May 2004
CSS trick: Same link text - different colours
Place your mouse over this link: This is a link
How does that work?
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Pretty neat! This link is created by nesting elements. Let's put the CSS code together, bit by bit:
a.example
{
color: #00f;
text-decoration: none
}
a.example:hover
{
color: #f90;
text-decoration: underline
}
<a href="#" class="example">This is a link</a>
...Giving you: This is a link
(#00f and #f90 are shortened versions of #0000ff and #ff9900 respectively - you can apply this shortened version to any value like this)
Nesting elements
Pretty straightforward so far. Now, here's the fun part! We can nest a <span> tag in the middle of the link:
<a href="#" class="example">This <span>is a link</span></a>
This doesn't actually change anything so we need to assign a value to the <span> tag in the CSS. In addition to the above CSS rule, we'll insert this CSS rule:
a.example span
{
color: #f00;
text-decoration: none
}
a.example:hover span
{
color: #00f;
text-decoration: underline
}
This gives us: This is a link
Nesting... again
Right, let's get nesting again:
<a href="#" class="example">This <span>is <span>a link</span></span></a>
Now let's create a new CSS rule for this <span> tag:
a.example span span
{
color: #0c0;
text-decoration: none
}
a.example:hover span span
{
color: #f00;
text-decoration: underline
}
Now we have: This is a link
The final nesting
<a href="#" class="example">This <span>is <span>a <span>link</span></span></span></a>
The new CSS rule is:
a.example span span span
{
color: #f90;
text-decoration: none
}
a.example:hover span span span
{
color: #0c0;
text-decoration: underline
}
And the final result: This is a link
All done... So now you've learnt how to change colours within the same link, using the power of CSS - congratulations!
This article was written by Trenton Moss. Trenton's crazy about web usability and accessibility - so crazy that he founded Webcredible, an industry-leading user experience consultancy, helping to make the Internet a better place for everyone. He's very good at running CSS training and spends much of his time working on the world's most accessible CMS.
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