Why is My Nth-Child Selector Applying Styles to All Elements Instead of Just One?

Why is Nth-Child Selector Not Working?

The nth-child selector is a powerful tool for targeting specific elements within a group of siblings. However, it is important to understand its limitations to effectively use it.

Issue: All Social Icons Appearing the Same

Consider the following situation where nth-child is used to add background images to social icons:

<code class="css">#social-links div:nth-child(1) { background-image: url('media/linkedin.svg'); }</code>

Expected behavior: Only the first social icon should have a LinkedIn background image.
Actual behavior: All icons have the same background image.

Reason: Counting Siblings Not Elements

The nth-child selector counts the number of siblings of the targeted element, not the elements themselves. In the above code, it counts the number of div child elements of #social-links.

In this case, the div.social-logo element always exists as the sole div child of the anchor element. Therefore, nth-child always returns 1, meaning every element receives the same background image.

Solution: Target Parent Element's Siblings

To target specific div.social-logo elements, we need to modify the selector to target the parent anchor element's siblings:

<code class="css">#social-links a:nth-child(1) div { background-image: url('media/linkedin.svg'); }</code>

By targeting the anchor element's nth-child, we now correctly select the intended div.social-logo element and apply the background image accordingly.

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