How to Add flexibility to SASS for another color - css

Question

I've got some Sass I've inherited that looks like below. I want to be able to specify a CSS tag to differentiate between green and another color (see anchor tag and comment).
Now, I have-
<div class="names"></div>
The link shows green. I want to be able do something like-
<div class="names myblue"></div>
And instead have it be a different color.
&.SpeakerCount3 {
.names {
text-align: center;
li {
text-align: center;
display: inline-block;
width: 82px;
margin-left: 5px;
&:first-child {
margin-left: 0;
}
}
img {
max-width: 100%;
}
h3 {
margin-top: 0;
a {
font-size: 10px;
}
}
}
}
.names {
min-height: 180px;
.photo {
margin-top: -21px;
}
img {
display: block;
border: 3px solid #282828;
margin: 0 auto;
}
h3 {
margin-top: 5px;
}
a {
font-size: 20px;
color: #5c5c5c; // this was green but I could not figure how to make it orange for css and green for kids
text-decoration: none;
}
}
.description {
margin-bottom: 15px;
min-height: 120px;
h3 {
margin: 5px 0 20px 0;
min-height: 40px;
}
}

Answer 1

Having seen the HTML code that was being hidden in your question, I should say that good class names generally should relate to state rather than properties - so the class name "myblue" should probably be replaced with something like "featured", "highlighted" etc. This is especially the case where you are asking for "myblue" to actually change the colour to Orange - something that may well confuse future maintainers. In the case that "myblue" is a company or feature name it may well be legitimate, but I would consider carefully if there is an alternative class name which does not include a colour name.
In Sass you could do something like-
a {
font-size: 20px;
color: #5c5c5c; // this was green but I could not figure how to make it orange for css and green for kids
text-decoration: none;
.myblue & {
color: orange;
}
}
As the "a" selector is contained within the ".names" selector though, this will result in a rendered rule of-
.myblue .names a {
color: orange;
}
As "names" is not a descendant of "myblue" in your DOM, the selector will not match - and this isn't what you want.
If you only want the rule to apply where both "names" and "myblue" are present I would write this-
.names {
min-height: 180px;
.photo {
margin-top: -21px;
}
img {
display: block;
border: 3px solid #282828;
margin: 0 auto;
}
h3 {
margin-top: 5px;
}
a {
font-size: 20px;
color: #5c5c5c; // this was green but I could not figure how to make it orange for css and green for kids
text-decoration: none;
}
&.myblue {
a {
color: orange;
}
}
}
The ampersand produces a combined selector, rather than the descendant selector you would get with a space (this is Sass only - not valid CSS).
Alternatively, if you want the "myblue" class selector to apply even without the "names" class, then simply do this-
.names {
min-height: 180px;
.photo {
margin-top: -21px;
}
img {
display: block;
border: 3px solid #282828;
margin: 0 auto;
}
h3 {
margin-top: 5px;
}
a {
font-size: 20px;
color: #5c5c5c; // this was green but I could not figure how to make it orange for css and green for kids
text-decoration: none;
}
}
.myblue {
a {
color: orange;
}
}
As the "myblue" selector appears after the "names" selector, the color property for the link will override the color set in "names" - leaving all other properties for the link and other elements intact. This solution simply utilises the CSS cascade to achieve the desired effect.