I am trying to use the :after CSS pseudo-element on an input field, but it does not work. If I use it with a span, it works OK.
<style type="text/css">
.mystyle:after {content:url(smiley.gif);}
.mystyle {color:red;}
</style>
This works (puts the smiley after "buu!" and before "some more")
<span class="mystyle">buuu!</span>a some more
This does not work - it only colors someValue in red, but there is no smiley.
<input class="mystyle" type="text" value="someValue">
What am I doing wrong? should I use another pseudo-selector?
Note: I cannot add a span around my input, because it is being generated by a third-party control.
:before and :after render inside a container
and <input> can not contain other elements.
Pseudo-elements can only be defined (or better said are only supported) on container elements. Because the way they are rendered is within the container itself as a child element. input can not contain other elements hence they're not supported. A button on the other hand that's also a form element supports them, because it's a container of other sub-elements.
If you ask me, if some browser does display these two pseudo-elements on non-container elements, it's a bug and a non-standard conformance. Specification directly talks about element content...
W3C specification
If we carefully read the specification it actually says that they are inserted inside a containing element:
Authors specify the style and location of generated content with the :before and :after pseudo-elements. As their names indicate, the :before and :after pseudo-elements specify the location of content before and after an element's document tree content. The 'content' property, in conjunction with these pseudo-elements, specifies what is inserted.
See? an element's document tree content. As I understand it this means within a container.
:after and :before are not supported in Internet Explorer 7 and under, on any elements.
It's also not meant to be used on replaced elements such as form elements (inputs) and image elements.
In other words it's impossible with pure CSS.
However if using jquery you can use
$(".mystyle").after("add your smiley here");
API docs on .after
To append your content with javascript. This will work across all browsers.
Oddly, it works with some types of input.
At least in Chrome,
<input type="checkbox" />
works fine, same as
<input type="radio" />
It's just type=text and some others that don't work.
Here's another approach (assuming you have control of the HTML): add an empty <span></span> right after the input, and target that in CSS using input.mystyle + span:after
.field_with_errors {
display: inline;
color: red;
}
.field_with_errors input+span:after {
content: "*"
}
<div class="field_with_errors">Label:</div>
<div class="field_with_errors">
<input type="text" /><span></span>
</div>
I'm using this approach in AngularJS because it will add .ng-invalid classes automatically to <input> form elements, and to the form, but not to the <label>.
:before and :after are applied inside a container, which means you can use it for elements with an end tag.
It doesn't apply for self-closing elements.
On a side note, elements which are self-closing (such as img/hr/input) are also known as 'Replaced Elements', as they are replaced with their respective content. "External Objects" for the lack of a better term. A better read here
I used the background-image to create the red dot for required fields.
input[type="text"][required] {
background-image: radial-gradient(red 15%, transparent 16%);
background-size: 1em 1em;
background-position: top right;
background-repeat: no-repeat
}
View on Codepen
The biggest misunderstanding here is the meaning of the words before and after. They do not refer to the element itself, but to the content in the element. So element:before is before the content, and element:after is after the content, but both are still inside the original element.
The input element has no content in the CSS view, and so has no :before or :after pseudo content. This is true of many other void or replaced elements.
There is no pseudo element referring to outside the element.
In a different universe, these pseudo elements might have been called something else to make this distinction clearer. And someone might even have proposed a pseudo element which is genuinely outside the element. So far, this is not the case in this universe.
Pseudo elements like :after, :before are only for container elements. Elements starting and closing in a single place like <input/>, <img> etc are not container elements and hence pseudo elements are not supported. Once you apply a pseudo element to container element like <div> and if you inspect the code(see the image) you can understand what I mean. Actually the pseudo element is created inside the container element. This is not possible in case of <input> or <img>
You can't put a pseudo element in an input element, but can put in shadow element, like a placeholder!
input[type="text"] {
&::-webkit-input-placeholder {
&:before {
// your code
}
}
}
To make it work in other browsers, use :-moz-placeholder, ::-moz-placeholder and :-ms-input-placeholder in different selectors. Can't group the selectors, because if a browser doesn't recognize the selector invalidates the entire statement.
UPDATE: The above code works only with CSS pre-processor (SASS, LESS...), without pre-processors use:
input[type="text"]::-webkit-input-placeholder:before { // your code }
A working solution in pure CSS:
The trick is to suppose there's a dom element after the text-field.
/*
* The trick is here:
* this selector says "take the first dom element after
* the input text (+) and set its before content to the
* value (:before).
*/
input#myTextField + *:before {
content: "👍";
}
<input id="myTextField" class="mystyle" type="text" value="someValue" />
<!--
There's maybe something after a input-text
Does'nt matter what it is (*), I use it.
-->
<span></span>
(*) Limited solution, though:
you have to hope that there's a following dom element,
you have to hope no other input field follows your input field.
But in most cases, we know our code so this solution seems efficient and 100% CSS and 0% jQuery.
I found this post as I was having the same issue, this was the solution that worked for me. As opposed to replacing the input's value just remove it and absolutely position a span behind it that is the same size, the span can have a :before pseudo class applied to it with the icon font of your choice.
<style type="text/css">
form {position: relative; }
.mystyle:before {content:url(smiley.gif); width: 30px; height: 30px; position: absolute; }
.mystyle {color:red; width: 30px; height: 30px; z-index: 1; position: absolute; }
</style>
<form>
<input class="mystyle" type="text" value=""><span class="mystyle"></span>
</form>
According to a note in the CSS 2.1 spec, the specification “does not fully define the interaction of :before and :after with replaced elements (such as IMG in HTML). This will be defined in more detail in a future specification.” Although input is not really a replaced element any more, the basic situation has not changed: the effect of :before and :after on it in unspecified and generally has no effect.
The solution is to find a different approach to the problem you are trying to address this way. Putting generated content into a text input control would be very misleading: to the user, it would appear to be part of the initial value in the control, but it cannot be modified – so it would appear to be something forced at the start of the control, but yet it would not be submitted as part of form data.
As others explained, inputs are kinda-replaced void elements, so most browsers won't allow you to generate ::before nor ::after pseudo-elements in them.
However, the CSS Working Group is considering explicitly allowing ::before and ::after in case the input has appearance: none.
From https://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-style/2016Mar/0190.html,
Safari and Chrome both allow pseudo-elements on their form inputs.
Other browsers don't. We looked into removing this, but the
use-counter is recording ~.07% of pages using it, which is 20x our max
removal threshold.
Actually specifying pseudo-elements on inputs would require specifying
the internal structure of inputs at least somewhat, which we haven't
managed to do yet (and I'm not confident we *can* do). But Boris
suggested, in one of the bugthreads, allowing it on appearance:none
inputs - basically just turning them into <div>s, rather than
"kinda-replaced" elements.
You have to have some kind of wrapper around the input to use a before or after pseudo-element. Here's a fiddle that has a before on the wrapper div of an input and then places the before inside the input - or at least it looks like it. Obviously, this is a work around but effective in a pinch and lends itself to being responsive. You can easily make this an after if you need to put some other content.
Working Fiddle
Dollar sign inside an input as a pseudo-element: http://jsfiddle.net/kapunahele/ose4r8uj/1/
The HTML:
<div class="test">
<input type="text"></input>
</div>
The CSS:
input {
margin: 3em;
padding-left: 2em;
padding-top: 1em;
padding-bottom: 1em;
width:20%;
}
.test {
position: relative;
background-color: #dedede;
display: inline;
}
.test:before {
content: '$';
position: absolute;
top: 0;
left: 40px;
z-index: 1;
}
try next:
label[for="userName"] {
position: relative;
}
label[for="userName"]::after {
content: '[after]';
width: 22px;
height: 22px;
display: inline-block;
position: absolute;
right: -30px;
}
<label for="userName">
Name:
<input type="text" name="userName" id="userName">
</label>
The question mentions "input field". Although I believe the OP was referring to input field with type=text, ::after and ::before pseudocontent does render for several different types of input fields:
input::before {
content: "My content" /* 11 different input types will render this */
}
Here is a comprehensive demo of all input types, clearly showing which ones are compatible with (in this case) the ::before pseudoelement.
To summarize, this is a list of all of the input types that can render pseudocontent:
checkbox
color
date
datetime-local
file
image
month
radio
range
time
week
If you are trying to style an input element with :before and :after, odds are you are trying to mimic the effects of other span, div, or even a elements in your CSS stack.
As Robert Koritnik's answer points out, :before and :after can only be applied to container elements and input elements are not containers.
HOWEVER, HTML 5 introduced the button element which is a container and behaves like an input[type="submit|reset"] element.
<style>
.happy:after { content:url(smiley.gif); }
</style>
<form>
<!-- won't work -->
<input class="happy" type="submit" value="Submit" />
<!-- works -->
<button class="happy">Submit</button>
</form>
:before and :after only works for nodes that can have child nodes since they insert a new node as the first or last node.
I found that you can do it like this:
.submit .btn input
{
padding:11px 28px 12px 14px;
background:#004990;
border:none;
color:#fff;
}
.submit .btn
{
border:none;
color:#fff;
font-family: 'Open Sans', sans-serif;
font-size:1em;
min-width:96px;
display:inline-block;
position:relative;
}
.submit .btn:after
{
content:">";
width:6px;
height:17px;
position:absolute;
right:36px;
color:#fff;
top:7px;
}
<div class="submit">
<div class="btn">
<input value="Send" type="submit" />
</div>
</div>
You need to have a div parent that takes the padding and the :after.
The first parent needs to be relative and the second div should be absolute so you can set the position of the after.
Summary
It does not work with <input type="button">, but it works fine with <input type="checkbox">.
Fiddle: http://jsfiddle.net/gb2wY/50/
HTML:
<p class="submit">
<input id="submit-button" type="submit" value="Post">
<br><br>
<input id="submit-cb" type="checkbox" checked>
</p>
CSS:
#submit-button::before,
#submit-cb::before {
content: ' ';
background: transparent;
border: 3px solid crimson;
display: inline-block;
width: 100%;
height: 100%;
padding: 0;
margin: -3px -3px;
}
While the explanations that point out that the Firefox behavior of not allowing ::after and ::before content for elements that can't display any content are quite correct, it still seems to work perfectly fine with this rule:
input[type=checkbox] {
-moz-appearance: initial;
}
As ::after is the only way to restyle a checkbox or radiobox without introducing more and unrelated markup like a trailing span or label, I think it's fine to force Firefox to allow ::before and ::after content to be displayed, despite not being to spec.
Example of switcher with after and before
just wrap your input on div block
.fm-form-control {
position: relative;
margin-top: 25px;
margin-bottom: 25.2px;
}
.fm-switcher {
display: none;
}
.fm-switcher:checked + .fm-placeholder-switcher:after {
background-color: #94c6e7;
}
.fm-switcher:checked + .fm-placeholder-switcher:before {
left: 24px;
}
.fm-switcher[disabled] + .fm-placeholder-switcher {
cursor: not-allowed;
}
.fm-switcher[disabled] + .fm-placeholder-switcher:before {
background-color: #cbd0d3;
}
.fm-switcher[disabled] + .fm-placeholder-switcher:after {
background-color: #eaeded;
border-color: #cbd0d3;
}
.fm-placeholder-switcher {
padding-left: 53px;
cursor: pointer;
line-height: 24px;
}
.fm-placeholder-switcher:before {
position: absolute;
content: '';
left: 0;
top: 50%;
width: 20px;
height: 20px;
margin-top: -10px;
margin-left: 2px;
background-color: #2980b9;
z-index: 2;
-moz-transition: all 0.15s ease-in-out;
-o-transition: all 0.15s ease-in-out;
-webkit-transition: all 0.15s ease-in-out;
transition: all 0.15s ease-in-out;
border-radius: 12px;
}
.fm-placeholder-switcher:after {
position: absolute;
content: '';
left: 0;
top: 50%;
width: 48px;
height: 20px;
margin-top: -12px;
background-color: #ffffff;
z-index: 1;
border-radius: 12px;
border: 2px solid #bdc3c7;
-moz-transition: all 0.15s ease-in-out;
-o-transition: all 0.15s ease-in-out;
-webkit-transition: all 0.15s ease-in-out;
transition: all 0.15s ease-in-out;
}
<div class='fm-form-control'>
<input class='fm-switcher' id='switcher_id' type='checkbox'>
<label class='fm-placeholder-switcher' for='switcher_id'>
Switcher
</label>
</div>
I am trying to get the following to display the word "Search" with a border underneath the text itself (not the input window). I attempted to use the CSS placeholder as found here How do I Add border to text in inputfield, but it will not work. Here is my input box (it is a search box for wordpress):
<input id="search" name="s" type="text" onfocus="if(this.value=='Search') this.value='';" onblur="if(this.value=='') this.value='Search';" value="Search" />
I would be much obliged to whomever can give me a fix. I know that it is because I have onfocus= and onblur= instead of just placeholder=, but can't seem to figure it out.
Here is my fiddle http://jsfiddle.net/6Gevu/14/
put a css line: text-decoration: underline; when it says 'search' and remove that style when it's something else. Maybe by adding and removing a class (.underline) to the input field.
You can make use of the :after pseudo-element to generate a border, like so: http://jsfiddle.net/RMJWH/
.search-border {
position: relative;
display: inline-block;
}
.search-border:after {
content: ".";
color: transparent;
position: absolute;
bottom: 5px;
left: 2px;
width: 238px;
border-bottom: 2px solid #000000;
}
You could enclose your input box into a div and style that div to look like your input box. Then force the input box to to only show the bottom border.
<div class="input-box"><input type="text" /></div>
.input-box
{
/*your styles here*/
}
input
{
border:0;
border-bottom:/*some value*/
}
I was wondering if this is possible:
if I have an input field:
<input type="button" value="some value" class="icon-button" />
and it is styled with gradient background, border, box-shadow, etc.
I want to have the button like an Icon with all its style and the value-text right next to it.
I thought of something like this, but it didn't work:
.icon-button{
display:block;
width: 25px;
height: 25px;
/* gradients, borders, shadows, etc. */
text-indent: 30px;
overflow: visible;
}
Any Idea? I know I could solve it with javascript, but I would like to know if there is a css way to do this.
I don't think you're going to achieve this (at least not very neatly) using an input. If you can amend your markup to use an actual button to submit though, it's pretty trivial:
<button type="submit">Some value</button>
CSS:
button {
line-height: 25px;
border: none;
background: transparent;
cursor: pointer;
}
button::before {
content: '';
display:inline-block;
vertical-align: middle;
width: 25px;
height: 25px;
margin-right: 3px;
/* gradients, borders, shadows, etc. */
background: red;
}
You could use a span rather than generated content if IE7 support is needed. This approach is not possible with an input, as that can't contain any elements, nor can it have generated content.
If you need to use an input, you could achieve the same thing by wrapping it in a span and styling that.
In Google Chrome, radio buttons show a unwanted white background around the circle. This is not shown in Firefox as intended.
Please check these images.
And her is the direct link of the page having the issue (check in Firefox and Chrome)
https://my.infocaptor.com/dash/mt.php?pa=hr_dashboard3_503c135bce6f4
Any CSS tricks that I can apply for Chrome?
this is a known Bug in Chrome which does not have real workarounds.
The only option I see and use at this point of time is to use a sprite sheet with images of the check boxes. I made a fiddle to show it to you with some random sprite I found on the internet:
Workaround
HTML:
<div id="show">
<input type="radio" id="r1" name="rr" />
<label for="r1"><span></span>Radio Button 1</label>
<p />
<input type="radio" id="r2" name="rr" />
<label for="r2"><span></span>Radio Button 2</label>
</div>
CSS:
div#show {
width:100%;
height: 100%;
background:black;
margin: 10px;
padding: 10px;
}
input[type="radio"] {
/* Uncomment this to only see the working radio button */
/* display:none; */
}
input[type="radio"] + label {
color:#f2f2f2;
font-family:Arial, sans-serif;
font-size:14px;
}
input[type="radio"] + label span {
display:inline-block;
width:19px;
height:19px;
margin:-1px 4px 0 0;
vertical-align:middle;
background:url(http://d3pr5r64n04s3o.cloudfront.net/tuts/391_checkboxes/check_radio_sheet.png) -38px top no-repeat;
cursor:pointer;
}
input[type="radio"]:checked + label span {
background:url(http://d3pr5r64n04s3o.cloudfront.net/tuts/391_checkboxes/check_radio_sheet.png) -57px top no-repeat;
}
You could create your own sprite with radio buttons in your desired design...
Hope that helps, if you have any more questions, let me know.
-Hannes
Wrap the radio element in a div, and set that div's overflow to hidden, and border-radius to 100px. Then set the radio input to display block, and no margin. This worked for me:
Markup:
<div class="radio_contain">
<input type="radio" id="r1" name="r1">
</div>
CSS:
.radio_contain {
display: inline-block;
border-radius: 100px;
overflow: hidden;
padding: 0;
}
.radio_contain input[type="radio"] {
display: block;
margin: 0;
}
I know this is an old thread, but I had this same problem and it took me a while to figure it out, so I'm posting this if someone else has the same problem.
I figured it out quite accidentally really. I was looking at something else and zoomed in on page using ctrl and scroll, and saw that radio button didn't have white background any more (and looked better). So I just put:
zoom: 0.999;
in right css class and that fixed it for me.
I created this to simply explain my problem. It is of some list items being displayed as inline blocks. I had an original method that didn't work either, so I used this CSS.
http://jsbin.com/upexu/edit
This works great in FF and IE7, as a standalone.
Unfortunately, in my implementation on my site, it doesn't display correctly in IE7 (they appear stacked one above the other).
Firefox
IE7
Now can anyone tell me why they don't work in my example (see images above and look at site, it is in the far right (can't miss it).
It seems to work in IE7 if I give the list items an explicit width - but this seems dangerous, as well as an extra piece of maintenance I don't want to do. I could probably do li#nsw { width: 3.5em } but is ugly and I shouldn't have to.
I do use Eric Meyer's CSS Reset Reloaded.
If you know of a solution, please tell!
Thanks.
Update
Here is the HTML of the checkboxes
<ul class="checkboxes">
<li><input type="radio" id="free-case-review-nsw" value="nsw" name="state" /><label for="free-case-review-nsw"><acronym title="New South Wales">NSW</acronym></label></li>
<li><input type="radio" checked="checked" id="free-case-review-qld" value="qld" name="state" /><label for="free-case-review-qld"><acronym title="Queensland">QLD</acronym></label></li>
<li><input type="radio" id="free-case-review-nt" value="nt" name="state" /><label for="free-case-review-nt"><acronym title="Northern Territory">NT</acronym></label></li>
<li><input type="radio" id="free-case-review-other" value="other" name="state" /><label for="free-case-review-other">Other</label></li>
</ul>
And here is the CSS
#free-case-review-form .checkboxes {
border: 1px solid #000;
padding: 5px 0;
margin-bottom: 8px;
overflow: hidden;
}
#free-case-review-form .checkboxes li {
display: inline-block;
display: -moz-inline-box;
*display: inline; /* for ie */
zoom: 1;
overflow: hidden;
}
#free-case-review-form .checkboxes li input {
display: inline;
width: auto;
border: none;
margin-bottom: 0;
padding: 0;
float: left;
}
#free-case-review-form .checkboxes li label {
display: inline; /* just an attempt - they should be block level anyway */
float: right;
}
Though I do recommend looking at the site above, as a lot more CSS is inherited, especially by using the style reset.
Far as I can tell, it's the "float: right" on the css for the label. Whatever you are doing, try doing it without setting the float: right on the label.
when I removed "float: right" it went back to inline on my IE.
Most likely, you accidentally triggered hasLayout on 1 of the children, either the input or the label