How To Create CSS3 Tables With a jQuery Hover Effect

These days, the use of tables in web design, in particular table tags, are reserved for tabular data. You might think that there’s nothing much else left to be said about creating and designing tables for displaying data, but I recently ran across a CSS3 developer who wrote some code that can make an ordinary and plain table into something special.

Originally written by Catalin Rosu, this code discusses how to use CSS3 and and jQuery to create stylish tables with a hover effect. The hover effect is used to highlight rows that the visitor is currently pointing at. This hover effect allows the visitor to easily highlight a row that they want to read. Here is the demo, which shows two sample types of tables, one with borders and hover effects and the other with zebra stripes.

The CSS3 Table Code

Let’s dive into the code by defining the table.

table {
    *border-collapse: collapse; /* IE7 and lower */
    border-spacing: 0;
}

Then round the corners:

th:first-child {
    -moz-border-radius: 6px 0 0 0;
    -webkit-border-radius: 6px 0 0 0;
    border-radius: 6px 0 0 0;
}

th:last-child {
    -moz-border-radius: 0 6px 0 0;
    -webkit-border-radius: 0 6px 0 0;
    border-radius: 0 6px 0 0;
}

Add in the hover effect:

.bordered tr:hover
{
  background: #fbf8e9;
  -o-transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out;
  -webkit-transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out;
  -moz-transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out;
  -ms-transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out;
  transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out;
}

For browsers that don’t support the hover effect, you can use some jQuery:

$(‘.bordered tr’).mouseover(function(){
    $(this).addClass(‘highlight’);
}).mouseout(function(){
    $(this).removeClass(‘highlight’);
});

Here is the code for the highlight class:

.highlight
{
  background: #fbf8e9;
  -o-transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out;
  -webkit-transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out;
  -moz-transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out;
  -ms-transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out;
  transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out;
}

To create the zebra striping, if you so choose to use this style design instead of the hover effect. I wouldn’t recommend doing both:

.zebra tbody tr:nth-child(even) {
    background: #f5f5f5;
    -webkit-box-shadow: 0 1px 0 rgba(255,255,255,.8) inset;
    -moz-box-shadow:0 1px 0 rgba(255,255,255,.8) inset;
    box-shadow: 0 1px 0 rgba(255,255,255,.8) inset;
}

What About Older Browsers?

The above code will not work on older browsers, so to accommodate for that, you can use:

$(“.zebra tr:even”).addClass(‘alternate’);

and

.alternate {
    background: #f5f5f5;
    -webkit-box-shadow: 0 1px 0 rgba(255,255,255,.8) inset;
    -moz-box-shadow:0 1px 0 rgba(255,255,255,.8) inset;
    box-shadow: 0 1px 0 rgba(255,255,255,.8) inset;
}

That should create the alternate striping effect.

Here’s the full, complete CSS code:

body {
    width: 600px;
    margin: 40px auto;
    font-family: ‘trebuchet MS’, ‘Lucida sans’, Arial;
    font-size: 14px;
    color: #444;
}

table {
    *border-collapse: collapse; /* IE7 and lower */
    border-spacing: 0;
    width: 100%;    
}

.bordered {
    border: solid #ccc 1px;
    -moz-border-radius: 6px;
    -webkit-border-radius: 6px;
    border-radius: 6px;
    -webkit-box-shadow: 0 1px 1px #ccc;
   -moz-box-shadow: 0 1px 1px #ccc;
   box-shadow: 0 1px 1px #ccc;         
}

.bordered tr:hover {
    background: #fbf8e9;
    -o-transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out;
    -webkit-transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out;
    -moz-transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out;
    -ms-transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out;
    transition: all 0.1s ease-in-out;     
}    
    
.bordered td, .bordered th {
    border-left: 1px solid #ccc;
    border-top: 1px solid #ccc;
    padding: 10px;
    text-align: left;    
}

.bordered th {
    background-color: #dce9f9;
    background-image: -webkit-gradient(linear, left top, left bottom, from(#ebf3fc), to(#dce9f9));
    background-image: -webkit-linear-gradient(top, #ebf3fc, #dce9f9);
    background-image:    -moz-linear-gradient(top, #ebf3fc, #dce9f9);
    background-image:     -ms-linear-gradient(top, #ebf3fc, #dce9f9);
    background-image:      -o-linear-gradient(top, #ebf3fc, #dce9f9);
    background-image:         linear-gradient(top, #ebf3fc, #dce9f9);
    -webkit-box-shadow: 0 1px 0 rgba(255,255,255,.8) inset;
   -moz-box-shadow:0 1px 0 rgba(255,255,255,.8) inset;  
    box-shadow: 0 1px 0 rgba(255,255,255,.8) inset;        
    border-top: none;
    text-shadow: 0 1px 0 rgba(255,255,255,.5);
}

.bordered td:first-child, .bordered th:first-child {
    border-left: none;
}

.bordered th:first-child {
    -moz-border-radius: 6px 0 0 0;
    -webkit-border-radius: 6px 0 0 0;
    border-radius: 6px 0 0 0;
}

.bordered th:last-child {
    -moz-border-radius: 0 6px 0 0;
    -webkit-border-radius: 0 6px 0 0;
    border-radius: 0 6px 0 0;
}

.bordered tr:last-child td:first-child {
    -moz-border-radius: 0 0 0 6px;
    -webkit-border-radius: 0 0 0 6px;
    border-radius: 0 0 0 6px;
}

.bordered tr:last-child td:last-child {
    -moz-border-radius: 0 0 6px 0;
    -webkit-border-radius: 0 0 6px 0;
    border-radius: 0 0 6px 0;

And the complete CSS for the zebra striping:

.zebra td, .zebra th {
    padding: 10px;
    border-bottom: 1px solid #f2f2f2;    
}

.zebra tbody tr:nth-child(even) {
    background: #f5f5f5;
    -webkit-box-shadow: 0 1px 0 rgba(255,255,255,.8) inset;
   -moz-box-shadow:0 1px 0 rgba(255,255,255,.8) inset;  
    box-shadow: 0 1px 0 rgba(255,255,255,.8) inset;        
}

.zebra th {
    text-align: left;
    text-shadow: 0 1px 0 rgba(255,255,255,.5);
   border-bottom: 1px solid #ccc;
    background-color: #eee;
    background-image: -webkit-gradient(linear, left top, left bottom, from(#f5f5f5), to(#eee));
    background-image: -webkit-linear-gradient(top, #f5f5f5, #eee);
    background-image:    -moz-linear-gradient(top, #f5f5f5, #eee);
    background-image:     -ms-linear-gradient(top, #f5f5f5, #eee);
    background-image:      -o-linear-gradient(top, #f5f5f5, #eee);
   background-image:         linear-gradient(top, #f5f5f5, #eee);
}

.zebra th:first-child {
    -moz-border-radius: 6px 0 0 0;
    -webkit-border-radius: 6px 0 0 0;
    border-radius: 6px 0 0 0;  
}

.zebra th:last-child {
    -moz-border-radius: 0 6px 0 0;
    -webkit-border-radius: 0 6px 0 0;
    border-radius: 0 6px 0 0;
}

.zebra tfoot td {
    border-bottom: 0;
    border-top: 1px solid #fff;
    background-color: #f1f1f1;  
}

.zebra tfoot td:first-child {
    -moz-border-radius: 0 0 0 6px;
    -webkit-border-radius: 0 0 0 6px;
    border-radius: 0 0 0 6px;
}

.zebra tfoot td:last-child {
    -moz-border-radius: 0 0 6px 0;
    -webkit-border-radius: 0 0 6px 0;
    border-radius: 0 0 6px 0;
}  

That covers the CSS3 and jQuery. For the HTML, basically, you use the same table tags that you always have. But in order to call the CSS styling, you need to do this:

<table class=”bordered”>

Have fun with this one and hopefully you can create some stylish tables!