:enabled

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Sara Cope on (Updated on )

The :enabled pseudo-class in CSS selects focusable elements that are not disabled, and therefore enabled. It is only associated with form elements (<input>, <select>, <textarea>). Enabled elements include ones in that you can select, that you can enter data into, or that you can focus on or click.

So when a checkbox is checked, and you are targeting the label immediately after it:

input:enabled + label {
  color: #333;
  font-style: italic;
}

The label text will dark grey and italic if the checkbox is enabled, meaning the user can toggle it on and off.

In theory, :enabled should match an <a>, <area>, or <link> with href attributes, but browsers don’t seem to handle that scenario. You can style <button><input><textarea><optgroup><option> and <fieldset>s that are not disabled. When <menu> is supported, we should also be able to target <command> and <li>‘s that are children of <menu>, if not disabled.

You would also think that elements with contenteditable and tabindex attributes would be selectable with the :enabled pseudo-class. The spec does not state this, nor do browsers support it.

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