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​
<html>
<head>
  <title>Select styles with CSS only</title>
  <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1">
  <style>
    /* Some basic page styles */
    body { 
      background-color: #fff;
      font-family: helvetica, sans-serif;
      margin: 4% 10%
    }
    
    /* Label styles: style as needed */
    label {
      display:block;
      margin-top:2em;
      font-size: 0.9em;
      color:#777;
    }
​
    /* Container used for styling the custom select, the buttom class below adds the bg gradient, corners, etc. */
    .custom-select {
      position: relative;
      display:block;
      margin-top:0.5em;
      padding:0;
    }
    
    /* These are the "theme" styles for our button applied via separate button class, style as you like */
    .button {
      border: 1px solid #bbb;
      border-radius: .3em;
      box-shadow: 0 1px 0 1px rgba(0,0,0,.04);
      background: #f3f3f3; /* Old browsers */
      background: -moz-linear-gradient(top, #ffffff 0%, #e5e5e5 100%); /* FF3.6+ */
      background: -webkit-gradient(linear, left top, left bottom, color-stop(0%,#ffffff), color-stop(100%,#e5e5e5)); /* Chrome,Safari4+ */
      background: -webkit-linear-gradient(top, #ffffff 0%,#e5e5e5 100%); /* Chrome10+,Safari5.1+ */
      background: -o-linear-gradient(top, #ffffff 0%,#e5e5e5 100%); /* Opera 11.10+ */
      background: -ms-linear-gradient(top, #ffffff 0%,#e5e5e5 100%); /* IE10+ */
      background: linear-gradient(to bottom, #ffffff 0%,#e5e5e5 100%); /* W3C */
    }
​
    /* This is the native select, we're making everything but the text invisible so we can see the button styles in the wrapper */
    .custom-select select {
      width:100%;
      margin:0;
      background:none;
      border: 1px solid transparent;
      outline: none;
      /* Prefixed box-sizing rules necessary for older browsers */
      -webkit-box-sizing: border-box;
      -moz-box-sizing: border-box;
      box-sizing: border-box;
      /* Remove select styling */
      appearance: none;
      -webkit-appearance: none;
      /* Font size must the 16px or larger to prevent iOS page zoom on focus */
      font-size:16px;
      /* General select styles: change as needed */
      font-family: helvetica, sans-serif;
      font-weight: bold;
      color: #444;
      padding: .6em 1.9em .5em .8em;
      line-height:1.3;
    }
    
    
    /* Custom arrow sits on top of the select - could be an image, SVG, icon font, etc. or the arrow could just baked into the bg image on the select. Note this si a 2x image so it will look bad in browsers that don't support background-size. In production, you'd handle this resolution switch via media query but this is a demo. */
        
    .custom-select::after {
      content: "";
      position: absolute;
      width: 9px;
      height: 8px;
      top: 50%;
      right: 1em;
      margin-top:-4px;
      background-image: url(http://filamentgroup.com/files/select-arrow.png);
      background-repeat: no-repeat;
      background-size: 100%;
      z-index: 2;
      /* These hacks make the select behind the arrow clickable in some browsers */
      pointer-events:none;
    }
    
    
    /* Hover style */
    .custom-select:hover {
      border:1px solid #888;
    }
    
    /* Focus style */
    .custom-select select:focus {
      outline:none;
      box-shadow: 0 0 1px 3px rgba(180,222,250, 1);
      background-color:transparent;
      color: #222;
      border:1px solid #aaa;
    }
    
    /* Set options to normal weight */
    .custom-select option {
      font-weight:normal;
    }
    
    
​
    
    
    
   /* ------------------------------------  */
   /* START OF UGLY BROWSER-SPECIFIC HACKS */
   /* ----------------------------------  */
​
    /* OPERA - Pre-Blink nix the custom arrow, go with a native select button to keep it simple. Targeted via this hack http://browserhacks.com/#hack-a3f166304aafed524566bc6814e1d5c7 */
    x:-o-prefocus, .custom-select::after {
      display:none;
    }    
    
     /* IE 10/11+ - This hides native dropdown button arrow so it will have the custom appearance, IE 9 and earlier get a native select - targeting media query hack via http://browserhacks.com/#hack-28f493d247a12ab654f6c3637f6978d5 - looking for better ways to achieve this targeting */
    /* The second rule removes the odd blue bg color behind the text in the select button in IE 10/11 and sets the text color to match the focus style's - fix via http://stackoverflow.com/questions/17553300/change-ie-background-color-on-unopened-focused-select-box */
    @media screen and (-ms-high-contrast: active), (-ms-high-contrast: none) {  
      .custom-select select::-ms-expand {
        display: none;
      }
      .custom-select select:focus::-ms-value {
        background: transparent;
        color: #222;
      }
    }  
    
    
    /* FIREFOX won't let us hide the native select arrow, so we have to make it wider than needed and clip it via overflow on the parent container. The percentage width is a fallback since FF 4+ supports calc() so we can just add a fixed amount of extra width to push the native arrow out of view. We're applying this hack across all FF versions because all the previous hacks were too fragile and complex. You might want to consider not using this hack and using the native select arrow in FF. Note this makes the menus wider than the select button because they display at the specified width and aren't clipped. Targeting hack via http://browserhacks.com/#hack-758bff81c5c32351b02e10480b5ed48e */
    /* Show only the native arrow */
    @-moz-document url-prefix() { 
      .custom-select {
        overflow: hidden;
      }
      .custom-select select {
        width: 120%;
        width: -moz-calc(100% + 3em);
        width: calc(100% + em);
      }
      
    }
    
    /* Firefox focus has odd artifacts around the text, this kills that. See https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/:-moz-focusring */
    .custom-select select:-moz-focusring {
      color: transparent;
      text-shadow: 0 0 0 #000;
    }
    
​
   
   /* ------------------------------------  */
   /*  END OF UGLY BROWSER-SPECIFIC HACKS  */
   /* ------------------------------------  */
​
    
    
​
    
  </style>
</head>
​
  
<body>
 
  
  <h1>CSS-only custom-styled selects</h1>
  <p>By <a href="http://www.filamentgroup.com">Filament Group Inc.</a></p>
  
  <hr>
  
  <h2>This experiment has now been turned into a proper <a href="https://github.com/filamentgroup/select-css">GitHub repo</a>, please file issues there and check out the <a href="http://filamentgroup.github.io/select-css/demo/">latest demo page</a>.</h2>
  
 <hr>
  
  <p><Strong>How this works:</strong> This styles a native select consistently cross-platform with only minimal CSS. The native select is then styled so it is essentially invisible (no appearance, border, bg) leaving only the select's text visible. There is a wrapper around the select that has the majority of the button styles (gradient, shadow, border, etc.). We then add the custom arrow via a pseudo element to the right. </p>
  
  
    <label>Native select</label>
    <select>
       <option>Apples</option>
       <option>Bananas</option>
       <option>Grapes</option>
       <option>Oranges</option>
       <option selected>A very long option name to test wrapping</option>
    </select>
    
  
    <label class="wrapper">This label wraps the select
      <div class="button custom-select ff-hack">
        <select>
          <option>Apples</option>
          <option>Bananas</option>
          <option>Grapes</option>
          <option>Oranges</option>
          <option>A very long option name to test wrapping</option>
        </select>
      </div>
    </label>
      
    <label class="wrapper" for="states">This label is stacked above the select</label>
      <div class="button custom-select">
        <select id="states">
          <option value="AL">Alabama</option>
          <option value="AK">Alaska</option>
          <option value="AZ">Arizona</option>
          <option value="AR">Arkansas</option>
          <option value="CA">California</option>
          <option value="CO">Colorado</option>
          <option value="CT">Connecticut</option>
          <option value="DE">Delaware</option>
          <option value="FL">Florida</option>
          <option value="GA">Georgia</option>
          <option value="HI">Hawaii</option>
          <option value="ID">Idaho</option>
          <option value="IL">Illinois</option>
          <option value="IN">Indiana</option>
          <option value="IA">Iowa</option>
          <option value="KS">Kansas</option>
          <option value="KY">Kentucky</option>
          <option value="LA">Louisiana</option>
          <option value="ME">Maine</option>
          <option value="MD">Maryland</option>
          <option value="MA">Massachusetts</option>
          <option value="MI">Michigan</option>
          <option value="MN">Minnesota</option>
          <option value="MS">Mississippi</option>
          <option value="MO">Missouri</option>
          <option value="MT">Montana</option>
          <option value="NE">Nebraska</option>
          <option value="NV">Nevada</option>
          <option value="NH">New Hampshire</option>
          <option value="NJ">New Jersey</option>
          <option value="NM">New Mexico</option>
          <option value="NY">New York</option>
          <option value="NC">North Carolina</option>
          <option value="ND">North Dakota</option>
          <option value="OH">Ohio</option>
          <option value="OK">Oklahoma</option>
          <option value="OR">Oregon</option>
          <option value="PA">Pennsylvania</option>
          <option value="RI">Rhode Island</option>
          <option value="SC">South Carolina</option>
          <option value="SD">South Dakota</option>
          <option value="TN">Tennessee</option>
          <option value="TX">Texas</option>
          <option value="UT">Utah</option>
          <option value="VT">Vermont</option>
          <option value="VA">Virginia</option>
          <option value="WA">Washington</option>
          <option value="WV">West Virginia</option>
          <option value="WI">Wisconsin</option>
          <option value="WY">Wyoming</option>
        </select>
    </div>  
  
  <div style="width:50%; min-width:10em;">
    <label class="wrapper">In 50% wide container
        <div class="button custom-select">
          <select>
            <option>Apples</option>
            <option>Bananas</option>
            <option>Grapes</option>
            <option>Oranges</option>
            <option>A very long option name to test wrapping and visual collisions</option>
          </select>
        </div>
      </label>
  </div>
  
  <label>Text input: 
    <input type="text" placeholder="I'm a placeholder">
  </label>
  
  
  <h2>Confirmed to work in the following browsers</h2>
  <p>This technique seems to be functional everywhere since we're still leaving the native select in place. Worst case, the native select styling and the custom arrow will both show up but in all popular platforms, this looks very good and consistent. One minor caveat: setting the select to 110% means the menu may open up a bit wider than expected in Firefox. <a href="http://postimg.org/image/g7i0o6mr1/">Visual Test results</a></p>
​
  <h3>Custom select styled consistently</h3>
  <ul>
    <li>iOS 4/5/6/7/8 - looks good, iOS3 even works fine but isn't quite as pretty</li>
    <li>Android 2.2/2.3 (Browser) - looks good</li>
    <li>Android 4.0/4.1/4.2 (Browser) - looks good</li>
    <li>Android 4.0/4.1/4.2/4.3/4.4 (Chrome) - looks good</li>
    <li>WP8 - looks good</li>
    <li>Kindle Fire 2/HD - looks good</li>
    <li>IE 10/11 - looks good</li>
    <li>Safari 5 - looks good</li>
    <li>Chrome 22-35 - looks good</li>
    <li>Opera 15-22 - looks good</li>
  </ul>
  
  <h3>Custom select with minor visual issues</h3>
  <ul>
    <li>iOS3 even works fine but isn't quite as pretty</li>
    <li>Firefox (all versions) - select menu when open is wider then it needs to be (by ~50px) to clip off the native arrow. Note that the select text can run under the arrow, no solution found for that.</li>
    <li>Opera Mini - alignment of text and arrows is a bit off but it works</li>
    <li>Opera Mobile - custom and native arrows both appear</li>
    <li>Nokia Asha - Long options can break outside the box</li>
  </ul>
  
   <h3>Native select</h3>
​
   <ul>
    <li>WP 7.5-7.8 - native select</li>
    <li>IE 6/7/8/9 - native select</li>
    <li>Opera pre-14 - native select</li>
  </ul>
​
  
</body>
</html>
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