CSS Forum

**TWD** · 10-11-2011, 09:56 PM

Not so long ago I discovered CSS attribute selectors and it was a revelation to me. No more need to add extra classes or IDs if we can use the attribute hooks to pinpoint a piece of html to style.

for example

Code:

a[title="hide me"]{display:none}

will remove anything from the page with the title attribute "hide me".

Terrific stuff.

However, today I have been trying to use the <html xml:lang> attribute
to target a particular language version to style.

What I want to do is something like this

Code:

html[xml:lang="en"] a[title="hide me"]{display:none}

to hide a link from the English language version only.

But it doesn't seem to work.

Any clues?

**chrishirst** · 10-12-2011, 03:25 AM

That's because xml:lang is not actually an attribute.
It is a namespace identifier for the "human readable" language to be used by the XML processor.

**TWD** · 10-12-2011, 04:36 AM

I see. That's clear now, thanks.

**FrankknarF** · 10-14-2011, 05:26 AM

Quote:

Code:

a[title="hide me"]{display:none}

will remove anything from the page with the title attribute "hide me".

Doesn't that have a poor browser (IE) support?

**TWD** · 10:43 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by FrankknarF

Doesn't that have a poor browser (IE) support?

Note: IE7 and IE8 support attribute selectors only if a !DOCTYPE is specified. Attribute selection is NOT supported in IE6 and lower.

Source:
http://www.w3schools.com/css/css_att..._selectors.asp

You should always use a DOCTYPE anyway
and I've dropped support for IE6 ,
so no problems with using this from my point of view at least.

**Physicsguy** · 10-14-2011, 10:57 PM

As a side note, the easiest and, conveniently, the most current DOCTYPE is simply <!DOCTYPE html>. That's the HTML5 DOCTYPE. My standard site 'shell' goes like this (without meta keywords, descriptions, styles, etc):

HTML Code:

<!DOCTYPE html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>My Site</title>
</head>
<body>

</body>
</html>

Another thing to note is that margin:0px auto; won't work without a DOCTYPE. So if something is glitching up, check your DOCTYPE.

**TWD** · 10-15-2011, 11:17 AM

Yes. Really, the only reason for having a !DOCTYPE is so that
IE doesnt get thrown into "quirks mode".

Any valid !DOCTYPE will do.

So you may as well start using <!DOCTYPE html> right now.

Even sorry little IE6 will recognize it.

**chrishirst** · 10-15-2011, 11:39 AM

Quote:

Even sorry little IE6 will recognize it.

Ah but it still won't stop it breaking things.

But joking aside IE6, IE7 and some earlier builds of IE will be in "quirks mode" because the HTML5 DTD is not coded into them, nor will it ever be, so the <header>,<footer> etc elements will simply be ignored.
But I would have thought by now people who are still using IE6 or IE7 will be getting used to some websites looking "odd".

**TWD** · 10-15-2011, 06:54 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by chrishirst

Ah but it still won't stop it breaking things.

But joking aside IE6, IE7 and some earlier builds of IE will be in "quirks mode" because the HTML5 DTD is not coded into them, nor will it ever be, so the <header>,<footer> etc elements will simply be ignored.
But I would have thought by now people who are still using IE6 or IE7 will be getting used to some websites looking "odd".

According to Stack Overflow, the DOCTYPE doesn't put IE6 in quirks mode
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/5...-html-as-html5

I would have thought IE6 ignores <header> <footer> etc without actually throwing out quirks mode.

Is that what you mean?

**chrishirst** · 10-15-2011, 07:16 PM

Yep but they do say SHOULD be not will be

Quote:

I would have thought IE6 ignores <header> <footer> etc without actually throwing out quirks mode.

unknown or invented tags do not affect rendering in any way shap or form

You could add

HTML Code:

<wibble> this will just be text </wibble>

to the source code of any HTML document and ALL browsers will simply strip out the "tags" and leave the text visible and styled as the parent container or the style cascade dictates.
If they don't exist in the DOM as defined by the Doctype they simply have no defined benaviour.