Slide 8.15: CSS links

Slide 8.14: CSS fonts (cont.)
Slide 9.1: Programming language generations
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CSS Links

Links can be styled with any CSS property (e.g., color, font-family, and background-color). Special for links are that they can be styled differently depending on what state they are in. The four links states are:

a:link—a normal, unvisited link,
a:visited—a link the user has visited,
a:hover—a link when the user mouses over it, and
a:active—a link the moment it is clicked.

For example,

   a:link    { color:#FF0000; }      /* unvisited link */
   a:visited { color:#00FF00; }      /* visited link */
   a:hover   { color:#FF00FF; }      /* mouse over link */
   a:active  { color:#0000FF; }      /* selected link */

When setting the style for several link states, there are some order rules:

a:hover MUST come after a:link and a:visited and
a:active MUST come after a:hover.

Common Link Styles
In the example above the link changes color depending on what state it is in. Two of the other common ways to style links are

Text decoration: This property is mostly used to remove underlines from links, for example,

   a:link    { text-decoration:none; }
   a:visited { text-decoration:none; }
   a:active  { text-decoration:underline; }

Background color: The property specifies the background color for links, for example,

   a:visited { background-color:#FFFF85; }
   a:hover   { background-color:#FF704D; }
   a:active  { background-color:#FF704D; }

Demonstration
The following demonstration shows how the script of HTML and CSS is displayed on the Web:


<html> <head> <style type="text/css"> a.one:link {color:#0000ff;} a.one:visited {color:#ff0000;} a.one:hover {color:#ffcc00;} a.one:active {color:#009900;} a.two:link {color:#0000ff;} a.two:visited {color:#ff0000;} a.two:hover {font-size:150%;} a.two:active {color:#009900;} a.three:link {color:#0000ff;} a.three:visited {color:#ff0000;} a.three:hover {background:#66ff66;} a.three:active {color:#009900;} a.four:link {color:#0000ff;} a.four:visited {color:#ff0000;} a.four:hover {font-family:monospace;} a.four:active {color:#009900;} a.five:link {color:#0000ff;text-decoration:none;} a.five:visited {color:#0000ff;text-decoration:none;} a.five:hover {text-decoration:underline;} a.five:active {color:#009900;} </style> </head> <body bgcolor="#EDF3FE"> <p>Mouse over the links to see them change layout.</p> <p><b><a class="one" href="http://www.mlb.com/">This link changes color</a></b></p> <p><b><a class="two" href="http://www.cnn.com/">This link changes font-size</a></b></p> <p><b><a class="three" href="http://www.nba.com/">This link changes background-color</a></b></p> <p><b><a class="four" href="http://www.nfl.com/">This link changes font-family</a></b></p> <p><b><a class="five" href="http://www.nhl.com/">This link changes text-decoration</a></b></p> </div> </div> </body> </html>

Review: CSS Links

Which link state shows the moment when the link is clicked?

active

hover

link

visited

Result:

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