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CSS

Posted by David Schriever
David Schriever
1,777 Points

When selecting links (anchors)

Hello I have a question,

when I want to change the color of a link, how come I have to write, for example:

nav a { color: blue; }

istead of simply

nav { color:blue; }

Why doesn't that simply change all text colors inside my nav element to blue?

1 Answer

Craig Watson
Craig Watson
27,930 Points

Hi,

browsers themselves render default styles, if you take a look at the CSS of the anchor elements using your browsers inspector you will see the styles set by the browser before you even get a hold of it.

The browser is more specific by selecting all <a> tags, so in turn you need to be more specific than that or simply override it.

Example:

a {

  color: red; /* Turns all anchor elements to red by default overriding the browser default */

}

nav a {

  color: green; /* Turns all anchors in the nav element green but not any anchors outside a nav element */

}

Hope this helps in some way! Craig

David Schriever
David Schriever
1,777 Points

Thank you! that makes total sense.