M2/A2-R5 Part 4

CSS:
Introduction:
CSS is the acronym for "Cascading Style Sheet". CSS is used to control the style of a web
document in a simple and easy way. Therefore, it is a simple design language intended to simplify the
process of making web pages presentable.

As CSS is one of the most widely used style language over the web. Here some advantages are given below:

 CSS saves time - You can write CSS once and then reuse same sheet in multiple HTML pages. You
can define a style for each HTML element and apply it to as many Web pages as you want.
 Pages load faster - If you are using CSS, you do not need to write HTML tag attributes every time.
Just write one CSS rule of a tag and apply it to all the occurrences of that tag. So less code means
faster download times.
 Easy maintenance - To make a global change, simply change the style, and all elements in all the
web pages will be updated automatically.
 Superior styles to HTML - CSS has a much wider array of attributes than HTML, so you can give a far
better look to your HTML page in comparison to HTML attributes.
 Multiple Device Compatibility - Style sheets allow content to be optimized for more than one type
of device. By using the same HTML document, different versions of a website can be presented for
handheld devices such as PDAs and cell phones or for printing.
 Global web standards - Now HTML attributes are being deprecated and it is being recommended to
use CSS. So its a good idea to start using CSS in all the HTML pages to make them compatible to
future browsers.

Who Creates and Maintains CSS?

CSS is created and maintained through a group of people within the W3C called the CSS Working
Group. The CSS Working Group creates documents called specifications. When a specification has been
discussed and officially ratified by the W3C members, it becomes a recommendation.
These ratified specifications are called recommendations because the W3C has no control over the
actual implementation of the language. Independent companies and organizations create that
software.
NOTE − The World Wide Web Consortium, or W3C is a group that makes recommendations about how
the Internet works and how it should evolve.

CSS Versions:
Cascading Style Sheets level 1 (CSS1) came out of W3C as a recommendation in December 1996. This
version describes the CSS language as well as a simple visual formatting model for all the HTML tags.
CSS2 became a W3C recommendation in May 1998 and builds on CSS1. This version adds support for
media-specific style sheets e.g. printers and aural devices, downloadable fonts, element positioning
and tables.
CSS – Syntax:
A CSS comprises of style rules that are interpreted by the browser and then applied to the
corresponding elements in your document. A style rule is made of three parts −
Selector − A selector is an HTML tag at which a style will be applied. This could be any tag like <h1> or
<table> etc.
Property − A property is a type of attribute of HTML tag. Put simply, all the HTML attributes are
converted into CSS properties. They could be color, border etc.
Value − Values are assigned to properties. For example, color property can have value either red or
#F1F1F1 etc.

You can put CSS Style Rule Syntax as follows −

selector { property: value }

Example − You can define a table border as follows −

table{ border :1px solid #C00; }
Here table is a selector and border is a property and given value 1px solid #C00 is the value of that
property. You can define selectors in various simple ways based on your comfort.

Type of Selectors:
1. The Type Selectors -
This is the same selector we have seen above. Again, one more example to give a color to all level 1
headings −
h1 {
color: #36CFFF;
}
2. The Universal Selectors -
Rather than selecting elements of a specific type, the universal selector quite simply matches the name
of any element type −
*{
color: #000000;
}
This rule renders the content of every element in our document in black.
3. The Descendant Selectors -
Suppose you want to apply a style rule to a particular element only when it lies inside a particular
element. As given in the following example, style rule will apply to <em> element only when it lies
inside <ul> tag.
ul em {
color: #000000;
 }
4. The Class Selectors -
You can define style rules based on the class attribute of the elements. All the elements having that
class will be formatted according to the defined rule.
.black {
color: #000000;
}
This rule renders the content in black for every element with class attribute set to black in our
document. You can make it a bit more particular. For example −
h1.black {
color: #000000;
}
This rule renders the content in black for only <h1> elements with class attribute set to black.
You can apply more than one class selectors to given element. Consider the following example −
<p class = "center bold">
This para will be styled by the classes center and bold.
</p>
5. The ID Selectors -
You can define style rules based on the id attribute of the elements. All the elements having that id will
be formatted according to the defined rule.
#black {
color: #000000;
}
This rule renders the content in black for every element with id attribute set to black in our document.
You can make it a bit more particular. For example −
h1#black {
color: #000000;
}
This rule renders the content in black for only <h1> elements with id attribute set to black.
The true power of id selectors is when they are used as the foundation for descendant selectors, For
example −
#black h2 {
color: #000000;
}
In this example all level 2 headings will be displayed in black color when those headings will lie with in
tags having id attribute set to black.
6. The Child Selectors -
You have seen the descendant selectors. There is one more type of selector, which is very similar to
descendants but have different functionality. Consider the following example −
body > p {
color: #000000;
}
This rule will render all the paragraphs in black if they are direct child of <body> element. Other
paragraphs put inside other elements like <div> or <td> would not have any effect of this rule.
 7. The Attribute Selectors -
You can also apply styles to HTML elements with particular attributes. The style rule below will match
all the input elements having a type attribute with a value of text −
input[type = "text"] {
color: #000000;
}
The advantage to this method is that the <input type = "submit" /> element is unaffected, and the color
applied only to the desired text fields.
There are following rules applied to attribute selector :
 p[lang] − Selects all paragraph elements with a lang attribute.
 p[lang="fr"] − Selects all paragraph elements whose lang attribute has a value of exactly "fr".
 p[lang~="fr"] − Selects all paragraph elements whose lang attribute contains the word "fr".
 p[lang|="en"] − Selects all paragraph elements whose lang attribute contains values that are
exactly "en", or begin with "en-".

Multiple Style Rules:

You may need to define multiple style rules for a single element. You can define these rules to combine
multiple properties and corresponding values into a single block as defined in the following example –
h1 {
color: #36C;
font-weight: normal;
letter-spacing: .4em;
margin-bottom: 1em;
text-transform: lowercase;
}
Here all the property and value pairs are separated by a semicolon (;). You can keep them in a single line or
multiple lines. For better readability, we keep them in separate lines.

Grouping Selectors :
You can apply a style to many selectors if you like. Just separate the selectors with a comma, as given in the
following example –
h1, h2, h3 {
color: #36C;
font-weight: normal;
letter-spacing: .4em;
margin-bottom: 1em;
text-transform: lowercase;
}
This define style rule will be applicable to h1, h2 and h3 element as well. The order of the list is irrelevant.
All the elements in the selector will have the corresponding declarations applied to them.
You can combine the various id selectors together as shown below –
#content, #footer, #supplement {
position: absolute;
left: 510px;
width: 200px;
}