Use nth-child as CSS variable

Question

Is there some way (without javascript) to make the nth-child affect the CSS?

For example when I have 10 images loaded, I would fade the opacity in, and give each image an animation delay of N seconds.

I can do this manually with nth-child(1){}, nth-child(2){} and so on, but that's obviously messy and has a finite amount of elements.

I have also tried loops and while that works out well for (10n+1), it breaks if i try to stray from the an+b formula (100n+10n). Also I doubt it would work to add 1 second for every n and 10 seconds for every 10n because one of those would overwrite the other.

This question is similar to this one from 2011 which is still open but a lot of time has passed and maybe there's a better answer these days.

If the values cycle then you can hardcode one cycle (1n+0...10n+0 etc) in the CSS using nth child and then it will repeat. Not sure if that would satisfy your question so only posting as a comment. https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/:nth-child — mccainz, Aug 04 '17 at 13:32
I'm surprised this isn't a duplicate (time notwithstanding). Never mind, I answered. — BoltClock, Aug 05 '17 at 10:05
@PixelSnader BoltClock has already provided you answer (but I don't agree with CSS preprocessor part), you need JavaScript here. — Vadim Ovchinnikov, Aug 06 '17 at 09:07

score 15 · Answer 1 · answered Apr 11 '20 at 05:07

15

Please remember that you can assign variables in CSS too.

:nth-child(1) { --nth-child: 1 }
:nth-child(2) { --nth-child: 2 }
:nth-child(3) { --nth-child: 3 }

Then you can apply it like this:

animation: fade-in calc(var(--nth-child) * 1s) 1s forwards;

And here come some demo.

answered Apr 11 '20 at 05:07

Audi Nugraha

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While this might be useful for people looking for similar/related css issues, this does not get at the core of my particular question. You'd still have to set the variable manually for each object. In fact if I were to use css variables, it'd probably be more efficient to generate them via php. (Both in terms of lines of code, DRY, computation time, data transfer and perhaps flexibility/robustness) – PixelSnader Apr 20 '20 at 21:37
You can reuse those variable with different objects or components I believe and there is always more ways for a solution to be more efficient. However, what is the core of your particular question anyway? Do you want somekind of standard or built-in CSS feature to solve your problem? – Audi Nugraha Jun 20 '20 at 17:45
The core of my question is "can I *calculate* this in CSS". Because then it'd be possible to efficiently work with variable grids, and you'd have support for infinite elements, rather than a fixed amount. It'd be nice if there were some sort of CSS standard for it, yes, given that there are already calculations possible. But I can understand if it falls outside of the scope. Pragmatically, many effects can be done with JS/preprocessing, but that feels like a lot of extra work and data saved. – PixelSnader Jan 04 '22 at 10:36

score 11 · Answer 2 · answered Aug 05 '17 at 10:01

CSS does not support using the current value of n, or the index of the child element currently being matched, from an :nth-child() expression as a variable, neither in calc() expressions nor var() expressions nor any other part of a property value.

The closest you can get is automating the manual process using a preprocessor that does support interpolating variables within selectors. This will work if you know the number of rules you need to build in advance, but only then.

Use nth-child as CSS variable

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