Welcome to the Treehouse Community

Want to collaborate on code errors? Have bugs you need feedback on? Looking for an extra set of eyes on your latest project? Get support with fellow developers, designers, and programmers of all backgrounds and skill levels here with the Treehouse Community! While you're at it, check out some resources Treehouse students have shared here.

Looking to learn something new?

Treehouse offers a seven day free trial for new students. Get access to thousands of hours of content and join thousands of Treehouse students and alumni in the community today.

Start your free trial

CSS How to Make a Website CSS: Cascading Style Sheets What is CSS?

Posted by Ryan Graham
Ryan Graham
936 Points

css Background color change. when I apply the background color to the "nav" element nothing happens.

When I apply the background color to the "nav" element nothing happens. Did I miss something?

John Burkhard
John Burkhard
16,314 Points
John Burkhard
John Burkhard
16,314 Points

Would need to see your CSS rule to help.

Ryan Graham
Ryan Graham
936 Points

<head> <meta charset="utf-8"> <title>Ryan Graham | Designer</title> <link rel="stylesheet" href="css/normalize.css"> <style> {color:white; {background-color:orange;} </style>

2 Answers

John Burkhard
John Burkhard
16,314 Points
John Burkhard
John Burkhard
16,314 Points

Okay there are a couple things you need to fix. First you're using an internal style sheet without targeting an element to style (like nav or body). I recommend creating a new style sheet and linking to it externally and editing all of your site styles inside of that. If you insist on using the internal style sheet, you'll need to reference your targeted element before adding the css rule.

Something like this:

<style> 
nav {
    color: white;
    background-color: orange;
}
</style>
Rich Donnellan
MOD
Rich Donnellan
Treehouse Moderator 27,696 Points
Rich Donnellan
Rich Donnellan
Treehouse Moderator 27,696 Points

Ryan,

Check out the CSS Ruleset section on the Mozilla Developers Network. You've defined the rule, but you're missing the selector. In this case, nav.

Happy coding!

-Rich