Flash cards
Review the key moves
What is the main idea behind CSS Selectors?
Lesson checks
Practice each idea before moving on
Short Mimo-style checks built from this lesson's code, terms, and sequence.
Which statement best captures the main point of this lesson?
Complete the missing token from the example code.
___-align: center;Put the learning moves in the order that makes the concept easiest to apply.
CSS selectors are used to "find" (or select) the HTML elements you want to style.
We can divide CSS selectors into five categories:
- Simple selectors (select elements based on name, id, class)
- Combinator selectors (select elements based on a specific relationship between them)
- Pseudo-class selectors (select elements based on a certain state)
- Pseudo-elements selectors (select and style a part of an element)
- Attribute selectors (select elements based on an attribute or attribute value)
This page will explain the most basic CSS selectors.
The CSS element Selector
The element selector selects HTML elements based on the element name.
Example
p {
text-align: center;
color: red;
}Live preview
The CSS id Selector
The id selector uses the id attribute of an HTML element to select a specific element.
The id of an element is unique within a page, so the id selector is used to select one unique element!
To select an element with a specific id, write a hash (#) character, followed by the id of the element.
Example
#para1 {
text-align: center;
color: red;
}Live preview
Note
An id name cannot start with a number!
The CSS class Selector
The class selector selects HTML elements with a specific class attribute.
To select elements with a specific class, write a period (.) character, followed by the class name.
Example
.center {
text-align: center;
color: red;
}Live preview
You can also specify that only specific HTML elements should be affected by a class.
Example
p.center {
text-align: center;
color: red;
}Live preview
HTML elements can also refer to more than one class.
<p class="center large">This paragraph refers to two classes.</p>Note
A class name cannot start with a number!