adding css to hyperlinks

[whatson]

I am having great trouble setting hyperlink style to a specific class. I cant work out why it wont take, here is my code:

.class:link,.class:visited {
font-weight:bold;
color:#CCD9EA;
background-color:#445469;
text-align:center;
padding:6px;
text-decoration:none;
}

[jinxed]

Try this:

.class a {
font-weight:bold;
color:#CCD9EA;
background-color:#445469;
text-align:center;
padding:6px;
text-decoration:none;
}

[rainborick]

Post a sample of the HTML for one of your links. That will make it easy to suggest the correct CSS.

[legaleagle]

Should be........

.class a:visited {
font-weight:bold;
color:#CCD9EA;
background-color:#445469;
text-align:center;
padding:6px;
text-decoration:none;
}

[alt131]

Hi whatson, the provided code snippet should work as desired for simething like <a class="myclass">My link</a> so as rainborick says, we need a sample of the html to see what you are trying to select.

jinxed and legaleagle - nice suggestions, just note they select a link that is the descendent of an element with the specified class. Something like:
<li class="myclass"><a>My link</a>

[lucy24]

If there's a conflict between

.class (generic)

and

a.class (specific to a)

the browser will go with the <a class...> version. This is much safer than messing about with !important flags.

:link shouldn't be necessary, as it's the default behavior.

Here as elsewhere, it really helps to explain in English what the problem is that you're trying to solve. Are you dealing with an anchor class as such

<a class = "blahblah" ...

or do you want the rule to apply to any anchors that come inside of some other element, like

<div class = "blahblah" ...
<a href ...

?

[whatson]

Here is my html
<li class="class"><a href="/">Home</a></li>

[rainborick]

Then your style definitions should read as jinxed showed above:

.class a { ... }

[whatson]

Ok, I got that working, but now the hover effects are not working.
Here is the full CSS code:

.class {
display:inline;
}
.class a{
font-weight:bold;
color:#CCD9EA;
background-color:#445469;
text-align:center;
padding:6px;
text-decoration:none;
}
.class:hover,.class:active {
background-color:#667992;
text-decoration:underline
}

And here is the html:

<li class="topnavlinks"><a href="/">Home</a></li>

Sorry, I am just really new to CSS.

[whatson]

Maybe I should say what I am trying to achieve.
I want a text background for hyperlinks, I want to be able to adjust the width and height of the background, and I want the background color to change on hover.

This is for the top nav bar. I hope that makes sense, and would love to hear the best suggestion to achieve this.

[lucy24]

.class:hover,.class:active

Shouldn't that be

.class a:hover
and
.class a:active

?

[whatson]

Thanks Lucy, I think you nailed it. Thanks everyone else too.

[createErrorMsg]

:hover is only going to work reliably when associated with an anchor (See [w3schools.com ].) So you need...

.class a:hover,.class a:active {...}

... to get the hover effect you're after.

As for this:

I want to be able to adjust the width and height of the background

You can only directly control the width and height of block level elements. Anchors are inline level elements. You can add

display:block;

to your anchor CSS...

.class a {display: block;}

... and then add width and height settings to that as the baseline and to the :hover settings for the change. Just remember that this may cause items to jump around on your page as the anchors change in size.

You can also gain some control over the height of an inline anchor tag by using

line-height

(sometimes) or

padding

changes in the

:hover

code.

Best,
cEM

[rainborick]

tutsplus has a great tutorial on selectors. Search on "30 css selectors you must memorize".