How to create click events using CSS

An event is something that happens when we do something. In CSS, the most common is the hover selector which helps us to select elements when we mouse over them and then an event is executed automatically. There is one way to avoid this since in modern browsers there is a property called pointer-events which allows us to disable them. For instance, if we have a link and we set the pointer-events property value to none, it would simply not work:

<a href="page-url" style="pointer-events: none;">Click here</a>

Many use :target to make it work, however, this is not always the best choice if we consider its jumping behavior - click on the link below to see what happens:

Link with target

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Nam eu cursus dui, ac fermentum eros. Interdum et malesuada fames ac ante ipsum primis in faucibus. Fusce elementum sapien et augue fringilla aliquam. Ut a viverra libero, eget commodo nisi. Maecenas ultrices facilisis dignissim.

<style>
#linktarget {display: none;}
#linktarget:target {display: block;}
</style>
<a href="#linktarget">Link with target</a>
<div id="linktarget">
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Nam eu cursus dui, ac fermentum eros. Interdum et malesuada fames ac ante ipsum primis in faucibus. Fusce elementum sapien et augue fringilla aliquam. Ut a viverra libero, eget commodo nisi. Maecenas ultrices facilisis dignissim.
</div>

Another option is to use the :focus selector which will make the hidden content to expand on mouse click.
The advantage of this selector is that the page stays still, however, we have to click anywhere "outside" to close the expanded content and besides this, the hidden content should be immediately after, with no intermediate tags:

Demo with focus

<style>
.focuselector {display: none;}
span:focus ~ .focuselector {display: block;}
</style>
<span tabindex="0">Link with focus</span>
<div class="focuselector">
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Nam eu cursus dui, ac fermentum eros. Interdum et malesuada fames ac ante ipsum primis in faucibus. Fusce elementum sapien et augue fringilla aliquam. Ut a viverra libero, eget commodo nisi. Maecenas ultrices facilisis dignissim.
</div>

The last method is more fancy even though it requires more tags but it works the best since it allows us to create a toggle effect, i.e., expand on click and then collapse when clicking again. In this case, we'll use the :checked selector:

Demo with checked

<style>
.checked-selector {display: none;}
:checked ~ .checked-selector {display: block;}
input.hidden[type=checkbox] {position: absolute;left: -999em;}
</style>

<label for="toggle-hidden">Demo with checked</label>
<input type="checkbox" id="toggle-hidden" class="hidden" />
<div class="checked-selector">
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Nam eu cursus dui, ac fermentum eros. Interdum et malesuada fames ac ante ipsum primis in faucibus. Fusce elementum sapien et augue fringilla aliquam. Ut a viverra libero, eget commodo nisi. Maecenas ultrices facilisis dignissim.
</div>

To apply these effects on the links and content that you want to hide and expand only on mouse click is very easy: when you create a post, paste one of the codes above inside the HTML box and replace the text in blue with the name of your link and add your text instead of the green one.

How to create click events using CSS

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