Control Element Outline Position with outline-offset

By  on  

I was recently working on a project which featured tables that were keyboard navigable so obviously using cell outlining via traditional tabIndex=0 and element outlines was a big part of allowing the user navigate quickly and intelligently. Unfortunately I ran into a Firefox 3.6 bug where the element outline forced a horizontal scrollbar within its parent, causing the table to look....gross. After a bit of research, I discovered the outline-offset CSS property. Let me show you what it is and how it fixed the outline bug!

The CSS

Assuming you have an element that's focusable (usually via tabIndex), the CSS to adjust the outline is as simple as you would expect it to be:

.tableWidget td {
	outline-offset: 2px;
}

A positive outline-offset moves the offset further outside the element, whereas you can create an inner outline using negative outline-offset:

.tableWidget td {
	outline-offset: -1px;
}

In the case of the bug I mentioned above, using a negative outline-offset fixed the problem because the outline stays within element.

I wasn't aware of the outline-offset property before coming across this issue and I'm certainly glad I know about it now. Removing the outline property is never a good idea because usability and accessibility, so the ability to control its placement relative to the element border is very valuable.

Recent Features

  • By
    CSS 3D Folding Animation

    Google Plus provides loads of inspiration for front-end developers, especially when it comes to the CSS and JavaScript wonders they create. Last year I duplicated their incredible PhotoStack effect with both MooTools and pure CSS; this time I'm going to duplicate...

  • By
    Introducing MooTools Templated

    One major problem with creating UI components with the MooTools JavaScript framework is that there isn't a great way of allowing customization of template and ease of node creation. As of today, there are two ways of creating: new Element Madness The first way to create UI-driven...

Incredible Demos

  • By
    Create a 3D Panorama Image with A-Frame

    In the five years I've been at Mozilla I've seen some awesome projects.  Some of them very popular, some of them very niche, but none of them has inspired me the way the MozVR team's work with WebVR and A-Frame project have. A-Frame is a community project...

  • By
    Using jQuery and MooTools Together

    There's yet another reason to master more than one JavaScript library: you can use some of them together! Since MooTools is prototype-based and jQuery is not, jQuery and MooTools may be used together on the same page. The XHTML and JavaScript jQuery is namespaced so the...

Discussion

  1. good tip, i don’t use the outline property at all, i always use the border property, didn’t know that outline property is so common in design, or it isn’t ?

  2. jon

    One reason that it may not be used as much may be due to its not being supported in IE8, not sure about IE9 (doesn’t work with my CMS).

    • Alex

      Use the Tab button :)

  3. I was just checking this on Chrome 35.0.1916.153 version. The offset doesn’t seem to be working. It only worked on the firefox 29.0.1. Is there any quick hack to fix this on chrome and keep the offset (blue border line) in chrome with a negative value?

    thanks.

Wrap your code in <pre class="{language}"></pre> tags, link to a GitHub gist, JSFiddle fiddle, or CodePen pen to embed!