CSS Tutorials

Overview

pseudo-class is used to define a special state of an element, while a pseudo-element is used to style specified parts of an element.

Pseudo-Classes

A pseudo-class can be used to:

  • Style an element when a user moves the cursor over it (hover)
  • Style visited and unvisited links differently as a visual cue to the user
  • Style an element when it gets focus, such as a form field

Styling links:

a:link {
    color: green;
    text-decoration: none;
}
a:visited {
    color: darkgreen;
    text-decoration: none;
}
a:hover {
    color: red;
    text-decoration: underline;
}
a:active {
    color: orange;
    text-decoration: underline;
}

Note

To ensure proper styling is applied as specified, the link styling should be done in the above order (link, visited, hover, active).

Styling form inputs:

input:focus {
    border: red solid thin;
}

Pseudo-Elements

A pseudo-element can be used to:

ul li::before {
    content: "added info before - ";
}
ul li::after {
    content: " - added info after";
}

CSS Notes:


We’d like to acknowledge that we learned a great deal of our coding from W3Schools and TutorialsPoint, borrowing heavily from their teaching process and excellent code examples. We highly recommend both sites to deepen your experience, and further your coding journey. We’re just hitting the basics here at 1SMARTchicken.