CSS Pseudo-Elements
Introduction
Pseudo-elements, just like pseudo-classes, are added to a CSS selectors but instead of describing a special state, they allow you to scope and style certain parts of an html element.
For example, the ::first-letter pseudo-element targets only the first letter of a block element specified by the selector.
Syntax
- selector::pseudo-element {property: value}
Parameters
| pseudo-element | Description |
|---|---|
::after | Insert content after the content of an element |
::before | Insert content before the content of an element |
::first-letter | Selects the first letter of each element |
::first-line | Selects the first line of each element |
::selection | Matches the portion of an element that is selected by a user |
::backdrop | Used to create a backdrop that hides the underlying document for an element in the top layer's stack |
::placeholder | Allows you to style the placeholder text of a form element (Experimental) |
::marker | For applying list-style attributes on a given element (Experimental) |
::spelling-error | Represents a text segment which the browser has flagged as incorrectly spelled (Experimental) |
::grammar-error | Represents a text segment which the browser has flagged as grammatically incorrect (Experimental) |
Remarks
-
Sometimes you will see double colons (
::) instead of just one (:). This is a way to separate pseudo-classes from pseudo-elements, but some older browsers like Internet Explorer 8 only supports single colon (:) for pseudo-elements. -
One can use only one pseudo-element in a selector. It must appear after the simple selectors in the statement.
-
Pseudo-elements are not a part of the DOM, therefore are not targetable by
:hoveror other user events.
