gtk2/docs/reference/gtk/css-overview.md

CSS in GTK

This chapter describes how GTK uses CSS for styling and layout. It is not meant to be an explanation of CSS from first principles, but focuses on listing supported CSS features and differences between Web CSS and GTK.

There is plenty of introductory documentation available that can be used to learn about CSS in general. In the tables below we include links to the official specs that can be used to look up the definition of individual selectors and properties.

CSS nodes

GTK applies the style information found in style sheets by matching the selectors against a tree of nodes. Each node in the tree has a name, a state and possibly style classes. The children of each node are linearly ordered.

Every widget has one or more of these CSS nodes, and determines their name, state, style classes and how they are laid out as children and siblings in the overall node tree. The documentation for each widget explains what CSS nodes it has.

The CSS nodes of a GtkScale

scale[.fine-tune]
├── marks.top
│   ├── mark
┊   ┊
│   ╰── mark
├── trough
│   ├── slider
│   ├── [highlight]
│   ╰── [fill]
╰── marks.bottom
    ├── mark
    ┊
    ╰── mark

Selectors

Selectors work very similar to the way they do on the web.

All widgets have one or more CSS nodes with element names and style classes. When style classes are used in selectors, they have to be prefixed with a period. Widget names can be used in selectors like IDs. When used in a selector, widget names must be prefixed with a # character.

GTK CSS Selectors

Pattern	Reference	Notes
*	CSS Selector Level 3
E	CSS Selector Level 3
E.class	CSS Selector Level 3
E#id	CSS Selector Level 3
E:nth-child(n)	CSS Selector Level 3
E:nth-last-child(n)	CSS Selector Level 3
E:first-child	CSS Selector Level 3
E:last-child	CSS Selector Level 3
E:only-child	CSS Selector Level 3
E:link, E:visited	CSS Selector Level 3	Corresponds to GTK_STATE_FLAG_LINK and GTK_STATE_FLAGS_VISITED
E:active, E:hover, E:focus	CSS Selector Level 3	Correspond to GTK_STATE_FLAG_ACTIVE, GTK_STATE_FLAG_PRELIGHT, GTK_STATE_FLAGS_FOCUSED
E:focus-within	CSS Selector Level 4	Set on all ancestors of the focus widget, unlike CSS
E:focus-visible	CSS Selector Level 4	Set on focus widget and all ancestors, unlike CSS
E:disabled	CSS Selector Level 3	Corresponds to GTK_STATE_FLAG_INSENSITIVE
E:disabled	CSS Selector Level 3	Corresponds to GTK_STATE_FLAG_CHECKED
E:indeterminate	CSS Selector Level 3	Corresponds to GTK_STATE_FLAG_INCONSISTENT
E:backdrop, E:selected		Corresponds to GTK_STATE_FLAG_BACKDROP, GTK_STATE_FLAG_SELECTED
E:not(selector)	CSS Selector Level 3
E:dir(ltr), E:dir(rtl)	CSS Selector Level 4
E:drop(active)	CSS Selector Level 4
E F	CSS Selector Level 3
E > F	CSS Selector Level 3
E ~ F	CSS Selector Level 3
E + F	CSS Selector Level 3