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CSS

Eduardo Vargas
Eduardo Vargas
5,871 Points
Posted by Eduardo Vargas
Eduardo Vargas
5,871 Points

Any downsides to using the universal selector with Border-Box rule?

Are there any downsides to applying "border-box" on everything using the universal selector? Is this a common practice in web development?

2 Answers

Jason Anello
Jason Anello
Courses Plus Student 94,610 Points

Hi Eduardo,

Some developers like to use it to make calculations easier when sizing boxes.

The older way of doing it was to use the universal selector to set border-box on all elements.

* {
  box-sizing: border-box;
}

A current best practice is to set border-box on the html element only and let the rest of the elements inherit it from their parent.

Like this

html {
  box-sizing: border-box;
}
*, *:before, *:after {
  box-sizing: inherit;
}

This css tricks article can fill you in on the details of why it's better to do it that way.

https://css-tricks.com/inheriting-box-sizing-probably-slightly-better-best-practice/

Let me know if there's anything you don't understand.

Alexander Davison
Alexander Davison
65,469 Points
Alexander Davison
Alexander Davison
65,469 Points

I don't think it is common...