CSS Selectors
CSS selectors are used to "find" (or select) the HTML
elements you want to style.
We can divide CSS selectors into five categories:
Simple selectors (select elements based on
name, id, class)
Combinator selectors (select elements based on
a specific relationship between them)
Pseudo-class selectors (select elements based
on a certain state)
Pseudo-elements selectors (select and style a
part of an element)
Attribute selectors (select elements based on an
attribute or attribute value)
This page will explain the most basic CSS selectors.
The CSS element Selector
The element selector selects HTML
elements based on the element name.
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<style>
p{
text-align: center;
color: red;
}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<p>Every paragraph will be affected by the
style.</p>
<p id="para1">Me too!</p>
<p>And me!</p>
</body>
</html>
The CSS id Selector
The id selector uses the id attribute of an
HTML element to select a specific
element.
The id of an element is unique within a
page, so the id selector is used to select
one unique element!
To select an element with a specific id,
write a hash (#) character, followed by
the id of the element.
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<style>
#para1 {
text-align: center;
color: red;
}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<p id="para1">Hello World!</p>
<p>This paragraph is not affected by the style.</p>
</body>
</html>
The CSS class Selector
The class selector selects HTML elements
with a specific class attribute.
To select elements with a specific class,
write a period (.) character, followed by
the class name.
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<style>
.center {
text-align: center;
color: red;
}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1 class="center">Red and center-aligned
heading</h1>
<p class="center">Red and center-aligned
paragraph.</p>
</body>
</html>
The CSS Universal Selector
The universal selector (*) selects all HTML
elements on the page.
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<style>
*{
text-align: center;
color: blue;
}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1>Hello world!</h1>
<p>Every element on the page will be affected by
the style.</p>
<p id="para1">Me too!</p>
<p>And me!</p>
</body>
</html>
The CSS Grouping Selector
The grouping selector selects all the
HTML elements with the same style
definitions.
Look at the following CSS code (the h1,
h2, and p elements have the same style
definitions):
