How to use JSF generated HTML element ID with colo

I\'ve been working with a simple Java EE project using JSF.

<h:form id=\"phoneForm\">
    <h:dataTable id=\"phoneTable\">

    </h:dataTable>
</h:form>

I tried to set CSS via #phoneTable { ... }, however it doesn\'t work. Upon inspection of the HTML source in client side, it appears that the JSF-generated HTML table gets a client ID in form of id=\"phoneForm:phoneTable\". I can\'t apply CSS via #phoneForm:phoneTable { ... }, because the colon indicates the start of a pseudoselector and causes an error.

How can I use it anyway in CSS selectors?

回答1:

The : is a special character in CSS identifiers, it represents the start of a pseudo class selector like :hover, :first-child, etc. You would need to escape it.

#phoneForm\\:phoneTable {
    background: pink;
}

This only doesn\'t work in IE6/7. If you\'d like to support those users as well, use \\3A instead (with a trailing space behind!)

#phoneForm\\3A phoneTable {
    background: pink;
}

Above works in all browsers.

There are several other ways to solve this:

Just wrap it in a plain HTML element and style via it instead.

<h:form id=\"phoneForm\">
    <div id=\"phoneField\">
        <h:dataTable id=\"phoneTable\">

with

#phoneField table {
    background: pink;
}

Use class instead of id. E.g.
```
<h:dataTable id=\"phoneTable\" styleClass=\"pink\">
```
with
```
.pink {
    background: pink;
}
```
or
```
table.pink {
    background: pink;
}
```
Additional advantage is that this allows much more abstraction freedom. The CSS is reusable on multiple elements without the need to add selectors and/or copypaste properties when you want to reuse the same properties on another element(s).
Since JSF 2.x only: change the JSF default UINamingContainer separator by the following context param in web.xml. E.g.
```
<context-param>
    <param-name>javax.faces.SEPARATOR_CHAR</param-name>
    <param-value>-</param-value>
</context-param>
```
So that the separator character becomes - instead of :.
```
#phoneForm-phoneTable {
    background: pink;
}
```
Disadvantage is that you need to ensure that you don\'t use this character yourself anywhere in the ids and this is thus a very brittle approach.
Since JSF 1.2 only: disable prepending of the form id.
```
<h:form prependId=\"false\">
    <h:dataTable id=\"phoneTable\">
```
so that you can use
```
#phoneTable {
    background: pink;
}
```
Disadvantage is that <f:ajax> won\'t be able to find it and that it is considered poor practice: UIForm with prependId="false" breaks <f:ajax render>. This attribute does not exist in all other UINamingContainer components, so you still have to deal with them the right way (#1 and/or #2 here above).

In your specific case, I think turning it into a CSS class as described in #2 is the most appropriate solution. A \"phone table\" namely doesn\'t seem to represent a website-wide unique element. Real website-wide unique elements such as header, menu, content, footer, etc are usually not wrapped in JSF forms or other JSF naming containers, so their IDs wouldn\'t be prefixed anyway.