Question

I’m having css specificity issues.

I want the <td> style to be colored different if there are ‘no bills’, so I set the style with an if statement. If there are no bills, the style is style = "id=\"no-bills\"";. I got this to work with css. Now, if the user hovers over it, I want the background to go red – so I modified the css and added #bill-list #no-bills td:hover, which has td:hover to add some extra specificity when you hover over it. Unfortunately, this doesn’t work (the background stays the same).

here’s my css:

#bill-list
{
    font-family: "Lucida Sans Unicode", "Lucida Grande", Sans-Serif;
    font-size: 12px;
    /*margin: 45px;*/
    width: 100%;
    text-align: left;
    border-collapse: collapse;
}
#bill-list th
{
    font-size: 13px;
    font-weight: normal;
    padding: 8px;
    background: #b9c9fe;
    border-top: 4px solid #aabcfe;
    border-bottom: 1px solid #fff;
    color: #039;
}
#bill-list td
{
    padding: 8px;
    background: #e8edff; 
    border-bottom: 1px solid #fff;
    color: #669;
    border-top: 1px solid transparent;
}
#bill-list tr:hover td
{
    background: #d0dafd;
    color: #339;
}

#bill-list #bill td
{
    background: white;
}

#bill-list #no-bills
{
    background: #FFCC99;
}
#bill-list #no-bills td:hover
{
    color: orange;
    background: red /*#FFCC66*/;
}

here’s my code (snippet):

<table id="bill-list">
<thead>
    <tr>
        <% for (int i=0; i<vecHeader.size(); i++) { %>
            <th><%=vecHeader.get(i) %></th>
        <% } %>
    </tr>
</thead>

<tbody>
    <%  int uniqueId = 0;
        for (int i=0; i < vecValue.size(); i++) { 
        boolean hasBills = true;
        String style = "";
        if ( vecBills.get(i) == null || vecBills.get(i).size() == 0 ) {
            hasBills = false;
            style = "id=\"no-bills\"";
        }
        %>
        <tr id="bill<%=i%>" onclick="javascript:showBillDetails(<%=i%>)">
            <% for (int j=0; j < vecHeader.size(); j++) {
                prop = (Properties)vecValue.get(i);
                %>
                <td <%=style%>><%=prop.getProperty((String)vecHeader.get(j), "&nbsp;") %>&nbsp;</td>
            <% } %>
        </tr>
...
...

Anyone have any ideas?

Answer 1

You should post the HTML code, not the code that generates it, it’s irrelevant here.

First problem: are you certain there can’t be 2 no-bills id on the same page?

Then your problem: you’re trying to style td:hover that is a descendant of #no-bills. The latter is the same td, not an ascendant! You should then style #bill-list #no-bills:hover, which appears to be a td being hovered.