Selecting and manipulating CSS pseudo-elements such as ::before and ::after using javascript (or jQuery)

You could also pass the content to the pseudo element with a data attribute and then use jQuery to manipulate that:

In HTML:

<span>foo</span>

In jQuery:

$('span').hover(function(){
    $(this).attr('data-content','bar');
});

In CSS: 

span:after {
    content: attr(data-content) ' any other text you may want';
}

If you want to prevent the 'other text' from showing up, you could combine this with seucolega's solution like this:

In HTML:

<span>foo</span>

In jQuery:

$('span').hover(function(){
    $(this).addClass('change').attr('data-content','bar');
});

In CSS: 

span.change:after {
    content: attr(data-content) ' any other text you may want';
}

You'd think this would be a simple question to answer, with everything else that jQuery can do. Unfortunately, the problem comes down to a technical issue: css :after and :before rules aren't part of the DOM, and therefore can't be altered using jQuery's DOM methods.

There are ways to manipulate these elements using JavaScript and/or CSS workarounds; which one you use depends on your exact requirements.

I'm going to start with what's widely considered the "best" approach:

1) Add/remove a predetermined class

In this approach, you've already created a class in your CSS with a different :after or :before style. Place this "new" class later in your stylesheet to make sure it overrides:

p:before {
    content: "foo";
}
p.special:before {
    content: "bar";
}

Then you can easily add or remove this class using jQuery (or vanilla JavaScript):

$('p').on('click', function() {
    $(this).toggleClass('special');
});


    $('p').on('click', function() {
      $(this).toggleClass('special');
    });
p:before {
  content: "foo";
  color: red;
  cursor: pointer;
}
p.special:before {
  content: "bar";
}
<script src="https://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.11.1/jquery.min.js"></script>

<p>This is a paragraph.</p>
<p>This is another paragraph.</p>

  • Pros: Easy to implement with jQuery; quickly alters multiple styles at once; enforces separation of concerns (isolating your CSS and JS from your HTML)
  • Cons: CSS must be pre-written, so the content of :before or :after isn't completely dynamic

2) Add new styles directly to the document's stylesheet

It's possible to use JavaScript to add styles directly to the document stylesheet, including :after and :before styles. jQuery doesn't provide a convenient shortcut, but fortunately the JS isn't that complicated:

var str = "bar";
document.styleSheets[0].addRule('p.special:before','content: "'+str+'";');


var str = "bar";
document.styleSheets[0].addRule('p.special:before', 'content: "' + str + '";');
p:before {
  content: "foo";
  color: red;
}
<script src="https://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.11.1/jquery.min.js"></script>

<p class="special">This is a paragraph</p>
<p>This is another paragraph</p>

.addRule() and the related .insertRule() methods are fairly well-supported today.

As a variation, you can also use jQuery to add an entirely new stylesheet to the document, but the necessary code isn't any cleaner:

var str = "bar";
$('<style>p.special:before{content:"'+str+'"}</style>').appendTo('head');


var str = "bar";
$('<style>p.special:before{content:"' + str + '"}</style>').appendTo('head');
p:before {
  content: "foo";
  color: red;
}
<script src="https://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.11.1/jquery.min.js"></script>

<p class="special">This is a paragraph</p>
<p>This is another paragraph</p>

If we're talking about "manipulating" the values, not just adding to them, we can also read the existing :after or :before styles using a different approach:

var str = window.getComputedStyle(document.querySelector('p'), ':before') 
           .getPropertyValue('content');


var str = window.getComputedStyle($('p')[0], ':before').getPropertyValue('content');
console.log(str);

document.styleSheets[0].addRule('p.special:before', 'content: "' + str+str + '";');
p:before {
    content:"foo";
    color: red;
}
<script src="https://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.11.1/jquery.min.js"></script>

<p class="special">This is a paragraph</p>
<p>This is another paragraph</p>

We can replace document.querySelector('p') with $('p')[0] when using jQuery, for slightly shorter code.

  • Pros: any string can be dynamically inserted into the style
  • Cons: original styles aren't altered, just overridden; repeated (ab)use can make the DOM grow arbitrarily large

3) Alter a different DOM attribute

You can also to use attr() in your CSS to read a particular DOM attribute. (If a browser supports :before, it supports attr() as well.) By combining this with content: in some carefully-prepared CSS, we can change the content (but not other properties, like margin or color) of :before and :after dynamically:

p:before {
    content: attr(data-before);
    color: red;
    cursor: pointer;
}

JS:

$('p').on('click', function () {
    $(this).attr('data-before','bar');
});


$('p').on('click', function () {
    $(this).attr('data-before','bar');
});
p:before {
    content: attr(data-before);
    color: red;
    cursor: pointer;
}
<script src="https://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.11.1/jquery.min.js"></script>

<p>This is a paragraph.</p>
<p>This is another paragraph.</p>

This can be combined with the second technique if the CSS can't be prepared ahead of time:

var str = "bar";

document.styleSheets[0].addRule('p:before', 'content: attr(data-before);');

$('p').on('click', function () {
    $(this).attr('data-before', str);
});


var str = "bar";
document.styleSheets[0].addRule('p:before', 'content: attr(data-before) !important;');

$('p').on('click', function() {
  $(this).attr('data-before', str);
});
p:before {
  content: "foo";
  color: red;
  cursor: pointer;
}
<script src="https://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.11.1/jquery.min.js"></script>

<p>This is a paragraph.</p>
<p>This is another paragraph.</p>

  • Pros: Doesn't create endless extra styles
  • Cons: attr in CSS can only apply to content strings, not URLs or RGB colors

Although they are rendered by browsers through CSS as if they were like other real DOM elements, pseudo-elements themselves are not part of the DOM, because pseudo-elements, as the name implies, are not real elements, and therefore you can't select and manipulate them directly with jQuery (or any JavaScript APIs for that matter, not even the Selectors API). This applies to any pseudo-elements whose styles you're trying to modify with a script, and not just ::before and ::after.

You can only access pseudo-element styles directly at runtime via the CSSOM (think window.getComputedStyle()), which is not exposed by jQuery beyond .css(), a method that doesn't support pseudo-elements either.

You can always find other ways around it, though, for example:

  • Applying the styles to the pseudo-elements of one or more arbitrary classes, then toggling between classes (see seucolega's answer for a quick example) — this is the idiomatic way as it makes use of simple selectors (which pseudo-elements are not) to distinguish between elements and element states, the way they're intended to be used

  • Manipulating the styles being applied to said pseudo-elements, by altering the document stylesheet, which is much more of a hack

Tags:

Javascript

Css

Jquery

Jquery Selectors

Pseudo Element

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