CSS selector when :target empty

Question

I need a css3 selector to target an element when the :target equals the id of the element (easy) or when the :target is empty (impossible?). It

Answer 1

Sigh. I feel like I'm resurrecting a dead topic, but it needs a real answer.

It's possible to do this with CSS alone, just by using :last-child and a general sibling combinator, in the form of :target ~ :last-child:

.pages > .page:target ~ .page:last-child,
.pages > .page {
    display: none;
}

/* :last-child works, but .page:last-child will not */
.pages > :last-child,
.pages > .page:target {
    display: block;
}

The rules applies in the following steps:

1. hide all pages
2. show both targeted page and the last page
3. if a page is targeted, hide the last page (.page:target ~ .page:last-child)

(live example)

Edit: Apparently this is very similar to the accepted answer in an older, previously mentioned, related post.

Answer 2

All I can think of is that you have some javascript that checks to see if the hash is empty. If so, it adds a class to the body tag called "noHash". Then, you can use the fact that there is the noHash class available in your CSS rules.

if (window.location.hash.length <= 1) {
     document.body.className += " noHash";
}

Then, your CSS could be like this:

div {
  background: blue;
}
div:target, body.noHash div {
  background: red;
}

If there's any circumstance where a user might add a hash value after the fact, then you may have to watch for that to make sure the noHash class gets removed appropriately.

Note: you don't have to add the class name to the body tag. You can add it to any parent object that covers all the objects you wish to affect.

Answer 3

Why don't you use div:not(:target) or div:target:empty?

Answer 4

There is a great answer for this over at default-target-with-css

It revolves around this trick that seems to have problems in iOS. It's been fixed in Safari, so maybe it'll be in iOS 5?