Select first occurring element after another element

I've got the following HTML code on a page:

<h4>Some text</h4>
<p>
Some more text!
</p>

In my .css I've got the following selector to style the h4 element. The HTML code above is just a small part of the entire code; there are several divs more wrapped around belonging to a shadowbox:

#sb-wrapper #sb-wrapper-inner #sb-body #myDiv h4
{
    color               : #614E43;
    margin-top          : 5px;
    margin-left         : 6px;
}

So, I have the correct style for my h4 element, but I also want to style the p tag in my HTML.

Is this possible with CSS-selectors? And if yes, how can I do this?


#many .more.selectors h4 + p { ... }

This is called the adjacent sibling selector.


For your literal example you'd want to use the adjacent selector (+).

h4 + p {color:red}//any <p> that is immediately preceded by an <h4>

<h4>Some text</h4>
<p>I'm red</p>
<p>I'm not</p>

However, if you wanted to select all successive paragraphs, you'd need to use the general sibling selector (~).

h4 ~ p {color:red}//any <p> that has the same parent as, and comes after an <h4>

<h4>Some text</h4>
<p>I'm red</p>
<p>I am too</p>

It's known to be buggy in IE 7+ unfortunately.


Just hit on this when trying to solve this type of thing my self.

I did a selector that deals with the element after being something other than a p.

.here .is.the #selector h4 + * {...}

Hope this helps anyone who finds it :)


Simplifying for the beginners:

If you want to select an element immediately after another element you use the + selector.

For example:

div + p The + element selects all <p> elements that are placed immediately after <div> elements


If you want to learn more about selectors use this table.