The best way to ensure your nested elements are styled correctly with CSS

I'm currently developing a CSS dropdown menu and I want to be able to highlight the selected item by adding an "active" class to it. However, I'm facing an issue where the background color changes but the text color does not.

Here is a demo: http://jsfiddle.net/tMND4/4/

HTML:

<ul class="dropdown">
    <li>
        <a href="#">Nice test items</a>
        <ul class="submenu">
               <li><a href="#">Sonic Screwdriver</a></li>
               <li class="active"><a href="#">TARDIS</a></li>
               <li><a href="#">Long Scarf</a></li>
        </ul>
    </li>
</ul>

CSS:

body{
    padding:10px;
}

.dropdown > li{
    width:200px; /*or anything you want!*/
    color:#333;
    text-decoration:none;
    padding:2px; /*all things wont stick to the side */
}

.dropdown li a{
    display:block;
    color:#666;
    text-decoration:none;
    padding:5px; /*line it up with sublinks */
}

.dropdown li .submenu{
    display:none; /*hide submenu*/
}
/* child selector to prevent style propagation*/
.dropdown > li:hover{
    border:1px solid #666;
}

/* child selector to prevent style propagation*/
.dropdown > li:hover a {
    padding: 4px; /*reduced padding to compensate for border*/
}

.dropdown li:hover .submenu{
    display:block; /*display submenu*/
}

.dropdown li:hover .submenu a{
    display:block;
    padding:5px; /*line it up with links */
}

.dropdown li:hover .submenu a:hover{
    background: #DDD;
}

.active{ 
    background:#666;
    color:#FFF;
}

Answer №1

The reason behind this issue is specificity in CSS. It is necessary to provide more specific instructions within your .active selector.

For instance:

.dropdown li.active a { 
    background:#666;
    color:#FFF;
}

You can view the updated code in action on this fiddle: http://jsfiddle.net/tMND4/5/

Answer №2

When it comes to styling dropdown menus, there is a key difference between these two approaches:

.dropdown li a{
    color:#666;
}

and

.active {
    color:#FFF;
}

The reason the first option is preferred over the second is because in the first example, active is being applied directly to the A element within the LI. Whereas in the second example, active is being applied to the wrapping LI itself.

To ensure proper styling, consider using this code:

.dropdown li.active a {
    color:#FFF;
}

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