Cascading Style Sheets
(CSS)
Mendel Rosenblum
CS142 Lecture Notes - CSS 1
Driving problem behind CSS
How what font type and size does <h1>Introduction</h1> generate?
Answer: Some default from the browser (HTML tells what browser how)
Early HTML - Override defaults with attributes
<table border="2" bordercolor="black">
Style sheets were added to address this:
Specify style to use rather than browser default
Not have to code styling on every element
CS142 Lecture Notes - CSS 2
Key concept: Separate style from content
Content (what to display) is in HTML files
Formatting information (how to display it) is in separate style sheets (.css files).
Use an element attribute named class to link (e.g. <span class=test>)
Result: define style information once, use in many places
Consider can you make all the text in the app slightly bigger?
Or purple is our new company color.
DRY principle: Don't Repeat Yourself
CS142 Lecture Notes - CSS 3
Style sheet contain one or more CSS Rules
Selector
body {
font-family: Tahoma, Arial, sans-serif;
Declaration color: black;
Block background: white;
margin: 8px;
}
Property Value
CS142 Lecture Notes - CSS 4
CSS
CSS HTML
Selector
h1 {
<h1>Todays Specials</h1>
Tag name color: red;
}
.large {
<p class="large">...
Class attribute font-size: 16pt;
}
Tag and Class p.large {...} <p class="large">...
#p20 {
<p id="p20">...
Class id font-weight: bold;
}
CS142 Lecture Notes - CSS 5
CSS Pseudo Selectors
hover - Apply rule when mouse is over element (e.g. tooltip)
p:hover, a:hover {
background-color: yellow;
}
a:link, a:visited - Apply rule when link has been visited or not visited (link)
a:visited { a:link {
color: green; color: blue;
} }
CS142 Lecture Notes - CSS 6
CSS Properties
Control many style properties of an element:
Coloring
Size
Position
Visibility
Many more (e.g. p: { text-decoration: line-through; })
CS142 Lecture Notes - CSS 7
Color - Properties: color & background_color
Must ultimately turn into red, green, and blue intensities between 0 and 255:
Predefined names: red, blue, green, white, etc.
8-bit hexadecimal numbers for red, green, blue: #ff0000
R G B
0-255 decimal intensities: rgb(255,255,0)
R G B
Percentage intensities: rgb(80%,80%,%100)
R G B
Example: h1: { color: red; }
CS142 Lecture Notes - CSS 8
CSS Box Model
Margin Total element width =
Border width +
Padding left padding +
right padding +
width left border +
right border +
Element
height
left margin +
right margin
Margin & Padding
Transparent
CS142 Lecture Notes - CSS 9
Absolute
CSS distance units
2px pixels
1mm millimeters
2cm centimeters
0.2in inches
3pt printer point 1/72 inch
Relative
2em 2 times the elements current font size
2rem 3 times the root elements current font size
CS142 Lecture Notes - CSS 10
Size Properties - Element, pad, margin, border
width - Override element defaults border-bottom-color
height border-bottom-style
border-bottom-width
padding-top border-left-color
padding-right border-left-style
padding-bottom border-left-width
padding-left border-right-color
border-right-style
margin-top border-right-width
margin-right etc.
margin-bottom
margin-left
CS142 Lecture Notes - CSS 11
position property
position static; (default) - Position in document flow
position relative; Position relative to default position via
top, right, bottom, and left properties
position fixed; Position to a fixed location on the screen via
top, right, bottom, and left properties
position absolute; Position relative to ancestor absolute element via
top, right, bottom, and left properties
Fixed position (0,0) is top left corner
CS142 Lecture Notes - CSS 12
Some more common properties
background-image: image for element's background
background-repeat: should background image be displayed in a repeating
pattern (versus once only)
font, font-family, font-size, font-weight, font-style: font
information for text
text-align, vertical-align: Alignment: center, left, right
cursor - Set the cursor when over element (e.g. help)
CS142 Lecture Notes - CSS 13
Element visibility control properties
display: none; - Element is not displayed and takes no space in layout
display: inline; - Element is treated as an inline element.
display: block; - Element is treated as an block element.
visibility: hidden; - Element is hidden but space still allocated.
visibility: visible; - Element is normally displayed
CS142 Lecture Notes - CSS 14
Some other CSS issues
Inheritance
Some properties (e.g. font-size) are inherited from parent elements
Others (border, background) are not inherited.
Multiple rule matches
General idea: most specific rule wins
<span>Text1</span> span.test { color: green }
<span class="test">Text2</span> span { color: red }
CS142 Lecture Notes - CSS 15
Adding Styles to HTML Separate style sheet (best way)
<head>
<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="myStyles.css" />
<style type="text/css">
body {
font-family: Tahoma, Arial, sans-serif;
}
</style> Page-specific styles
</head>
<body>
<div style="padding:2px; ... ">
</body>
Element-specific styles
CS142 Lecture Notes - CSS 16
body { <body>
font-family: Tahoma, Arial, sans-serif; <h1>First Section Heading</h1>
font-size: 13px; <p>
color: black; Here is the first paragraph, containing
text that really doesn't have any use
background: white;
or meaning; it just prattles on and on,
margin: 8px;
with no end whatsoever, no point to
}
make, really no purpose for existence
h1 { at all.
font-size: 19px; </p>
margin-top: 0px; <div class="shaded">
margin-bottom: 5px; <h1>Another Section Heading</h1>
border-bottom: 1px solid black <p>
} Another paragraph.
.shaded { </p>
background: #d0d0ff; </div>
} </body>
CSS: CS142 Lecture Notes - CSS HTML: 17
Example Output
CS142 Lecture Notes - CSS 18
CSS in the real world
CSS preprocessors (e.g. less) are commonly used
Add variable and functions to help in maintaining large collections of style sheets
Composition is a problem
It can be really hard to figure out what rule from which stylesheet is messing things up
CS142 Lecture Notes - CSS 19