoying reasons I have no direct control over I would prefer another way. I'm wondering if it's possible to set the pseudoclass directly through CSS or HTML in some way?
I honestly don't this it is possible to achieve this without any JavaScript since the disabled properly is a boolean attribute.
You'll need at least to grab the element using JavaScript and conditionally apply the disabled attribute. As on the code below:
function checkButtonDisabled() {
const body = document.querySelector('body');
const button = document.querySelector('#btn')
const buttonIsDisabled = body.getAttribute('data-online') === 'true'
if (buttonIsDisabled) {
button.setAttribute("disabled", true)
return
}
button.removeAttribute("disabled")
}
checkButtonDisabled()
Although, If your intention is also to style it, you could use the selector below or some variant that could suit better for you:
body[data-online="true"] > button {
/* Your styles here */
}
you could check this article also which explains attribute selectors.

Can you use a style tag within a style tag?

Hey I'm using Styled Components for css handling in a design system library.
I'm having trouble with consuming apps not being able to override our component's css without using !important.
The problem stems from my styled-components injecting it's stylesheet tag at the end of the head.
By moving their style tags back I was able to let consuming apps easily override my styles.
This is my workaround for this -
let targetStylesheet: HTMLStyleElement;
function createLowPriorityStylesheet() {
const stylesheet = document.createElement('style');
stylesheet.setAttribute('type', 'text/css');
document.getElementsByTagName('head')[0].prepend(stylesheet);
return stylesheet;
}
...
if (!targetStylesheet && !isTest()) {
targetStylesheet = createLowPriorityStylesheet();
}
return (
<StyleSheetManager target={targetStylesheet}>
<MyComponent />
</StyleSheetManager>
);
I'm creating an <svg> tag and prepending it to the head, and styled components will inject <style> tags as children of the svg tag I created.
This solution seems to work fine but I couldn't find information saying it's a valid approach or anyone talking about why you shouldn't do this.
Are there any downsides to this approach?

Is it possible to modify "href" in a stylesheet?

I would like to move the href assignment to CSS.
Something like <a style="href: url('Home.htm');">Home</a> instead of Home.
Is it possible to do this in CSS?
I have a button at several places in my site whose corresponding URL value, might change in the future. I want to change the target address only in one place, i.e. my CSS file, instead of having to manually change them for every instance of that button.
This behaviour isn't really supported, as explained in other answers. But if you really need this on a page, it's possible to add it using some JavaScript. Used-defined custom variables/properties in CSS need to start with --, and I'll use the name --href-override.
We'll listen for all mousedown and touchstart events on links in the document. These events are useful because they'll always occur before the click is registered. Each time we handle one of these events, we check if the associated link has a --href-override property/variable defined in CSS. If so, we replace the HTML href with the CSS --href-override value, and the browser will automatically use that new value when handling the click event.
function overrideEventTargetHref(event) {
// if it's the beginning of a click on a link...
if (event.target.tagName === 'A') {
var link = event.target;
var override = getComputedStyle(link).getPropertyValue('--href-override').trim();
// if the link has an CSS href-override and it's different than the HTML href...
if (override && override != link.href) {
// replace the HTML href with the CSS href-override
link.href = override;
}
}
}
window.addEventListener('mousedown', overrideEventTargetHref, false);
window.addEventListener('touchstart', overrideEventTargetHref, false);
.override {
--href-override: https://stacksnippets.net/;
}
actually example.com
secretly stacksnippets.net
This also work properly for things like middle-clicking to open in a new tab.
This is quite a hack and you usually wouldn't want to do it. But if your situation requires it, you can.
CSS is a styling sheet, so the short answer is no. Also not entirely sure as to what your reason for wanting to is, but if it's due to changing data, use JavaScript or PHP to do this instead. Much easier, logical, and possible.
The href property stands for hypertext reference. It is not an entity that lends itself to styling; see this resource. If you wish to style how that location's text value appears on a page, you could write code that styles the a tag and if you want to get fancier you could add on a pair of span tags, as follows:
CSS:
a {
font: 14px Arial,Helvetica;
color: #00c;
text-decoration:none;
border: 4px dotted #009;
}
a:hover {
border: 3px solid #009;
}
span {
color: #f0f;
}
<span>Home</span>
As for changing the values of the buttons, if you run Linux, it provides various helpful utilities, such grep; see this discussion. Also, see this article.

Applying a style to an active hyperlink without giving each hyperlink a class

I want users to know what page they are currently on by highlighting the hyperlink.
I'm not using a list of buttons if that matters (<li>), I'm just using links.
I don't want to have to give each link a class on each page to tell if it's active or not.
Is there anyway of doing this without giving each active link a class?
I've looked into this issue and from what I see jQuery can be a possibility but I'd prefer to use it as I'm not clued up on jQuery. If anyone does know of any jQuery solutions I'll be happy to look at them!
Any automatic active link detectors about? :)
I think this may work but I haven't tested it.
It's using jQuery and it's pretty readable.
You should however process the path name to have just the part needed for the match in the hrefHasPath function.
var links = $("#links a"); // gets all links within something with an id of "links"
var pathname = window.location.pathname; // current url
//for each link see if the href has something in the path, and if it does add a css class
$.each(links, function(){
if(hrefHasPath($(this).attr("href"))){
$(this).addClass("highlight");
}
});
function hrefHasPath(href){
return (href.indexOf("pathname ") != -1);
}
Off the top of my head, I would approach this by grabbing all <a> elements (or ones in a certain grouping, or in a class, like navigation) and checking if the CURRENT URL == a.href
Something like so:
var a = document.getElementsByTagName('a');
for (var idx= 0; idx < a.length; ++idx){
if(a[idx].href == document.URL){
// some styles here to the link background
a[idx].style.backgroundColor = 'red';
}
}
If you add in jQuery it will make your selector easier for styling and the like.

Use multiple css stylesheets in the same html page

How would I use multiple CSS stylesheets in the same HTML page where both stylesheets have a banner class, for instance. How do you specify which class you are referring to?
Style sheets are, effectively, concatenated into a single style sheet in the order in which they appear in the HTML source.
The normal rules for applying rulesets then apply (i.e. by specificity with the last ruleset that defines a given property winning in the event of a tie and !important throwing a spanner into the works)
Yes, you can include multiple style sheets, but you need to label them as alternate style sheets and give the user some way to activate them using JavaScript - perhaps by clicking a link.
To create an alternate style sheet:
<link type="text/css" href="nameOfAlterateStyleSheet.css" rel="alternate stylesheet" title="Blue" />
Next create a method in your Javascript file that will: 1. Load all the style sheets in an array 2. Example:
function getCSSArray()
{
var links = document.getElementsByTagName("link");
var link;
for(var i = 0; i < links.length; i++)
{
link = links[i];
if(/stylesheet/.test(link.rel))
{
sheets.push(link);
}
}
return sheets;
}
Then go through the array using some type of if/else loop that disables the style sheets you don't want and enables the style sheet you want. (You can write a separate method or insert the loop into the method above. I like to use the onload command to load the CSS array with the page, then call the printView method.)
function printView()
{
var sheet;
var title1 = "printVersion";
for(i = 0; i < sheets.length; i++)
{
sheet = sheets[i];
if(sheet.title == title1)
{
sheet.disabled = false;
}
else
{
sheet.disabled = true;
}
Lastly, create code in your HTML document that the user will activate the JavaScript method such as:
Link Name
You can't control which you're referencing, given the same level of specificity in the rule (e.g. both are simply .banner) the stylesheet included last will win.
It's per-property, so if there's a combination going on (for example one has background, the other has color) then you'll get the combination...if a property is defined in both, whatever it is the last time it appears in stylesheet order wins.
You can't and don't.
All CSS rules on page will be applied (the HTML "knows" nothing about this process), and the individual rules with the highest specificity will "stick". Specificity is determined by the selector and by the order they appear in the document. All in all the point is that this is part of the cascading. You should refer to one of the very many CSS tutorials on the net.
You never refer to a specific style sheet. All CSS rules in a document are internally fused into one.
In the case of rules in both style sheets that apply to the same element with the same specificity, the style sheet embedded later will override the earlier one.
You can use an element inspector like Firebug to see which rules apply, and which ones are overridden by others.
The one you include last will be the one that is used. Note however that if any rules has !important in the first stylesheet they will take priority.
Think of it as your stylesheet(s) referring to ("selecting") elements in your HTML page, not the other way around.
Here is a simple alternative:
1/ Suppose we have two css files, say my1.css and my2.css. In the html document head type a link to one of them, within an element with an ID, say "demo":
2/ In the html document head body define two buttons calling two JS functions:
select css1
select css2
3/ Finally, in the JS file type the two functions as follows:
function select_css1() {
document.getElementById("demo").innerHTML = '';
}
function select_css2() {
document.getElementById("demo").innerHTML = '';
}
you can include more styles.
<link rel="preload stylesheet" href="style1.css" as="style">
<link rel="preload stylesheet" href="style2.css" as="style">
<link rel="preload stylesheet" href="Folder/Subfolder/style3.css" as="style">
Maybe it's not a 'best-practice'... but it has potential: you may have a 'palette.css' where u keep color-classes only that are 'shared'... or to think in a more 'componentistic way'
Rawly you can do similar with 'mediaquery' to support different resolutions
https://www.w3schools.com/cssref/css3_pr_mediaquery.asp
You can't. The last stylesheet you specify will be the one html page will use. Think of it as a big single .css document.