first-child and last-child with IE8

Question

I have some css for adjusting things in my table.

Here it is:

.editor td:first-child
{
    width: 150px; 
}

.editor td:last-child input,
.editor td         


        

Answer 1

If you want to carry on using CSS3 selectors but need to support older browsers I would suggest using a polyfill such as Selectivizr.js

Answer 2

Since :last-child is a CSS3 pseudo-class, it is not supported in IE8. I believe :first-child is supported, as it's defined in the CSS2.1 specification.

One possible solution is to simply give the last child a class name and style that class.

Another would be to use JavaScript. jQuery makes this particularly easy as it provides a :last-child pseudo-class which should work in IE8. Unfortunately, that could result in a flash of unstyled content while the DOM loads.

Answer 3

If your table is only 2 columns across, you can easily reach the second td with the adjacent sibling selector, which IE8 does support along with :first-child:

.editor td:first-child
{
    width: 150px; 
}

.editor td:first-child + td input,
.editor td:first-child + td textarea
{
    width: 500px;
    padding: 3px 5px 5px 5px;
    border: 1px solid #CCC; 
}

Otherwise, you'll have to use a JS selector library like jQuery, or manually add a class to the last td, as suggested by James Allardice.