9.9 KiB
Styles and classes
Before we get to Javascript ways of dealing with styles and classes -- here's an important rule.
There are generally two ways to style an element, both in HTML and Javascript:
- Create a class in CSS and add it:
<div class="..."> - Write properties directly into
style:<div style="...">.
[cut]
CSS is always the preferred way, both in HTML and Javascript. We should only use style if classes "can't handle it".
For instance, style is acceptable if we calculated coordinates for an element dynamically and want to set them from Javascript, like here:
let top = /* complex calculations */;
let left = /* complex calculations */;
elem.style.left = left; // e.g '123px'
elem.style.top = top; // e.g '456px'
For other cases, like making the text red, adding a background icon -- describe that in CSS and then apply the class. That's more flexible and easier to support.
className and classList
Changing a class is one of the most often actions in scripts.
In the ancient time, there was a limitation in Javascript: a reserved word like "class" could not be an object property. That limitation does not exist now, but at that time it was impossible to use elem.class.
So instead of elem.class we have elem.className property. It's the string with all classes, the same value as in the "class" attribute.
For instance:
<body class="main page">
<script>
alert(document.body.className); // main page
</script>
</body>
Adding/removing a class is a widespread operation. Using a string for such purpose is cumbersome, so there's another property for that: elem.classList.
The elem.classList is a special object with methods to add/remove/toggle classes.
For instance:
<body class="main page">
<script>
document.body.classList.add('article');
alert(document.body.className); // main page article
</script>
</body>
So we can operate both on the full class string using className or on individual classes using classList. What we choose depends on our needs.
Methods of classList:
elem.classList.add/remove("class")-- adds/removes the class.elem.classList.toggle("class")-- if the class exists, then removes it, otherwise adds it.elem.classList.contains("class")-- returnstrue/false, checks for the given class.
Besides that, classList is iterable, so we can list all classes like this:
<body class="main page">
<script>
for(let name of document.body.classList) {
alert(name); // main, and then page
}
</script>
</body>
Element style
The property elem.style is an object that corresponds to what's written in the "style" attribute. Setting elem.style.width="100px" works as if we had in the attribute style="width:100px".
For multi-word property the camelCase is used:
background-color => elem.style.backgroundColor
z-index => elem.style.zIndex
border-left-width => elem.style.borderLeftWidth
For instance:
document.body.style.backgroundColor = prompt('background color?', 'green');
Browser-prefixed properties like `-moz-border-radius`, `-webkit-border-radius` also follow the same rule, for instance:
```js
button.style.MozBorderRadius = '5px';
button.style.WebkitBorderRadius = '5px';
```
That is: a dash `"-"` becomes an uppercase.
Resetting the style
To "reset" the style property, we should assign an empty line to it. For instance, if we set a width and now want to remove it, then elem.style.width="".
For instance, to hide an element, we can set elem.style.display = "none".
And to show it back, we should not set another display like elem.style.display = "block". To return the "default" display: elem.style.display = "".
// if we run this code, the <body> would "blink"
document.body.style.display = "none";
setTimeout(() => document.body.style.display = "", 1000);
If we set display to an empty string, then the browser applies CSS classes and its built-in styles normally, as if there were no such style property.
````smart header="Full rewrite with style.cssText"
Normally, style.* assign individual style properties. We can't set the full style like div.style="color: red; width: 100px", because div.style is an object.
To set the full style as a string, there's a special property style.cssText:
<div id="div">Button</div>
<script>
// we can set special style flags like "important" here
div.style.cssText=`color: red !important;
background-color: yellow;
width: 100px;
text-align: center;
`;
alert(div.style.cssText);
</script>
We rarely use it, because such a setting removes all existing styles: not adds, but rather replaces them. But still can be done for new elements when we know we don't delete something important.
The same can be accomplished by setting an attribute: div.setAttribute('style', "color: red...").
## Mind the units
CSS units must exist in values. We should not set `elem.style.top` to `10`, but rather to `10px`. Otherwise it wouldn't work.
For instance:
```html run height=100
<body>
<script>
*!*
// won't work!
document.body.style.margin = 20;
alert(document.body.style.margin); // '' (empty string)
*/!*
// now the right way
document.body.style.margin = '20px';
alert(document.body.style.margin); // 20px
alert(document.body.style.marginTop); // 20px
alert(document.body.style.marginLeft); // 20px
</script>
</body>
```
Please note how the browser "unpacks" the property `style.margin` and infers `style.marginLeft` and `style.marginTop` (and other partial margins) from it.
## Computed styles: getComputedStyle
Modifying a style is easy. But how to *read* it?
For instance, we want to know the size, margins, the color of an element. How to do it?
**The `style` property contains only the style in the `"style"` attribute, without any CSS cascade.**
So we can't read anything that comes from CSS classes.
For instance, here `style` won't see the margin:
```html run height=60 no-beautify
<head>
<style> body { color: red; margin: 5px } </style>
</head>
<body>
The red text
<script>
*!*
alert(document.body.style.color); // empty
alert(document.body.style.marginTop); // empty
*/!*
</script>
</body>
```
...But what if we need, say, increase the margin by 20px? We want the current value for that.
There's another method for that: `getComputedStyle`.
The syntax is:
```js
getComputedStyle(element[, pseudo])
```
element
: Element to read the value for.
pseudo
: A pseudo-element if required, for instance `::before`. An empty string or no argument mean the element itself.
The result is an object with style properties, like `elem.style`, but now with respect to all CSS classes.
For instance:
```html run height=100
<head>
<style> body { color: red; margin: 5px } </style>
</head>
<body>
<script>
let computedStyle = getComputedStyle(document.body);
// now can read the margin and the color from it
alert( computedStyle.marginTop ); // 5px
alert( computedStyle.color ); // rgb(255, 0, 0)
</script>
</body>
```
```smart header="Computed and resolved values"
There are two concepts in [CSS](https://drafts.csswg.org/cssom/#resolved-values):
1. A *computed* style value is the one after all CSS rules and CSS inheritance is applied. If can look like `width: auto` or `font-size: 125%`.
2. A *resolved* style value is the one finally applied to the element. The browser takes the computed value and makes all units fixed and absolute, for instance: `width: 212px` or `font-size: 16px`. In some browsers values can have a floating point.
Long time ago `getComputedStyle` was created to get computed values, but it turned out that resolved values are much more convenient.
So nowadays `getComputedStyle` actually returns the final, resolved value.
```
````warn header="`getComputedStyle` requires the full property name"
We should always ask for the exact property that we want, like `paddingLeft` or `marginTop` or `borderTopWidth`. Otherwise the correct result is not guaranteed.
For instance, if properties `paddingLeft/paddingTop` come from the different CSS classes, then what should we get for `getComputedStyle(elem).padding`?
Some browsers (Chrome) show `10px` in the document below, and some of them (Firefox) -- do not:
```html run
<style>
body {
margin: 10px;
}
</style>
<script>
let style = getComputedStyle(document.body);
alert(style.margin); // empty string in Firefox
</script>
```
Visited links may be colored using `:visited` CSS pseudoclass.
But `getComputedStyle` does not give access to that color, because otherwise an arbitrary page could find out whether the user visited a link by creating it on the page and checking the styles.
Javascript we may not see the styles applied by `:visited`. And also, there's a limitation in CSS that forbids to apply geometry-changing styles in `:visited`. That's to guarantee that there's no side way for an evil page to see if a link was visited and hence to break the privacy.
Summary
To manage classes, there are two DOM properties:
className-- the string value, good to manage the whole set of classes.classList-- the object with methodsadd/remove/toggle/contains, good for individual classes.
To change the styles:
-
The
styleproperty is an object with camelCased styles. Reading and writing to it has the same meaning as modifying individual properties in the"style"attribute. To see how to applyimportantand other rare stuff -- there's a list of methods at MDN. -
The
style.cssTextproperty corresponds to the whole"style"attribute, the full string of styles.
To read the resolved styles (with respect to all classes, after all CSS is applied and final values are calculated):
- The
getComputedStyles(elem[, pseudo])returns the style-like object with them. Read-only.