Javascript set style attribute

Styles and classes

Before we get into JavaScript’s ways of dealing with styles and classes – here’s an important rule. Hopefully it’s obvious enough, but we still have to mention it.

There are generally two ways to style an element:

JavaScript can modify both classes and style properties.

We should always prefer CSS classes to style . The latter should only be used if classes “can’t handle it”.

For example, style is acceptable if we calculate coordinates of an element dynamically and want to set them from JavaScript, like this:

let top = /* complex calculations */; let left = /* complex calculations */; elem.style.left = left; // e.g '123px', calculated at run-time elem.style.top = top; // e.g '456px'

For other cases, like making the text red, adding a background icon – describe that in CSS and then add the class (JavaScript can do that). That’s more flexible and easier to support.

className and classList

Changing a class is one of the most often used actions in scripts.

In the ancient time, there was a limitation in JavaScript: a reserved word like «class» could not be an object property. That limitation does not exist now, but at that time it was impossible to have a «class» property, like elem.class .

So for classes the similar-looking property «className» was introduced: the elem.className corresponds to the «class» attribute.

If we assign something to elem.className , it replaces the whole string of classes. Sometimes that’s what we need, but often we want to add/remove a single class.

There’s another property for that: elem.classList .

The elem.classList is a special object with methods to add/remove/toggle a single class.

So we can operate both on the full class string using className or on individual classes using classList . What we choose depends on our needs.

• elem.classList.add/remove(«class») – adds/removes the class.
• elem.classList.toggle(«class») – adds the class if it doesn’t exist, otherwise removes it.
• elem.classList.contains(«class») – checks for the given class, returns true/false .

Besides, classList is iterable, so we can list all classes with for..of , like this:

Element style

The property elem.style is an object that corresponds to what’s written in the «style» attribute. Setting elem.style.width=»100px» works the same as if we had in the attribute style a string width:100px .

For multi-word property the camelCase is used:

background-color => elem.style.backgroundColor z-index => elem.style.zIndex border-left-width => elem.style.borderLeftWidth

document.body.style.backgroundColor = prompt('background color?', 'green');

Browser-prefixed properties like -moz-border-radius , -webkit-border-radius also follow the same rule: a dash means upper case.

button.style.MozBorderRadius = '5px'; button.style.WebkitBorderRadius = '5px';

Resetting the style property

Sometimes we want to assign a style property, and later remove it.

For instance, to hide an element, we can set elem.style.display = «none» .

Then later we may want to remove the style.display as if it were not set. Instead of delete elem.style.display we should assign an empty string to it: elem.style.display = «» .

// if we run this code, the will blink document.body.style.display = "none"; // hide setTimeout(() => document.body.style.display = "", 1000); // back to normal

If we set style.display to an empty string, then the browser applies CSS classes and its built-in styles normally, as if there were no such style.display property at all.

Also there is a special method for that, elem.style.removeProperty(‘style property’) . So, We can remove a property like this:

document.body.style.background = 'red'; //set background to red setTimeout(() => document.body.style.removeProperty('background'), 1000); // remove background after 1 second

Normally, we use style.* to assign individual style properties. We can’t set the full style like div.style=»color: red; width: 100px» , because div.style is an object, and it’s read-only.

To set the full style as a string, there’s a special property style.cssText :

This property is rarely used, because such assignment removes all existing styles: it does not add, but replaces them. May occasionally delete something needed. But we can safely use it for new elements, when we know we won’t delete an existing style.

The same can be accomplished by setting an attribute: div.setAttribute(‘style’, ‘color: red. ‘) .

Mind the units

Don’t forget to add CSS units to values.

For instance, we should not set elem.style.top to 10 , but rather to 10px . Otherwise it wouldn’t work:

Please note: the browser “unpacks” the property style.margin in the last lines and infers style.marginLeft and style.marginTop from it.

Computed styles: getComputedStyle

So, modifying a style is easy. But how to read it?

For instance, we want to know the size, margins, the color of an element. How to do it?

The style property operates only on the value of the «style» attribute, without any CSS cascade.

So we can’t read anything that comes from CSS classes using elem.style .

For instance, here style doesn’t see the margin:

  body The red text  

…But what if we need, say, to increase the margin by 20px ? We would want the current value of it.

There’s another method for that: getComputedStyle .

getComputedStyle(element, [pseudo])

element Element to read the value for. pseudo A pseudo-element if required, for instance ::before . An empty string or no argument means the element itself.

The result is an object with styles, like elem.style , but now with respect to all CSS classes.

  body   

There are two concepts in CSS:

1. A computed style value is the value after all CSS rules and CSS inheritance is applied, as the result of the CSS cascade. It can look like height:1em or font-size:125% .
2. A resolved style value is the one finally applied to the element. Values like 1em or 125% are relative. The browser takes the computed value and makes all units fixed and absolute, for instance: height:20px or font-size:16px . For geometry properties resolved values may have a floating point, like width:50.5px .

A long time ago getComputedStyle was created to get computed values, but it turned out that resolved values are much more convenient, and the standard changed.

So nowadays getComputedStyle actually returns the resolved value of the property, usually in px for geometry.

We should always ask for the exact property that we want, like paddingLeft or marginTop or borderTopWidth . Otherwise the correct result is not guaranteed.

For instance, if there are properties paddingLeft/paddingTop , then what should we get for getComputedStyle(elem).padding ? Nothing, or maybe a “generated” value from known paddings? There’s no standard rule here.

Visited links may be colored using :visited CSS pseudoclass.

But getComputedStyle does not give access to that color, because otherwise an arbitrary page could find out whether the user visited a link by creating it on the page and checking the styles.

JavaScript may not see the styles applied by :visited . And also, there’s a limitation in CSS that forbids applying geometry-changing styles in :visited . That’s to guarantee that there’s no side way for an evil page to test if a link was visited and hence to break the privacy.

Summary

To manage classes, there are two DOM properties:

• className – the string value, good to manage the whole set of classes.
• classList – the object with methods add/remove/toggle/contains , good for individual classes.

• The style property is an object with camelCased styles. Reading and writing to it has the same meaning as modifying individual properties in the «style» attribute. To see how to apply important and other rare stuff – there’s a list of methods at MDN.
• The style.cssText property corresponds to the whole «style» attribute, the full string of styles.

To read the resolved styles (with respect to all classes, after all CSS is applied and final values are calculated):

Tasks

Create a notification

Write a function showNotification(options) that creates a notification: with the given content. The notification should automatically disappear after 1.5 seconds.

// shows an element with the text "Hello" near the right-top of the window showNotification(< top: 10, // 10px from the top of the window (by default 0px) right: 10, // 10px from the right edge of the window (by default 0px) html: "Hello!", // the HTML of notification className: "welcome" // an additional class for the div (optional) >);

Use CSS positioning to show the element at given top/right coordinates. The source document has the necessary styles.

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HTMLElement: style property

The read-only style property of the HTMLElement returns the inline style of an element in the form of a live CSSStyleDeclaration object that contains a list of all styles properties for that element with values assigned only for the attributes that are defined in the element’s inline style attribute.

Shorthand properties are expanded. If you set style=»border-top: 1px solid black» , the longhand properties ( border-top-color , border-top-style , and border-top-width ) are set instead.

This property is read-only, meaning it is not possible to assign a CSSStyleDeclaration object to it. Nevertheless, it is possible to set an inline style by assigning a string directly to the style property. In this case the string is forwarded to CSSStyleDeclaration.cssText . Using style in this manner will completely overwrite all inline styles on the element.

Therefore, to add specific styles to an element without altering other style values, it is generally preferable to set individual properties on the CSSStyleDeclaration object. For example, you can write element.style.backgroundColor = «red» .

A style declaration is reset by setting it to null or an empty string, e.g., elt.style.color = null .

Note: CSS property names are converted to JavaScript identifier with these rules:

• If the property is made of one word, it remains as it is: height stays as is (in lowercase).
• If the property is made of several words, separated by dashes, the dashes are removed and it is converted to camelCase: background-attachment becomes backgroundAttachment .
• The property float , being a reserved JavaScript keyword, is converted to cssFloat .

The style property has the same priority in the CSS cascade as an inline style declaration set via the style attribute.

Value

Examples

Getting style information

The following code snippet demonstrates how the values obtained using the element’s style property relates to the style set on the HTML attribute:

doctype html> html lang="en-US"> body style="font-weight:bold"> div style="border-top: 1px solid blue; color:red" id="elt"> An example div div> pre id="out">pre> body> html> 

const element = document.getElementById("elt"); const out = document.getElementById("out"); const elementStyle = element.style; // We loop through all styles (for…of doesn't work with CSStyleDeclaration) for (const prop in elementStyle)  if (Object.hasOwn(elementStyle, prop))  out.textContent += `$ elementStyle[prop] > = '$elementStyle.getPropertyValue(elementStyle[prop])>'\n`; > > 

Note font-weight is not listed as a value for elementStyle as it is not defined within the style attribute of the element itself. Rather, it is inherited from the definition on its parent. Also note that the shorthand border-top property, defined in the style attribute, is not listed directly. Rather, it is replaced by the three corresponding longhand properties ( border-top-color , border-top-style , and border-top-width ).

Specifications

Browser compatibility

BCD tables only load in the browser

See also

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This page was last modified on Jul 7, 2023 by MDN contributors.

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