How to get nth-child selector to skip hidden divs [duplicate]

Question

I have a few random blocks. Whenever a block falls in the new row, I am making it look different. When the user clicks on a button, I hide few blocks by display:none, and the problem occurs. The nth-child selector also counts hidden elements.

Is there way to ignore those specific blocks, so that again every row has a different style? This is an example of a similar scenario.

$('.hide-others').click(function () {
    $('.css--all-photo').toggleClass('hidden');
})

.board-item--inner {
    height:200px;
    background:tomato;
    text-align:center;
    color:#fff;
    font-size:33px;
    margin-bottom:15px;
    border:2px solid tomato;
}
@media (min-width:768px) and (max-width:991px) {
    .board-item:nth-child(2n+1) .board-item--inner {
        border:2px solid #000;
        background:yellow;
        color:#000;
    }
}
@media (min-width:992px) and (max-width:1199px) {
  .board-item:nth-child(3n+1) .board-item--inner {
    border:2px solid #000;
    background:yellow;
    color:#000;
  }
}
@media (min-width:1200px) {
  .board-item:nth-child(4n+1) .board-item--inner {
    border:2px solid #000;
    background:yellow;
    color:#000;
  } 
}

<link href="https://maxcdn.bootstrapcdn.com/bootstrap/3.3.5/css/bootstrap.min.css" rel="stylesheet"/>
<script src="https://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.11.1/jquery.min.js"></script>
<div class="container">
    <div class="form-group">
        <button class="btn btn-info hide-others" type="button">Hide others</button>
    </div>
    <div class="row">
        <div class="col-xs-12 col-sm-6 col-md-4 col-lg-3 board-item photos-board-item">
            <div class="board-item--inner">1</div>
        </div>
        <div class="col-xs-12 col-sm-6 col-md-4 col-lg-3 board-item photos-board-item">
            <div class="board-item--inner">2</div>
        </div>
        <div class="col-xs-12 col-sm-6 col-md-4 col-lg-3 board-item photos-board-item css--all-photo">
            <div class="board-item--inner">3</div>
        </div>
        <div class="col-xs-12 col-sm-6 col-md-4 col-lg-3 board-item photos-board-item">
            <div class="board-item--inner">4</div>
        </div>
        <div class="col-xs-12 col-sm-6 col-md-4 col-lg-3 board-item photos-board-item">
            <div class="board-item--inner">5</div>
        </div>
        <div class="col-xs-12 col-sm-6 col-md-4 col-lg-3 board-item photos-board-item css--all-photo">
            <div class="board-item--inner">6</div>
        </div>
        <div class="col-xs-12 col-sm-6 col-md-4 col-lg-3 board-item photos-board-item">
            <div class="board-item--inner">7</div>
        </div>
        <div class="col-xs-12 col-sm-6 col-md-4 col-lg-3 board-item photos-board-item css--all-photo">
            <div class="board-item--inner">8</div>
        </div>
        <div class="col-xs-12 col-sm-6 col-md-4 col-lg-3 board-item photos-board-item">
            <div class="board-item--inner">9</div>
        </div>
        <div class="col-xs-12 col-sm-6 col-md-4 col-lg-3 board-item photos-board-item">
            <div class="board-item--inner">0</div>
        </div>
        <div class="col-xs-12 col-sm-6 col-md-4 col-lg-3 board-item photos-board-item">
            <div class="board-item--inner">10</div>
        </div>
    </div>
    <div>

Simply go through the snippet or EXTERNAL FIDDLE, and you'll get my question.

I am specifically looking for a pure CSS solution. Please provide a fiddle for your answers! And I cannot remove those blocks permanently, my user has the option to filter files on button click, that is why hidden and shown scenario.

Grating

It seems in your case, you just need to color the first items in row. am I right? – Xavler

Yes you got it correct, actually, they are unequal height blocks, I am adding clear:float in every new row, to prevent it flowing to wrong direction – Grating

What exactly do you need to hide? and what do you need to show??? – Concentrated

You can try pseuedo classes sleleotr like this .this-class:not(:nth-child(1)){} – Quadragesimal

@LeoJavier suppose there are 10 photos, uploaded by userA and userB, I have button when clicked only shows UserA photos (here I'll be hidding photos uploaded by UserB using display:none using specific css class) – Grating

@Quadragesimal i tried it myself, it didn't worked, so awaiting if someone shows a working demo. – Grating

just use the user-id as a class name... and target that class to toggle the visibility – Concentrated

It doesn't work, even if there are hidden blocks, they get counted in nth-child(count) – Grating

to Leo's point. If you have user_a and user_b as class names then you can use the CSS :nth-child selector the way you want to. – Dichromic

@Dichromic can you please add a demo fiddle – Grating

Nope... turns out I was wrong. :nth-of-type and :nth-child are going to count all of the elements of the same type regardless of whether they are hidden or not. There might not be a CSS only solution to this problem. – Dichromic

I tried .board-item:not(.hidden):nth-of-type(count) .board-item--inner and that didn't work either. – Flintshire

Would one possibility be to sort the items after each operation, ensuring that any hidden items are sent to the bottom of the element's children? It's certainly not simple, but it could work out if the other elements have any data that can be used to reposition themselves. – Ichnology

Could you hide the elements by default, and use a class to show the ones you want, and then use nth-child on the shown class? – Opinionative

@Opinionative by default, I have to show, both kind of images - All Photos and My Photos – Grating

@Deepak try adding instead of class, add inline style then try to use CSS's attribute selector, like :not([style='display: none']). – Pad

@Pad thanx bud, i tried it, but didn't worked.! – Grating

Hi Deepak, considering you tried @Pad 's suggestion, does this mean you're open to a solution that alters the HTML? – Infancy

@Michael_B yes, if it fixes my issue, then I'm. – Grating

I don't understand why this has so many upvotes. You can choose not to accept the fact that there is no pure CSS solution, but knowingly posting a duplicate isn't going to cause one to magically appear. – Salomesalomi

@Michael_B: The principle is the same - the question is asking how to scope an nth selector to some arbitrary condition, which in this case happens to be "elements that are not hidden". There are hundreds of "how to select nth child without counting hidden elements" questions anyway. – Salomesalomi

Answer 1

When the user clicks on a button, I hide few blocks by display:none, and the problem occurs. The nth-child selector also counts hidden elements.

Is there way to ignore those specific blocks, so that again every row has different style?

The problem is that the nth-child() selector looks at all siblings under the same parent regardless of styling. It doesn't matter that you've applied display: none because CSS doesn't remove the element from the DOM, and therefore it's still a sibling.

From the spec:

6.6.5.2. :nth-child() pseudo-class

The :nth-child(an+b) pseudo-class notation represents an element that has an+b-1 siblings before it in the document tree, for any positive integer or zero value of n, and has a parent element. (emphasis mine)

In order for the nth-child rules you've declared to work after a user clicks to hide divs, you need to remove the hidden divs from the DOM, so they no longer exist as siblings.

In your question you request a CSS-only solution. But in your comments you say that the HTML is open for changes. You also use a bit of jQuery to hide elements.

With one small line of code added to your jQuery the problem can be solved:

$('.hidden').remove();

The .remove() method takes elements (and its descendants) out of the DOM. In this case it removes all elements with a class hidden.

---

CORRECTION

The problem with remove() is that elements taken from the DOM with this method can't be restored, and this breaks the toggle function.

Fortunately, jQuery offers an alternative: detach().

The .detach() method is the same as .remove(), except that .detach() keeps all jQuery data associated with the removed elements. This method is useful when removed elements are to be reinserted into the DOM at a later time.

So if we replace the original code...

$('.hide-others').click(function () {
    $('.css--all-photo').toggleClass('hidden');
})

...with this code...

var divs;

$('.photos-board-item').each(function(i){
    $(this).data('initial-index', i);
});

$('.hide-others').on('click', function () {
    if(divs) {
        $(divs).appendTo('.row').each(function(){
            var oldIndex = $(this).data('initial-index');
            $('.photos-board-item').eq(oldIndex).before(this);
        });
        divs = null;
    } else {
        divs = $('.css--all-photo').detach();
    }
});

... the grid works as intended. (code credit: @JosephMarikle)

DEMO

Now, regardless of which divs or how many are hidden, they can be toggled on and off without disrupting the visual design because the nth-child selector is counting only "visible" siblings. No changes to the CSS. No changes to the HTML.

Infancy

Answer 2

I would do this with combination of :nth-of-type selector and small modification of your toggle function.

Basic idea is not to remove those .css--all-photo elements from the DOM but wrap them into <hidden> containers. And unwrap() to restore full set. In this case :nth-of-type will do exactly what you did with :nth-child.

var state = false;

$('.hide-others').click(function () {
    if( !state ) {
      $('.css--all-photo').wrap('<hidden>');
      state = true;
    } else {
      $('hidden').unwrap();
      state = false;
    }
})

hidden { display:none; } 

.board-item--inner {
    height:200px;
    background:tomato;
    text-align:center;
    color:#fff;
    font-size:33px;
    margin-bottom:15px;
    border:2px solid tomato;
}
@media (min-width:768px) and (max-width:991px) {
    div.board-item:nth-of-type(2n+1) .board-item--inner {
        border:2px solid #000;
        background:yellow;
        color:#000;
    }
}
@media (min-width:992px) and (max-width:1199px) {
  div.board-item:nth-of-type(3n+1) .board-item--inner {
    border:2px solid #000;
    background:yellow;
    color:#000;
  }
}
@media (min-width:1200px) {
  div.board-item:nth-of-type(4n+1) .board-item--inner {
    border:2px solid #000;
    background:yellow;
    color:#000;
  } 
}

<link href="https://maxcdn.bootstrapcdn.com/bootstrap/3.3.5/css/bootstrap.min.css" rel="stylesheet"/>
<script src="https://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.11.1/jquery.min.js"></script>
<div class="container">
    <div class="form-group">
        <button class="btn btn-info hide-others" type="button">Hide others</button>
    </div>
    <div class="row">
        <div class="col-xs-12 col-sm-6 col-md-4 col-lg-3 board-item photos-board-item">
            <div class="board-item--inner">1</div>
        </div>
        <div class="col-xs-12 col-sm-6 col-md-4 col-lg-3 board-item photos-board-item">
            <div class="board-item--inner">2</div>
        </div>
        <div class="col-xs-12 col-sm-6 col-md-4 col-lg-3 board-item photos-board-item css--all-photo">
            <div class="board-item--inner">3</div>
        </div>
        <div class="col-xs-12 col-sm-6 col-md-4 col-lg-3 board-item photos-board-item">
            <div class="board-item--inner">4</div>
        </div>
        <div class="col-xs-12 col-sm-6 col-md-4 col-lg-3 board-item photos-board-item">
            <div class="board-item--inner">5</div>
        </div>
        <div class="col-xs-12 col-sm-6 col-md-4 col-lg-3 board-item photos-board-item css--all-photo">
            <div class="board-item--inner">6</div>
        </div>
        <div class="col-xs-12 col-sm-6 col-md-4 col-lg-3 board-item photos-board-item">
            <div class="board-item--inner">7</div>
        </div>
        <div class="col-xs-12 col-sm-6 col-md-4 col-lg-3 board-item photos-board-item css--all-photo">
            <div class="board-item--inner">8</div>
        </div>
        <div class="col-xs-12 col-sm-6 col-md-4 col-lg-3 board-item photos-board-item">
            <div class="board-item--inner">9</div>
        </div>
        <div class="col-xs-12 col-sm-6 col-md-4 col-lg-3 board-item photos-board-item">
            <div class="board-item--inner">0</div>
        </div>
        <div class="col-xs-12 col-sm-6 col-md-4 col-lg-3 board-item photos-board-item">
            <div class="board-item--inner">10</div>
        </div>
    </div>
    <div>

Effective

Answer 3

What you are looking for is nth-of-class which unfortunately does not exist! When you toggle hidden class with JS, that is the only difference between hidden and shown children, So you need to tell css to count divs of certain class, (lets say "shown" ), but unfortunately, css nth-child selector doesn't pay much attention to classes of the child. You can read more here.

Snoddy

Answer 4

here an example of what I mean: https://jsfiddle.net/happy2deepak/g7gL5zfb/4/ In this case it will ignore elements with class .css--all-photo... but you may use what ever class you want to ignore

$('.hide-others').click(function () {
    $('.user-a').not('.css--all-photo').toggleClass('hidden');
})

Concentrated

thanx Leo, but i don't think, you got my problem ! i don't have problem in hidding or showing blocks, problem is that, if i hide few elements using display:none, nth-child(count) also counts hidden elements, this breaks my styling given by css and it creates a problem in layout. so I'm looking for a way to prevent it – Grating