Interesting -webkit CSS Properties

By  on  
WebKit CSS

A few weeks back I touched on a handful of Mozilla-specific CSS properties that I found to be interesting. This week I'd like to share a few WebKit-specific CSS properties that make me all tingly inside.

-webkit-touch-callout

The -webkit-touch-callout property allows you to dictate what does or doesn't happen when a user taps and holds on a link on iOS. The default value is default and tap-holding on a link brings up the link bubble dialog; by using the value of none, that bubble never comes up.

a.js-only {
	-webkit-touch-callout: none;
}

This would be very useful on apps that use A elements which aren't traditional links, but simply trigger AJAX / JavaScript functions.

-webkit-user-drag

The -webkit-user-drag property specifies that an entire element should be draggable instead of its contents:

/* no dragging at all */
.content p.noDrag {
	-webkit-user-drag: none;
}

/* drags entire element, not the text/selection */
.sidebar div.elDrag {
	-webkit-user-drag: element;
}

-webkit-appearance

Using the -webkit-appearance property, you can make a SPAN tag look like a radio button, or textarea, or SELECT dropdown, or any of the other 50 supported properties.

span.lookLikeRadio {
	-webkit-appearance: radio;
}

span.lookLikeTextarea {
	-webkit-appearance: textarea;
}

span.lookLikeScrollbar {
	-webkit-appearance: scrollbartrack-horizontal;
}

Wanna see this one in action? Check out my post: WebKit-Specific Style: -webkit-appearance.

-webkit-text-security

Who knew you could customize the character which hides password characters?

input[type="password"] {
	-webkit-text-security: square;
}

Not necessarily useful but interesting that WebKit gives us this ability.

-webkit-user-select

The -webkit-user-select property allows us to prevent users from selecting text within a given element:

div {
	-webkit-user-select: none;
}

Preventing selection within a node can be helpful when on nodes which you prefer only be clicked.

I disliked browser-specific functionality when I was younger because I had the wrong mentality; you use them as enhancers, not for core functionality. Have a favorite WebKit-specific CSS property? Share it!

Recent Features

  • By
    Welcome to My New Office

    My first professional web development was at a small print shop where I sat in a windowless cubical all day. I suffered that boxed in environment for almost five years before I was able to find a remote job where I worked from home. The first...

  • By
    5 Awesome New Mozilla Technologies You’ve Never Heard Of

    My trip to Mozilla Summit 2013 was incredible.  I've spent so much time focusing on my project that I had lost sight of all of the great work Mozillians were putting out.  MozSummit provided the perfect reminder of how brilliant my colleagues are and how much...

Incredible Demos

  • By
    PHP IMDB Scraper

    It's been quite a while since I've written a PHP grabber and the itch finally got to me. This time the victim is the International Movie Database, otherwise known as IMDB. IMDB has info on every movie ever made (or so it seems). Their...

  • By
    Fullscreen API

    As we move toward more true web applications, our JavaScript APIs are doing their best to keep up.  One very simple but useful new JavaScript API is the Fullscreen API.  The Fullscreen API provides a programmatic way to request fullscreen display from the user, and exit...

Discussion

  1. THanks! Never heard about the webkit-touch-callout property!

  2. Binyamin

    Use user-select: none; beside of -webkit-user-select: none;.

  3. Krystian

    Thanks! -webkit-user-drag is great.

  4. CODEFREAK

    This one is cool: -webkit-tap-highlight-color: transparent; it removes the highlighting of the links in Mobile Safari.

  5. If you apply -webkit-user-select: none; to an input element. It stops working.
    Has anyone tried this?

  6. rtpHarry

    There are moz and ms versions of the user-select as well (http://css-tricks.com/almanac/properties/u/user-select/)

  7. Ocean

    can anyone tell me how do you check an email sent with a link ,for infectious elements without clicking link ? ultimately learning the hard way,infected…?spyware, Trojan all this stuff I cannot fathom! I don’t understand the computer language ,but do believe I am correct when I say “links sent within your emails may be harmful to your computer,which now days is your life in the hands of millions upon millions ! Am I wrong , Is it okay to push the link and scan page after? or is that not possible either. What do I do to assure the safety of my computer outside of virus protection called Microsoft security essentials, which seems to not keep my computer good. It always runs slow and I pay for supposedly perfect for in home high speed needs. So how do i prove otherwise?

  8. hey, you forgot ::webkit-scrollbar

  9. Thanks for very interesting article!
    But I did not work the following properties:

    -webkit-text-security: square
    

    * The characters still round

     -webkit-appearance: scrollbartrack-horizontal
    

    * Element I never saw

  10. John Motyl Jr

    @Oleg

    I got the same for the text-security but i didn’t really try to research much after that. As far as the scrollbar is concerned check out this demo {{ http://codepen.io/johnmotyljr/pen/GLmKo }}. The original information can be found in the description or below.

    http://css-tricks.com/custom-scrollbars-in-webkit/

  11. Great article! Maybe you could add -webkit-overflow-scrolling? It allows to have momentum scrolling within elements.

  12. is there any one to make a div class responsive?

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