Defining a:focus selector - less

I have the below HTML structure.
<html>
<a class="customcssstyle" href="#'>Link</a>
</html>
Now I need to have a style, such that on focus on the link , it should appear in red.
For that in normal CSS, we write it as:
a.customcssstyle:focus
{
color:red;
}
May I know how we can write it using Less CSS.

CSS syntax is valid in less. But also you can do something like:
.customcssstyle
{
a {
&:focus {
color:red;
}
}
}

First of all: a is an inline element and should be inside a block element (not html). Then in css for calling a class you need a dot, e.g. .customcssstyle and not the value of the attribute class only. At least to select the focus state of this element just call the class with the pseudo selector :focus.
.customcssstyle:focus {
color: red;
}

Related

Anyone Know a Way to Inherit the Parent of an Extended Class?

Background:
Im working on a framework that has browser classes applied to the HTML element.
Im trying to apply a cross browser fix (for safari5) whenever I extend to a mixin.
Example Markup:
<html class="safari5">
<div class="child"></div>
</html>
LESS:
.mixin{
content:"cool style mixin that breaks on safari";
}
.safari5{
.fix{content:"hacks safari5's bullshit and semi-fixes cool style mixin"!important;}
}
.child{
&:extend(.mixin);
&:extend(.fix);
}
/*
Expected CSS Output:
.mixin,
.child {
content: "cool style that breaks on safari";
}
.safari5 .fix,
.safari5 .child{
content:"hacks safari5's bullshit and semi-fixes cool style mixin"!important;
}
*/
Thanks!
See extend all. E.g.:
.mixin {
1: 1;
}
.safari5 {
.fix {2: 2}
}
.child {
&:extend(.mixin, .fix all);
}

LESS condition based on CSS class to set a LESS variable

I need to set a Less variable to match the website's active theme, ie, each theme has a different color.
I'd like to set #themeColor to the right color, based on the HTML's body CSS class that defines the theme.
For example:
body.themeBlue { #themeColor: blue; }
body.themeRed { #themeColor: red; }
This way I'd only need to use the #themeColor variable inside the other Less files.
Can anyone help?
According to this (http://www.lesscss.org/#-scope) it is possible to do something like that, but I can't make it work. what is going on here?
The LESS file cannot read the actual class applied to the html body element at run time (you would probably need to implement a javascript solution to do something like that).
If you just want to have all themed css ready for use based on the body class, the best way to implement this to have all the necessary theme based css in a mixin, then apply it under the theme classes. This reduces code duplication. For example:
LESS
//mixin with all css that depends on your color
.mainThemeDependentCss() {
#contrast: lighten(#themeColor, 20%);
h1 {color: #themeColor;}
p {background-color: #contrast;}
}
//use the mixin in the themes
body.themeBlue {
#themeColor: blue;
.mainThemeDependentCss();
}
body.themeRed {
#themeColor: red;
.mainThemeDependentCss();
}
CSS Output
body.themeBlue h1 {
color: #0000ff;
}
body.themeBlue p {
background-color: #6666ff;
}
body.themeRed h1 {
color: #ff0000;
}
body.themeRed p {
background-color: #ff6666;
}
For some other answers that deal with aspects or ways of theming, see:
LESS CSS - Change variable value for theme colors depending on body class
LESS.css variable depending on class
LESS CSS: abusing the & Operator when nesting?
Variables in Less are actually constants and will only be defined once.
Scope works within its code braces, so you would need to nest your CSS within each theme you want (which means duplication).
This is not ideal as you would need to do this:
body.themeBlue {
#color: blue;
/* your css here */
}
body.themeRed {
#color: red;
/* your css here AGAIN :( */
}
You could, however, try to use variables like this:
#color: black;
#colorRed: red;
#colorBlue: blue;
h1 {
color: #color; // black
body.themeRed & {
color: #colorRed; // red
}
body.themeBlue & {
color: #colorBlue; // blue
}
}
You would only need to declare the colours once, but you would need to constantly do the "body.themeRed" etc. prefixes where the colour varies depending on the theme.
You could actually use #import to load your theme! So common.less would contain all your default styles and #themeColor will be applied to it.
.mainThemeDependentCss() {
//file with all themed styles
#import 'common.less';
}
//use the mixin in the themes
body.themeBlue {
#themeColor: blue;
.mainThemeDependentCss();
}
body.themeRed {
#themeColor: red;
.mainThemeDependentCss();
}
BTW you should avoid using body selector in your common.less, because it wouldn't work.

Referencing parent with multiple levels of nesting in LESS

I have the following LESS:
.container {
.column, .columns {
.one& {
width: 40px;
}
}
}
When I compile I'm getting the following for my CSS:
.one.container .column,
.one.container .columns {
width: 40px;
}
But I expected to get:
.container .one.column,
.container .one.columns {
width: 40px;
}
It appears the parent operator (&) in LESS is actually referencing what I'd expect to be the grandparent. Am I nesting things properly? The docs don't show any examples of nesting more than one level deep. Can I achieve my desired output with nesting?
I'm using lessc 1.3.3 installed via npm.
It's important to think of & as more of a "parentage" combinator, rather than a "parent" combinator. That is, it takes the whole nested string of selectors up to that point (no matter how many levels deep) and acts as the equivalent of a string replacement holder. So with a reduced version of your example...
.container {
.column {
.one& {
width: 40px;
}
}
}
...the selector string at that level is .container .column. This is what is "replaced" in the position of the &, so when you concatenate to the beginning as you do above, it gets attached at the beginning of the whole selector string and you end up with your:
.one.container .column {width 40px;}
But if you concatenate from the end (no space between & and .) then...
.container {
.column {
&.one {
width: 40px;
}
}
}
...becomes:
.container .column.one {width 40px;}
This last one is really the class combination you want, though just not quite in the same order you were hoping for. But order does not matter to the browser, .one.column or .column.one are the same, it just means an element that has both individual classes applied to it like so:
<div class="column one"></div>
<div class="one column"></div>
Both of those are equivalent, and either .one.column or .column.one as a selector is going to select both elements, because both elements have both classes.
If order is absolutely vital to you (you just must have your generated CSS be as you are seeking), then you would need to do a bit of repetition like this:
.container {
.column {
...generic column code here...
}
.one {
&.column {
width: 40px;
...any other code dependent on combination of .one.column here...
}
}
}

How can I target an element within a class using less?

I would like to target specific elements within a class using less.
In this case, I would like to target elements of class button, but within that I would like to target an anchor tag a.
Currently I have:
.button {
/* lots of bits and pieces go here, hence
the need to keep it at a class level
*/
/* further down, but still in .button */
/* Attempt 1 - fails: compiled = a .button (note the space)
a& {
height:20px;
}
/* Attempt 2 - fails: compiled = .buttona
&a {
height:20px;
}
}
I basically want it to compile to:
a.button
This is so I can create elements such as:
<a class="button">
<button class="button">
But slightly alter it when its an anchor. I don't want to throw in the it's a bug in less! card too early, but if I use &.another-class it works as expected (compiled: .button.another-class, but not when targeting elements
You're using an old version of less. The code below generates the correct CSS using less 1.3.3
.button {
a& {
height:20px;
}
}
generates:
a.button {
height: 20px;
}
#Allen Bargi answer is correct, yet only for this specific scenario. I am a little confuse about what you want to achive.
As #Allen Bargi pointed out, this will target "a" lements with a "button" class and generates a
.button {
a& {
height:20px;
}
}
It generates:
a.button {
height: 20px;
}
Meanwhile, this below will target "a" elements contained whitin an element with a "button" class. which seems to me was your original objective.
.button {
a {
height:20px;
}
}
It generates:
.button a {
height:20px;
}
Both solutions migt work fine in this case because you are using the same "button" class for both the parent and the child elements, but they are not targeting the same elements.
I hope this helps.

LESS CSS: selector substitution?

This is an existing general css rule (original file):
.caption-top {
color: red;
}
This is schematic, because in real life case, I need the .caption-top selector to become something else, depending on the context. But I would like to use a variable instead of changing the all occurrences of the selector. For example, in one context, it should become .field-name-field-caption-top. So I did this (wrapper file):
#caption-top: .field-name-field-caption-top;
#caption-top {
color: red;
}
This generates a LESS parse error. Is there another method to establish a rule to substitute a selector? So that, for the above example, the rule will finally look like this:
.field-name-field-caption-top {
color: red;
}
Additional info
The whole point is to not touch the original css file, because it comes from outside and will be overwritten, but instead, to wrap it and tell Less how to replace existing classes with classes used in a particular theme. If it is not possible to achieve, then acceptable solution will be to change the original file in an automatic way, like e.g. replace all occurrences of ".caption" with "#caption" (which I suggested in the above code sample) or make an import at the beginning etc. Then use a wrapper Less file (aware of the theme implementation) to specify what classes whould be replaced with what.
You can use escaping to achieve this:
#selector: '.myclass';
(~'#{selector}') {
color: red;
}
However you cannot do this:
(~'#{selector}') .another {
color: red;
}
To achieve the above you will need to alter the variable
#selector: '.myclass .another';
You need to produce a function of two arguments that generates the desired CSS:
.generator(#fieldName, #fieldCaption) {
.#{fieldName}-#{fieldCaption}-top {
color: red;
}
}
.generator(foo, bar);
(Feel free to try this in the online less compiler)
This piece of code produces the desired CSS for elements with name "foo" and caption "bar". You just need to make more calls to the .generator function with different arguments to obtain what you need.
If this does not correspond to what you need, please provide one additional example of your desired CSS output.
It looks like mixins are what you need:
.caption-top {
color: red;
}
.field-name-field-caption-top {
.caption-top
}
You can define a class that, used or not, you can then reference again and again inside other selectors. You can even combine them with new styles, thereby extending what the original block of CSS would have done:
.field-name-field-caption-bottom {
font-size: 3em;
.caption-top
}
Give it a go in the compiler!