Reputation:
For anchors that act like buttons (for example, the buttons on the sidebar of this Stack Overflow page titled Questions, Tags, and Users) or tabs, is there a CSS standard way to disable the highlighting effect if the user accidentally selects the text?
I realize that this could be done with JavaScript and a little googling yielded the Mozilla-only -moz-user-select
option.
Is there a standard-compliant way to accomplish this with CSS, and if not, what is the "best practice" approach?
Upvotes: 6144
Views: 2780356
Reputation: 40555
UPDATE January, 2017:
According to Can I use, the user-select
+ -webkit-user-select
for Safari is enough to achieve desired behavior in all major browsers.
These are all of the available correct CSS variations:
.noselect {
-webkit-touch-callout: none; /* iOS Safari */
-webkit-user-select: none; /* Safari */
-khtml-user-select: none; /* Konqueror HTML */
-moz-user-select: none; /* Old versions of Firefox */
-ms-user-select: none; /* Internet Explorer/Edge */
user-select: none; /* Non-prefixed version, currently
supported by Chrome, Edge, Opera and Firefox */
}
<p>
Selectable text.
</p>
<p class="noselect">
Unselectable text.
</p>
Note that user-select
is in standardization process (currently in a W3C working draft). It is not guaranteed to work everywhere and there might be differences in implementation among browsers. Also, browsers can drop support for it in the future.
More information can be found in Mozilla Developer Network documentation.
The values of this attribute are none
, text
, toggle
, element
, elements
, all
and inherit
.
Upvotes: 8617
Reputation: 790
Have you tried this?
.disableSelect{
user-select: none;
-webkit-user-select: none;
-ms-user-select: none;
-webkit-touch-callout: none;
-o-user-select: none;
-moz-user-select: none;
pointer-events:none;
}
Upvotes: 15
Reputation: 2231
You can do this with a mixin:
// Disable selection
@mixin disable-selection {
-webkit-touch-callout: none; /* iOS Safari */
-webkit-user-select: none; /* Safari */
-khtml-user-select: none; /* Konqueror HTML */
-moz-user-select: none; /* Firefox */
-ms-user-select: none; /* Internet Explorer/Edge */
user-select: none; /* Non-prefixed version, currently supported by Chrome and Opera */
}
// No selectable element
.no-selectable {
@include disable-selection;
}
In an HTML tag:
<div class="no-selectable">TRY TO HIGHLIGHT. YOU CANNOT!</div>
Try it in this CodePen.
If you are using an autoprefixer you can remove other prefixes.
Browser compatibility here.
Upvotes: 58
Reputation: 13907
If you want to disable selection and highlighting for the whole page with CSS, you can easily apply it to all elements:
* {
-webkit-touch-callout: none; /* iOS Safari */
-webkit-user-select: none; /* Safari */
-khtml-user-select: none; /* Konqueror HTML */
-moz-user-select: none; /* Firefox */
-ms-user-select: none; /* Internet Explorer/Edge */
user-select: none; /* Non-prefixed version, currently
supported by Chrome and Opera */
}
Upvotes: 19
Reputation: 405
.no-select::selection, .no-select *::selection {
background-color: Transparent;
}
.no-select { /* Sometimes I add this too. */
cursor: default;
}
<span>RixTheTyrunt is da best!</span>
<br>
<span class="no-select">RixTheTyrunt is da best!</span>
Snippet:
.no-select::selection, .no-select *::selection {
background-color: Transparent;
}
.no-select {
/* Sometimes I add this too. */
cursor: default;
}
<span>RixTheTyrunt is da best!</span>
<br>
<span class="no-select">RixTheTyrunt is da best!</span>
.no-select {
user-select: none;
-moz-user-select: none;
-webkit-user-select: none;
}
Snippet:
.no-select {
user-select: none;
-moz-user-select: none;
-webkit-user-select: none;
}
<span>RixTheTyrunt is da best!</span>
<br>
<span class="no-select">RixTheTyrunt is da best!</span>
First, solve the problem. Then, write the code.
John Johnson
Upvotes: 22
Reputation: 517
I see many detailed answers but I believe that writing just this line of code should be enough for the required task:
*{
-webkit-user-select: none;
}
Upvotes: 6
Reputation: 20111
I like the hybrid CSS + jQuery solution.
To make all elements inside <div class="draggable"></div>
unselectable, use this CSS:
.draggable {
-webkit-user-select: none;
-khtml-user-select: none;
-moz-user-select: none;
-ms-user-select: none;
-o-user-select: none;
user-select: none;
}
.draggable input {
-webkit-user-select: text;
-khtml-user-select: text;
-moz-user-select: text;
-o-user-select: text;
user-select: text;
}
And then, if you're using jQuery, add this inside a $(document).ready()
block:
if (($.browser.msie && $.browser.version < 10) || $.browser.opera) $('.draggable').find(':not(input)').attr('unselectable', 'on');
I figure you still want any input elements to be interactable, hence the :not()
pseudo-selector. You could use '*'
instead if you don't care.
Caveat: Internet Explorer 9 may not need this extra jQuery piece, so you may want to add a version check in there.
Upvotes: 89
Reputation: 111
Add a class to your CSS that defines you cannot select or highlight an element. I have an example:
<style>
.no_highlighting{
user-select: none;
}
.anchor_without_decoration:hover{
text-decoration-style: none;
}
</style>
<a href="#" class="anchor_without_decoration no_highlighting">Anchor text</a>
Upvotes: 9
Reputation: 734
This may work
::selection {
color: none;
background: none;
}
/* For Mozilla Firefox */
::-moz-selection {
color: none;
background: none;
}
Upvotes: -2
Reputation: 12984
You may also want to prevent the context menu appearing when touching elements like buttons that have their selection prevented. To do that, add this code to the entire page, or just those button elements:
$("body").on("contextmenu",function(e){
return false;
});
Upvotes: 0
Reputation: 892
It is easily done with:
-webkit-user-select: none;
-moz-user-select: none;
-ms-user-select: none;
-o-user-select: none;
user-select: none;
Alternatively:
Let's say you have a <h1 id="example">Hello, World!</h1>
. You will have to remove the innerHTML of that h1
, in this case Hello, World. Then you will have to go to CSS and do this:
#example::before // You can of course use **::after** as well.
{
content: 'Hello, World!'; // Both single-quotes and double-quotes can be used here.
display: block; // To make sure it works fine in every browser.
}
Now it simply thinks it is a block-element, and not text.
Upvotes: 28
Reputation: 1278
A Quick Hack Update
If you use the value none
for all the CSS user-select
properties (including browser prefixes of it), there is a problem which can be still occurred by this.
.div {
-webkit-user-select: none; /* Chrome all / Safari all */
-moz-user-select: none; /* Firefox all */
-ms-user-select: none; /* Internet Explorer 10+ */
user-select: none; /* Likely future */
}
As CSS-Tricks says, the problem is:
WebKit still allows the text to be copied, if you select elements around it.
You can also use the below one to enforce
that an entire element gets selected which means if you click on an element, all the text wrapped in that element will get selected. For this all you have to do is changing the value none
to all
.
.force-select {
-webkit-user-select: all; /* Chrome 49+ */
-moz-user-select: all; /* Firefox 43+ */
-ms-user-select: all; /* No support yet */
user-select: all; /* Likely future */
}
Upvotes: 63
Reputation: 104840
You can use CSS or JavaScript for that.
The JavaScript way is supported in older browsers, like old versions of Internet Explorer as well, but if it's not your case, use the CSS way then:
HTML/JavaScript:
<html onselectstart='return false;'>
<body>
<h1>This is the Heading!</h1>
<p>And I'm the text, I won't be selected if you select me.</p>
</body>
</html>
HTML/CSS:
.not-selectable {
-webkit-touch-callout: none;
-webkit-user-select: none;
-khtml-user-select: none;
-moz-user-select: none;
-ms-user-select: none;
user-select: none;
}
<body class="not-selectable">
<h1>This is the Heading!</h1>
<p>And I'm the text, I won't be selected if you select me.</p>
</body>
Upvotes: 82
Reputation: 179
You can use a *-user-select
property as below for that...
p {
-webkit-user-select: none; /* Chrome all and Safari all */
-moz-user-select: none; /* Firefox all */
-ms-user-select: none; /* Internet Explorer 10 and later */
user-select: none; /* Likely future */
}
Link for the Detailed Description
Upvotes: 11
Reputation: 2118
Try to insert these rows into the CSS and call the "disHighlight" at class property:
.disHighlight {
user-select: none;
-webkit-user-select: none;
-ms-user-select: none;
-webkit-touch-callout: none;
-o-user-select: none;
-moz-user-select: none;
}
Upvotes: 64
Reputation: 606
This highlighting effect is due to the action called hover (onMouseHover).
When you will hover on any tab its color will be changed.
Just say for example,
<div class="menu">
<ul class="effect">
<li>Questions</li>
<li>JOBS</li>
<li>Users</li>
</ul>
</div>
.effect:hover {
color: none;
}
You can use any color if you want to get it highlighted. Else you can use none
.
Upvotes: 8
Reputation: 876
I have learned from the CSS-Tricks website.
user-select: none;
And this also:
::selection {
background-color: transparent;
}
::moz-selection {
background-color: transparent;
}
::webkit-selection {
background-color: transparent;
}
Upvotes: 21
Reputation: 530
Try to use this one:
::selection {
background: transparent;
}
And if you wish to specify not select inside a specific element, just put the element class or id before the selection rule, such as:
.ClassNAME::selection {
background: transparent;
}
#IdNAME::selection {
background: transparent;
}
Upvotes: 10
Reputation: 1151
To get the result I needed, I found I had to use both ::selection
and user-select
input.no-select:focus {
-webkit-touch-callout: none;
-webkit-user-select: none;
-khtml-user-select: none;
-moz-user-select: none;
-ms-user-select: none;
user-select: none;
}
input.no-select::selection {
background: transparent;
}
input.no-select::-moz-selection {
background: transparent;
}
Upvotes: 27
Reputation: 1398
For those who have trouble achieving the same in the Android browser with the touch event, use:
html, body {
-webkit-touch-callout: none;
-webkit-user-select: none;
-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0);
-webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent;
}
Upvotes: 54
Reputation: 505
Though this pseudo-element was in drafts of CSS Selectors Level 3, it was removed during the Candidate Recommendation phase, as it appeared that its behavior was under-specified, especially with nested elements, and interoperability wasn't achieved.
It's being discussed in How ::selection works on nested elements.
Despite it is being implemented in browsers, you can make an illusion of text not being selected by using the same color and background color on selection as of the tab design (in your case).
p { color: white; background: black; }
p::-moz-selection { color: white; background: black; }
p::selection { color: white; background: black; }
Disallowing users to select the text will raise usability issues.
Upvotes: 20
Reputation: 4045
For Internet Explorer in addition, you need to add pseudo class focus
(.ClassName:focus) and outline-style: none
.
.ClassName,
.ClassName:focus {
-webkit-touch-callout: none;
-webkit-user-select: none;
-khtml-user-select: none;
-moz-user-select: none;
-ms-user-select: none;
user-select: none;
outline-style: none; /* Internet Explorer */
}
Upvotes: 68
Reputation: 1958
-webkit-user-select: none;
-khtml-user-select: none;
-moz-user-select: none;
-o-user-select: none;
user-select: none;
*.unselectable {
-moz-user-select: -moz-none;
-khtml-user-select: none;
-webkit-user-select: none;
user-select: none;
}
<div id="foo" unselectable="on" class="unselectable">...</div>
function makeUnselectable(node) {
if (node.nodeType == 1) {
node.unselectable = true;
}
var child = node.firstChild;
while (child) {
makeUnselectable(child);
child = child.nextSibling;
}
}
makeUnselectable(document.getElementById("foo"));
-webkit-user-select: none;
-moz-user-select: none;
onselectstart="return false;"
::selection {
background: transparent;
}
::-moz-selection {
background: transparent;
}
* {
-webkit-user-select: none;
-khtml-user-select: none;
-moz-user-select: -moz-none;
-o-user-select: none;
user-select: none;
}
p {
-webkit-user-select: text;
-khtml-user-select: text;
-moz-user-select: text;
-o-user-select: text;
user-select: text;
}
<div class="draggable"></div>
.draggable {
-webkit-user-select: none;
-khtml-user-select: none;
-moz-user-select: none;
-o-user-select: none;
user-select: none;
}
.draggable input {
-webkit-user-select: text;
-khtml-user-select: text;
-moz-user-select: text;
-o-user-select: text;
user-select: text;
}
if ($.browser.msie)
$('.draggable').find(':not(input)').attr('unselectable', 'on');
Upvotes: 50
Reputation: 939
Workaround for WebKit:
/* Disable tap highlighting */
-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0);
I found it in a CardFlip example.
Upvotes: 92
Reputation: 324627
In most browsers, this can be achieved using proprietary variations on the CSS user-select
property, originally proposed and then abandoned in CSS 3 and now proposed in CSS UI Level 4:
*.unselectable {
-moz-user-select: none;
-khtml-user-select: none;
-webkit-user-select: none;
/*
Introduced in Internet Explorer 10.
See http://ie.microsoft.com/testdrive/HTML5/msUserSelect/
*/
-ms-user-select: none;
user-select: none;
}
For Internet Explorer < 10 and Opera < 15, you will need to use the unselectable
attribute of the element you wish to be unselectable. You can set this using an attribute in HTML:
<div id="foo" unselectable="on" class="unselectable">...</div>
Sadly this property isn't inherited, meaning you have to put an attribute in the start tag of every element inside the <div>
. If this is a problem, you could instead use JavaScript to do this recursively for an element's descendants:
function makeUnselectable(node) {
if (node.nodeType == 1) {
node.setAttribute("unselectable", "on");
}
var child = node.firstChild;
while (child) {
makeUnselectable(child);
child = child.nextSibling;
}
}
makeUnselectable(document.getElementById("foo"));
Update 30 April 2014: This tree traversal needs to be rerun whenever a new element is added to the tree, but it seems from a comment by @Han that it is possible to avoid this by adding a mousedown
event handler that sets unselectable
on the target of the event. See http://jsbin.com/yagekiji/1 for details.
This still doesn't cover all possibilities. While it is impossible to initiate selections in unselectable elements, in some browsers (Internet Explorer and Firefox, for example) it's still impossible to prevent selections that start before and end after the unselectable element without making the whole document unselectable.
Upvotes: 962
Reputation: 10187
Suppose there are two div
s like this:
.second {
cursor: default;
user-select: none;
-webkit-user-select: none;
/* Chrome/Safari/Opera */
-moz-user-select: none;
/* Firefox */
-ms-user-select: none;
/* Internet Explorer/Edge */
-webkit-touch-callout: none;
/* iOS Safari */
}
<div class="first">
This is my first div
</div>
<div class="second">
This is my second div
</div>
Set cursor to default so that it will give a unselectable feel to the user.
Prefix need to be used to support it in all browsers. Without a prefix this may not work in all the answers.
Upvotes: 37
Reputation: 3367
In the solutions in previous answers selection is stopped, but the user still thinks you can select text because the cursor still changes. To keep it static, you'll have to set your CSS cursor:
.noselect {
cursor: default;
-webkit-touch-callout: none;
-webkit-user-select: none;
-khtml-user-select: none;
-moz-user-select: none;
-ms-user-select: none;
user-select: none;
}
<p>
Selectable text.
</p>
<p class="noselect">
Unselectable text.
</p>
This will make your text totally flat, like it would be in a desktop application.
Upvotes: 144
Reputation: 41400
Even better, you can disable text selection.
If you like Sass (SCSS), and you don't want to use Compass you can do this:
styles.scss
@mixin user-select($select) {
-webkit-touch-callout:#{$select};
@each $pre in -webkit-, -moz-, -ms-, -o-, -khtml- {
#{$pre + user-select}: #{$select};
}
#{user-select}: #{$select};
}
.no-select {
@include user-select(none);
}
Upvotes: 5
Reputation: 1855
Maybe you can use this solution through :before
:
nav li {
display: inline-block;
position: relative;
}
nav li a {
display: inline-block;
padding: 10px 20px;
}
nav li a:hover {
color: red;
}
nav li.disabled:before {
content: '';
position: absolute;
top: 0;
left: 0;
bottom: 0;
right: 0;
}
<nav>
<ul>
<li><a href="#">Link</a></li>
<li class="disabled"><a href="#">Link</a></li>
<li><a href="#">Link</a></li>
</ul>
</nav>
JsFiddle - https://jsfiddle.net/grinmax_/9L1cckxu/
Upvotes: 0
Reputation: 449613
A JavaScript solution for Internet Explorer is:
onselectstart="return false;"
Upvotes: 212