Is there an "invisible" tag in HTML (4) that I can use to make CSS distinctions
tag.myclass tag.mysubclass h1 { }
without having any visual impact on the HTML rendered?
My background is that I have areas in a form that belong to different groups. As I am opening those in lightboxes (long story involving DOM operations and such, not really important) I don't want to rely on the usual div class=x or span class=y to style the subsequent elements, as I would have to reset margins here, paddings there, and so on.
A layout-neutral wrapping tag would be just what I need in such situations.
No, there is not.
(And that's because such an element wouldn't really fit into the rest of HTML. The only reason DIV and SPAN affect the surrounding area is because they're block and inline elements, respectively. What would an 'invisible' element be? If you need something that's completely independent, absolutely (or relatively) position it and give it a higher z-index.)
If you want to group elements use a div or a span tag as a wrapper element. Apply your id or class to this, and style it accordingly.
EDIT
There isn't an 'invisible' tag - but margins and padding can be easily reset 'margin: 0; padding: 0;'
While all browsers give default styling to many HTML tags, at it's core HTML only describes data, it doesn't format it.
What you're probably looking for is a DIV tag, because no browser gives any default styling to that tag.
I think you want a <fieldset>.
I'd say a span tag is as neutral as they come. I don't think there's any browser that applies a margin nor a padding and it just wraps around it's contents.
I suspect you can use <object> tag without usual attributes for that purpose, but I haven't tested it thoroughly yet. It's even in HTML5 (unlike FONT tag).
The right answer is use a div tag and define a class for it. Here is an example:
<h2 style="font-size: 14px">Project 1 - Project 2
<div class="username">{% if request.user.is_authenticated%} Welcome {{request.user.username}} {% endif %}</div>
</h2>
then in your css file you can have a class like this:
.username {
color:white;
float:right;
padding-right: 100px;
}
voila!! It all belongs to h2 tag but the user name has a different css applied.
You can add display: none; to it. That won't display it (obviously).
Related
Sometimes I want to put a wrapper element around several other HTML elements with the sole purpose of setting up a convenient CSS selector to refer to all the contained elements:
<TAG id="just-a-handy-wrapper">
<abc ...>
...
</abc>
...
<pqr ...>
...
</pqr>
</TAG>
...and in the CSS:
#just-a-handy wrapper * {
...
}
I find this easier to manage and maintain than the alternative of assigning a common class to all the items captured by the #just-a-handy wrapper * selector above.
In this example, I've used fictitious tags <abc>, ..., <pqr>, etc., for the contained elements to stress the fact that I'm looking for a solution that works irrespective of the nature of the specific tags among the contents.
I've also used the fictitious tag TAG as a placeholder for the desired "wrapper tag", because my question is precisely about the best HTML tag to use for this purpose. By "best" I mean most "universal" in the types of elements it can contain in valid HTML5, and "most layout-neutral".
IOW, the ideal HTML tag would the one where the page including the code above would always be rendered exactly the same as one where the <tag ...> and </tag> lines were removed, or commented out:
<!-- <tag id="just-a-handy-wrapper"> -->
<div ...>
...
</div>
...
<div ...>
...
</div>
<!-- </tag> -->
A div, for example, is not "layout-neutral" (the browser will generally have strong ideas about how to layout a div), therefore it would not do to set tag equal to div. Here's a simple example of this:
original
with <div> wrapper around two of the three blue
rectangles
Yes, there is a CSS for that supported by major browsers
display: contents
E.g.
<section class="container"><div>Parent is virtually not rendered</div></section>
.container {
display: contents;
}
Sorry, I fear there is no such tag.
Imaginge a scenario where your <abc> or <pqr> tags are block-level tags, say <p> tags. In order to fullfill your requirement (the layout should be the same, if the tag is there or not), the container tag would need to be a blocklevel tag to be w3c conform, and it should not have any default stylings. As far as I know, a <div> is exaclty that.
Now imaginge a scenario where your<abc> or <pqr> are inline tags like <i> or <b>. In order to fullfill your requirement the container tag would need to be a inline tag itself, otherwise it would break the line.
Now the thing is it is not possible for a tag to be inline- and block-level at the same time.
And to answer your question about the most universal tags:
Use div as a container for block-level contents and use span as a container for inline contents. These tags are made for this purpose.
From the w3c Visual Formatting Model document:
Boxes in the normal flow belong to a formatting context, which may be block or inline, but not both simultaneously
In your fiddles, the lack of layout neutrality is demonstrated by the text-align: center; rule on the .outer element no longer applying to the .inner elements, once there was a wrapper element layered between them.
I know that you'd prefer to speak in generalities to stress your point about a layout neutral tag, but since all HTML elements must have a formatting context, there will always be a side-effect to adding more tags to the markup. (In this case, your <div> tag is a block.)
Most often there's no visual issue, but insofar as your layout depends on formatting contexts, adding more elements will always run counter to you having a layout-neutral tag.
I would echo #Mario A's answer that where you need to wrap a tag with something layout neutral, wrap block tags with <div>s, and inline tags, with spans, so as not to introduce new formatting contexts that could disrupt your layout.
<span> is layout neutral but it depends on which types of elements go within in, for example it cannot contain block elements like <div>. Whether an element renders as a block depends on the element, but can be specifying, for example <div style="display:inline-block"> or <div style="display:table-cell"> display differently.
Since it's a CSS question, you can use IDs on your elements to add extra CSS rules, or apply several different classes to one ID. EG
<div id="mydiv" class="blacktext">helloo</div>
<div class="blacktext class2">hello</div> <!-- apply class blacktext and class2-->
CSS
.class2 { background-color: #FF0000;}
References
[1] the <span> tag
The tag is used to group inline-elements in a document.
The tag provides no visual change by itself.
The tag provides a way to add a hook to a part of a text or a part of a document.
[2] span vs div
Answer on stackoverflow about inline-block, block and inline with <span> and ` compared
There isn't such a tag, and there very well should be one.
Some tags like fieldset have behavior that affect child elements, but also do not require having any rendering. fieldset, when disabled, will disable all children input elements and is incredibly useful. However, you cannot wrap it around a <tr> specifically because it needs to be rendered.
I think the slot tag can be a good candidate for your requirements.
Basically, I'm looking for the cleanest way to modify the styling of some text that i have in the application views without having to reprogram them.
I have a lot of section that does not have any tag (text without tag in the view).
Is there a way to apply styling to that specific text? (Solution for the short term, before I redefine correctly the tags in the while views)
Except for a small number of narrowly defined places, you can't apply CSS to anything other than an element.
So: No, there isn't.
You cannot add style to a something that doesn't have an element. A simple div tag can change that, and its a really easy and quick fix. Just div a section, give it an id or class, then modify it using css.
if you want to modify the first line you could use:
p:first-line {
font-weight: 700;
color: green;
}
otherwise you'll have to wrap the text in a tag. Other psuedo elements you could use are here: http://www.w3schools.com/css/css_pseudo_elements.asp
I've difficulties to set up css rules of tags containing text inside li tag. Anything inside li becomes anormaly smaller. To make it readable, I need to make it bigger in an important scale (for instance, from .8em to 1.1 em). Unfortunately, the new text's size doesn't always match the one before it was put inside the anchor tag.
What I want is to be able to restore the previous settings as before I place the tag containing the text inside the li tag. Is there a trick to do that? Let's say, for font-size = 12px, do I need to make it, for instance, 15px to go back to 12px?
EDIT
Actually, a tag is not causing me trouble, but it's rather li tag which shrinks all the put inside. So, I've edited the above post by replacing all the a tag by li tag. I'm sorry for that. Anyway; while I thought I've run into an issue, after reading article suggested by S. Jones, I'm aware of the inheritence property on some tags.
Here's the issue. Let's say, I have
<a href = "somewhere">Somewhere<a>
a { font-size: 12px;}
After I put the above tag inside a li tag
<li><a href = "somewhere">Somewhere<a></li>
a { font-size: ???;}
After reading S. Jones article, I wonder if I need to disable inheritence or use IMPORTANT!!!
Thanks for helping
It sounds like you've got cascading and inheritance issues with your CSS.
You might want to look through the following:
Cascading Order and Inheritance in CSS
CSS Structure and Rules
There are several ways that you could fix your issue, but I can't say sure without seeing your CSS and HTML. If you could post some sample HTML along with your CSS file which illustrates your issue - several people here on SO will be able to recommend solutions.
Debug Recommendation: If you're not currently using it, you might want to look at installing the Firebug plugin for Firefox. It's a great tool for inspecting your page. You can highlight specific areas, and Firebug will show you which HTML elements and CSS classes are responsible for the layout.
UPDATE: Thanks, that's much more clear. Check your CSS file for any styling being applied to your list elements (li, ol, ul). You'll either need to remove some styling from these elements, or define font-size specifically for a elements nested within li.
For Example: li a {font-size:12px;} which will set the font size for a elements, only when they are nested within li elements.
Cheers.
I'm generating a page for an upcoming portal site, and I've got an HTML element with some optional content. I'd like the element to not render if it is empty, but adding some padding to it causes it to render. How do I add padding to the content, but only if content is present?
.someElement{padding-top: 5px;}
HTML in question:
<div class="someElement">With padded content</div>
<div class="someElement"><!-- shouldn't render since it has no content --></div>
Basically, I'd like the second element, above, to not take up any space. I'm testing in all major browsers, using XHTML 1.1 doctype.
You can do the trick with the CSS3 pseudo-class :empty
.someElement
{
// your standard style
}
.someElement:empty
{
display:none;
}
Sadly Internet explorer doesn't support that feauture yet. For all the other browsers it shall do just fine...
Give the element an id attribute. You can then use Javascript to check it's innerHTML property once the page has loaded. If innerHTML has a length of zero, then you can set it's display property to none. This page might help if you don't know your javascript.
This is still a mucky way to play. If you know the element shouldn't be rendered before you serve the page it would be better to omit it altogether. If you don't want to omit the element, just hide it, then force it into hiding; style="display: none"
<style>
.someElement{padding-top: 5px; display:table;}
</style>
<div class="someElement">With padded content</div>
<div class="someElement"><!-- shouldn't render since it has no content --></div>
Adding display:table; should do the trick.
Give the empty element a different class (say someHiddenElement) when you are generating the content. Then add someHiddenElement { display: none } to your style sheet.
If it's necessary to have the div.someElement in the HTML, the best CSS/HTML way to do that would be to add an extra div around the added content that has the padding property
.someElement > div{padding-top:5px;}
<div class="someElement"><div>Content</div></div>
Otherwise, do as Pekka says, or take a look at having javascript do it for you.
I can't think of a CSS only way to do that.
I would try to decide whether the element is rendered at the time I know whether there will be any content in it. That is probably the cleanest solution.
Don't use padding on container, use margin on content. Than when there is no content, container remains invisible.
At the point where you populate the optional div, if there is no text to put in it, try changing the CSS display property to none. According to this source (and others), display: none removes the element completely from the document. It does not take up any space, even though the HTML for it is still in the source code.
I'd like to change this:
<a href='foo'>
<div> Moo </div>
</a>
to be standards compliant (you're not supposed to have block elements in inline elements). Wiring javascript to the divs just for navigation seems like a hack and degrades accessibility.. In this case, my requirements are for 2 sets of borders on my fixed-dimension links, so the above non-compliant code works perfectly after applying styles.
Also, is "a { display:block; }" a legal way to circumvent the validation?
Why not use a <span> rather than a <div> and set display:block on both elements?
Additionally, to answer your latter question: I don't believe adding display:block; to your anchor will make it pass validation. The validator checks to see if you're following (X)HTML rules, not how to present the page to the user.
You may want to consider putting the div outside the a if it is only for display purposes, unless it's important that the outer border be clickable. Either this:
<div class="dbl_border_links">Blah text</div>
or this:
<a class="dbl_border_links" href="blah"><span>Blah text</span></a>
will work and you can use something like this:
<style>
.dbl_border_links, .dbl_border_links>* {
display: block;
border: 1px solid;
padding: 1px;
}
.dbl_border_links {
border-color: red;
}
.dbl_border_links > * {
border-color: blue;
}
</style>
to specify the styles. Personally I'd go with the div containing the a but either approach works.
I normally consider the <a > tag to be a special case for this purpose. You ought to be able to apply that to just about anything- it is after kind of the whole point of hypertext (<tr > comes to mind a good example). But if you have to pass a validator somewhere I understand.
Could you use a javascript onclick handler for the div, and eliminate the anchor entirely?
Firstly, there is certainly nothing wrong with giving an anchor display:block; I'd say it's one of the more common things people do with CSS and is perfectly standards compliant. Secondly, there are a number of ways to achieve a double border on an HTML element. For one thing, check out the "outline" property:
http://webdesign.about.com/od/advancedcss/a/outline_style.htm
Admittedly, this will only work in the more modern browsers but should degrade gracefully as the outline doesn't take up any space in the page. If the contents of the link is to be an image you can simply give the <a> a little padding and a background colour as well as a normal border (in another colour) to create the impression of a double border. Or give the image a border of its own. Of course you can also do something along the lines of your original idea, though nesting your HTML the other way around, and simply assigning a different border to each element. Or you can use an inline element inside the link (like a <span> or an <em> or something) which you also set to display:block; (yes, this is also valid!). Happy coding!
If I understand correctly your intentions, you should place, as already mentioned, the div outside the anchor, and, to get the same presentation, make the anchor width:100%;height:100%. Cross Browser milage may vary.
Also, you could dump the div altogether and give the anchor display:block;
What are you exactly trying to do?