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CSS

Posted by David Klaphaak
David Klaphaak
12,924 Points

Why won't the styles from the CSS cascade to my <a> elements?

I have built the CSS and HTML according the the video tutorials in "how to make a website", but the styles don't cascade to the "Contact" link. The "portfolio" and "about" links have the appropriate hover, selected and followed states, but any other link in the unordered list isn't getting the colors applied. I even tried reordering the list items, adding new items, and deleting items to see if I could force the CSS to be applied but it doesn't work.

I'm working in Windows 7 using FireFox. I also tried this in Chrome.

/*********************** GENERAL ************************/

body { font-family: 'Merriweather', sans-serif; }

wrapper {

max-width: 940px; margin: 0 auto; padding: 0 5%; }

a { text-decoration: none; }

img { max-width: 100%;

}

/*********************** HEADING ************************/

header { float: left; margin: 0 0 30px 0; padding: 5px 0 0 0; width: 100%; }

logo {

text-align: center; margin: 0; }

h1 { font-family: 'PT Sans Narrow', sans-serif; margin: 15px 0; font-size: 1.75em; font-weight: normal; line-height: 0.8em; }

h2 { font-size: 0.75em; margin: -5px 0 0; font-weight: normal; }

h3 { margin: 0 0 1em 0; }

/*********************** NAVIGATION ************************/

nav { text-align: center; padding: 10px 0; margin: 20px 0 0; }

nav ul { list-style: none; margin: 0 10px; padding: 0; }

nav li { display:inline-block; }

nav a { font-weight: 800; padding: 15px 10px; }

/*********************** FOOTER ************************/

footer { font-size: 0.75em; padding-top: 50px; clear: both; text-align: center; color: #ccc;

}

.social-icon { width: 20px; height: 20px; margin: 0 5px;

}

/*********************** PAGE: PORTFOLIO ************************/

gallery {

margin: 0; padding: 0; list-style: none; }

gallery li {

float: left; width: 45%; margin: 2.5%; background-color: #f5f5f5; color: #bdc3c7; }

gallery li a p {

margin: 0; padding: 5%; font-size: 0.75em; color: #bdc3c7; }

/*********************** PAGE: ABOUT ************************/

.profile-photo {

max-width: 150px; margin: 0 auto 30px; border-radius: 100%; display: inline-block; /** can't get the img to display uning 'block' for display setting **/ }

/*********************** COLORS ************************/

/* Site Body */ body { background-color: #fff; color: #999; }

/* Green Header */ header { background-color: #6ab47b; border-color: #599a68; }

/* Nav Background on Mobile */ nav { background-color: #599a68; }

/* Large Text */ h1, h2 { color: #fff; }

/* Nav Link */ nav a, nav a:visited { color: #fff; }

/* Selected Nav Link */ nav a.selected, a:hover { color: #32673f; }

<!DOCTYPE html>

<html>

<head> <meta charset="utf-8"> <title>David Klaphaak | Person</title> <link rel="stylesheet" href="css/normalize.css"> <link href='http://fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=PT+Sans+Narrow:400,700&subset=latin,cyrillic-ext,latin-ext' rel='stylesheet' type='text/css'> <link rel="stylesheet" href="css/main.css"> </head>

<body> <header> <a href="index.html" id="logo">
<h1>David Klaphaak</h1> <h2>Person</h2> </a>
<nav> <ul> <li><a href="index.html" class="selected">Portfolio</a></li> <li><a href="about.html">About</a></li> <li><a href="contact.html">Contact</a></li> </ul> </nav> </header>

<div id="wrapper">
  <section>
    <ul id="gallery">
      <li>
        <a href="img/numbers-01.jpg">
          <img src="img/numbers-01.jpg" alt="image"/>
          <p>Experimentation with color and texture.</p>
        </a>
      </li>
      <li>
        <a href="img/numbers-02.jpg">
          <img src="img/numbers-02.jpg" alt="image"/>
          <p>Playing with blending modes in Photoshop.</p>
        </a>
      </li>
      <li>
        <a href="img/numbers-06.jpg">
          <img src="img/numbers-06.jpg" alt="image"/>
          <p>Trying to create and 80's style of glows.</p>
        </a>
      </li>
      <li>
        <a href="img/numbers-09.jpg">
          <img src="img/numbers-09.jpg" alt="image"/>
          <p>Drips created using Photoshop brushes.</p>
        </a>
      </li>
      <li>
        <a href="img/numbers-12.jpg">
          <img src="img/numbers-12.jpg" alt="image"/>
          <p>Createing shapes using repetition.</p>
        </a>
      </li>

   </ul> 
</section>

<footer>
  <a href="http://twitter.com/SoftFocScience"><img src="img/twitter-wrap.png" alt="Twitter Logo" class="social-icon"/></a>
  <a href="http://facebook.com/david.klaphaak"><img src="img/facebook-wrap.png" alt="Facebook Logo" class="social-icon"/></a>
  <p>&copy;David Klaphaak 2015</p>
 </footer>
</div>

</body>

</html>

Anthony Babich
Anthony Babich
5,505 Points

Can you post the CSS / HTML for your menu and CSS for your state changes?

2 Answers

David Klaphaak
David Klaphaak
12,924 Points

It turns out that FireFox has some problems with cascading styles to <a> elements in various states if they are listed in one declaration. Instead, I broke out the styles for each state of the element into a separate declaration and that solved this problem.

David Klaphaak
David Klaphaak
12,924 Points
David Klaphaak
David Klaphaak
12,924 Points

Hi Anthony, I just pasted the CSS and HTML home page in wholesale... is there a graceful way to attach files to questions here?

Thanks. -dave