Is it possible to change only the alpha of a rgba background colour on hover?

Question

I have a set of tags with differing rgba background colours but the same alpha. Is it possible to write a single css style that will change only the o

Answer 1

It's now 2017 and this is now possible with

CSS custom properties / CSS Variables (Caniuse)

One classic use case for CSS variables is the ability to individualize parts of a property's value.

So here, instead of repeating the whole rgba expression once again - we split up or 'individulaize' the rgba values into 2 parts / variables (one for the rgb value and one for the alpha)

.brown { 
  --rgb: 118, 76, 41; 
}
.green {
  --rgb: 51, 91, 11;
}
.brown, .green {
  --alpha: 0.3;
  background-color: rgba(var(--rgb), var(--alpha));
}

Then, on hover we can now just modify the --alpha variable:

a:hover .green, a:hover .brown {
  --alpha: 1;
}

a {
  display: block;
  position: relative;
}
.brown { 
  --rgb: 118, 76, 41; 
}
.green {
  --rgb: 51, 91, 11;
}
.brown, .green {
  display: inline-block;
  --alpha: 0.3;
  background-color: rgba(var(--rgb), var(--alpha));
  font-size: 40px;
  margin: 20px;
}

a:hover .green, a:hover .brown {
  --alpha: 1;
}

<a href="#">
  <div class="brown">Link 1</div>
</a>
<a href="#">
  <div class="green">Link 2</div>
</a>

Codepen

Further reading:

Individualizing CSS Properties with CSS Variables (Dan Wilson)

Answer 2

This is now possible with custom properties:

.brown { --rgb: 118, 76, 41; }
.green { --rgb: 51, 91, 11; }

a { display: block; position: relative; }
div { position: absolute; bottom: 0; background-color: rgba(var(--rgb), 0.8); }
a:hover div { background-color: rgba(var(--rgb), 1); }

To understand how this works, see How do I apply opacity to a CSS color variable?

If custom properties are not an option, see the original answer below.

---

Unfortunately, no, you'll have to specify the red, green and blue values again for each individual class:

a { display: block; position: relative; }

.brown { position: absolute; bottom: 0; background-color: rgba(118, 76, 41, 0.8); }
a:hover .brown { background-color: rgba(118, 76, 41, 1); }

.green { position: absolute; bottom: 0; background-color: rgba(51, 91, 11, 0.8); }
a:hover .green { background-color: rgba(51, 91, 11, 1); }

You can only use the inherit keyword alone as a value for the property, and even then the use of inherit isn't appropriate here.