Pseudo elements in css

Nov 3, 2022 · 4 min read Cascading Style Sheet (CSS) pseudo-elements are a handful of CSS features that help us keep our Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) minimal by adding and modifying it directly from the CSS code. For example, you may want to add text before a particular HTML element used in multiple places in the entire code. As we progress in this tutorial, we will examine different CSS pseudo-elements and how to apply them. At the end of this article, we’ll have fully grasped the concept behind CSS Pseudo Elements and how to apply them. You’ll need a fundamental knowledge of CSS to follow along with the code samples and understand the terminologies used in the article. What are CSS Pseudo Elements? Pseudo Elements are elements virtually added to the HTML via CSS code. These elements do not exist in the Document Object Model (DOM). In simple terms, pseudo-elements are elements that can be visualized on the webpage but are created using CSS. Note: Without using the content property, pseudo-elements won’t reflect. Pseudo Elements syntax: CSS 2 vs. CSS 3 syntax The syntax changes between CSS versions: CSS 2 Syntax selector:pseudo-element Try highlighting the paragraph and any other text in the demo; you will see the style applied. Demo: See the Pen Session Replay for Developers Uncover frustrations, understand bugs and fix slowdowns like never before with Check our GitHub repo and join the thousands of developers in our community. Combination Of the ::before and ::after...

Here’s a container with some child elements: itemitemitem If I do: .container::before …is going to select the same element whether or not there is a ::before pseudo-element or not. The same is true for ::after and :nth-last-child and friends. That’s why I put “kinda” in the title. If pseudo-elements were exactly like child elements, they would affect these selectors. Another gotcha is that you can’t select a pseudo-element in JavaScript like you could a regular child element. document.querySelector(".container::before"); is going to return null. If the reason you are trying to get your hands on the pseudo-element in JavaScript is to see its styles, you can do that CSSOM magic: const styles = window.getComputedStyle( document.querySelector('.container'), '::before' ); console.log(styles.content); // "x" console.log(styles.color); // rgb(255, 0, 0) console.log(styles.getPropertyValue('color'); // rgb(255, 0, 0) Have you run into any gotchas with pseudo-elements? What is relatively useful in this behaviour is that you can easily center (or, in general, position) your pseudelements within the parent by adding display: flex; to the parent. For example while adding custom markers to elements. If the list item is a flexbox then its ::before pseudoelement and text content will line up as they should. This is also something worth mentioning: those pseudoelements within grid and flexboxes they are treated exactly the same way as text nodes. After all, you can have a structure like...

Pseudo elements are an interesting part of CSS. They allow you to make a lot of small tweaks to your design. Yet, especially beginners might be confused by them at first. For that reason, in this blog post, we want to talk about them in detail. In the following, we will give you a beginner’s guide to CSS pseudo elements. We will explain what they are, how they work, and what you can use them for. The post will conclude with examples of how to use the most common pseudo elements. In the end, we want you to feel empowered and capable to make them part of your CSS repertoire. What Are CSS Pseudo Elements? In order to explain what pseudo elements are, it’s best to start with an example. Here’s a very simple HTML page with a link to a style sheet and a single paragraph element on it. CSS pseudo-element test However, when we look at the page in a browser, it comes out like this: You will probably notice the arrow in front of the paragraph that appears even though it’s not present in the HTML document. That’s because the linked style sheet contains the following markup: p::before Above is a rather standard looking CSS selector. However, what stands out are the double colon plus before behind it. That’s our pseudo element. In this case, it does a very simple thing, it adds an element in front of the inner HTML of the target selector and places the content defined in its value. In this case that’s an arrow and the targeted element is every paragraph element on the page. The intere...

In CSS, pseudo-classes and pseudo-elements are two types of keywords that you can combine with selectors. They are used to target the element's state or specific parts of an element. In this article, we'll explore the differences between the two along with their history and best practices. Syntax • The single colon : refers to pseudo-classes • The double colon :: refers to pseudo-elements Pseudo-Classes vs Pseudo-Elements pseudo-, is used to reference classes or elements that are not "real". Not real in this context means not a DOM (Document Object Model) element, but instead a virtual element created for styling purposes. To form a better definition, let's discuss the difference between pseudo-classes and pseudo-elements in greater detail. What are Pseudo-Classes in CSS? Pseudo-classes ( :) are primarily used to style an element that's under various states. When referring to state, this includes the condition or user behavior, for example hover, active, focus, or disabled. States generally involve user interaction. For example, we can target all links to have a text color of lavender when the user hovers over the link. a:hover Another common example of a pseudo-element is to use ::before or ::after to insert content before or after the targeted element. Test out the code example below to see how you can use ::before and ::after to create lines before and after a text element. The Difference between : and :: in CSS As a takeaway, remember that there is a key difference be...

I used to do ::before and ::after aren’t enough. Why the seemingly arbitrary limitation? Now Alan Stearns from Adobe is heading up a new draft for the CSSWG for getting this added back to the spec (and make it work in browsers). He needs some help! He needs visual use cases on why designers want this. One example I thought of right away was Or you might need to use On a larger scale, take a browse around So let’s have it folks! What are some use cases you’ve come across where you wanted multiple pseudo elements but didn’t have them? Helping Alan out with this helps move the web forward. Blockquotes should have paragraphs in them, so you could target the first and last paragraphs for the quotes and still use the pseudo elements on the blockquote ;-) But I think it would be nice if you could chain pseudo elements, like: .some-class:before:before Although that would get a little messy I guess ;-) Could also allow complex css animations without 100 divs. It would be very useful for people who work on css, but that aren’t allowed to modify the html. Personally 1 in 2 of my websites have non-semantic divs in them… and I think all of them have superfluous tags like a link inside a li tag, or a p inside an article… It kindof annoys me sometimes. This is something I’ve always wondered about. Perhaps setting it like this would work? It seems like a good way to do it, because multiple elements could call upon the same predefined pseudo element. @pseudo-element nameOfElement This loo...

For years, pseudo-elements have faithfully helped front-end developers implement creative designs. While they still have an important place, we can now leave pseudo-elements behind in some scenarios, thanks to newer CSS properties. Per the ::first-letter and ::first-line were introduced. The popular ::before and ::after pseudo-elements were added in version 2 — these represent content that does not exist in the source document at all. They can be thought of as two extra elements you can “tack onto” their originating element. When front-end developers hear “pseudo-elements”, we think of ::before and ::after more often than not, as we use them in various ways to add decorations to our elements. There are additional pseudo-elements beyond these. They are listed in the spec across three categories: Interestingly, after years of web development, I never found myself using ::first-line, but it’s pretty neat and responds well to window resizing! Check it out. See the Pen [`::first-line`](https://codepen.io/smashingmag/pen/gORgXxN) by See the Pen ::first-line by ::selection is another pseudo-element many reach to. When a user highlights text, the highlight color will be a color that you specify. See the Pen [`::selection`](https://codepen.io/smashingmag/pen/rNwjYGz) by See the Pen ::selection by Quick Tip Pseudo-elements used one colon in versions 1 and 2 of the CSS spec, but have used two colons from version 3. This differentiates them from pseudo-classes, which describe an eleme...