<html>
<head>
</head>
<body>
<div>
<a href="http://www.google.com">
<span>title<br></span>
<span>description<br></span>
<span>some url</span>
</a>
</div>
</body>
</html>
I am pretty new to CSS, I have a simple case like the above. I would like to make the "title" and "some url" clickable but want to make description as non-clickable. Is there any way to do that by applying some CSS on the span so that whatever inside that span, it is not clickable. My constraint is that, I do not want to change the structure of the div, instead just applying css can we make a span which is inside an anchor tag, not clickable ?
This question is related to
css
Using CSS you cannot, CSS will only change the appearance of the span. However you can do it without changing the structure of the div by adding an onclick handler to the span:
<html>
<head>
</head>
<body>
<div>
<a href="http://www.google.com">
<span>title<br></span>
<span onclick='return false;'>description<br></span>
<span>some url</span>
</a>
</div>
</body>
</html>
You can then style it so that it looks un-clickable too:
<html>
<head>
<style type='text/css'>
a span.unclickable { text-decoration: none; }
a span.unclickable:hover { cursor: default; }
</style>
</head>
<body>
<div>
<a href="http://www.google.com">
<span>title<br></span>
<span class='unclickable' onclick='return false;'>description<br></span>
<span>some url</span>
</a>
</div>
</body>
</html>
Yes you can.... you can place something on top of the link element.
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<title>Yes you CAN</title>
<style type="text/css">
ul{
width: 500px;
border: 5px solid black;
}
.product-type-simple {
position: relative;
height: 150px;
width: 150px;
}
.product-type-simple:before{
position: absolute;
height: 100% ;
width: 100% ;
content: '';
background: green;//for debugging purposes , remove this if you want to see whats behind
z-index: 999999999999;
}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<ul>
<li class='product-type-simple'>
<a href="/link1">
<img src="http://placehold.it/150x150">
</a>
</li>
<li class='product-type-simple'>
<a href="/link2">
<img src="http://placehold.it/150x150">
</a>
</li>
</ul>
</body>
</html>
the magic sauce happens at product-type-simple:before class Whats happening here is that for each element that has class of product-type-simple you create something that has the width and height equal to that of the product-type-simple , then you increase its z-index to make sure it will place it self on top of the content of product-type-simple. You can toggle the background color if you want to see whats going on.
here is an example of the code https://jsfiddle.net/92qky63j/
In response to piemesons rant against jQuery, a Vanilla JavaScript(TM) solution (tested on FF and IE):
Put this in a script tag after your markup is loaded (right before the close of the body tag) and you'll get a similar effect to the jQuery example.
a = document.getElementsByTagName('a');
for (var i = 0; i < a.length;i++) {
a[i].getElementsByTagName('span')[1].onclick = function() { return false;};
}
This will disable the click on every 2nd span inside of an a tag. You could also check the innerHTML of each span for "description", or set an attribute or class and check that.
Not with CSS. You could do it with JavaScript easily, though, by canceling the default event handling for those elements. In jQuery:
$('a span:nth-child(2)').click(function(event) { event.preventDefault(); });
Actually, you can achieve this via CSS. There's an almost unknown css rule named pointer-events. The a element will still be clickable but your description span won't.
a span.description {
pointer-events: none;
}
there are other values like: all, stroke, painted, etc.
ref: http://robertnyman.com/2010/03/22/css-pointer-events-to-allow-clicks-on-underlying-elements/
UPDATE: As of 2016, all browsers now accept it: http://caniuse.com/#search=pointer-events
CSS is used for applying styling i.e. the visual aspects of an interface.
That clicking an anchor element causes an action to be performed is a behavioural aspect of an interface, not a stylistic aspect.
You cannot achieve what you want using only CSS.
JavaScript is used for applying behaviours to an interface. You can use JavaScript to modify the behaviour of a link.
CSS relates to visual styling and not behaviour, so the answer is no really.
You could however either use javascript to modify the behaviour or change the styling of the span in question so that it doesn't have the pointy finger, underline, etc. Styling it like that will still leave it clickable.
Even better, change your markup so that it reflects what you want it to do.
Source: Stackoverflow.com