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Karl Castillo
Karl Castillo

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CSS: currentColor Value

#css #webdev #beginners #tutorial

The CSS property currentColor is an interesting property where the value of currentColor is your element's current font colour. This value can be used as a named colour.

div {
  color: red;
  border: 1px solid currentColor;
}
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Like other CSS properties, currentColor is affected by cascade and specificity.

<div>I'm Red</div>
<div class="div-blue">I'm Blue</div>
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div {
  color: red;
  border: 1px solid currentColor;
}

.div-blue {
  color: blue;
}
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So what can we do with currentColor?

SVG Fill 

a {
 color: blue;
}

a > svg {
  fill: currentColor;
}
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Theming

Can you think of other ways to use currentColor?

Top comments (3)

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joostkiens profile image
Joost Kiens •

Nice! I like using currentColor for reusing colors across a component. I only need to define a single color once:

<button>
  Clicketyclikckclack
  <svg><!-- maybe an arrow icon? --></svg>
</button>

button {
   color: hotpink;
   border: 2px solid currentColor;
}

button > svg { stroke: currentColor; }

button:hover,
button:focus { color: rebeccapurple; }

BTW, recently found out you can use currentColor as a value of the fill and stroke attributes in svg:

<path stroke='currentColor' fill='currentColor' />

👊

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koralarts profile image
Karl Castillo •

Nice. Nice. Yeah currentColor made consistent theming for certain components much easier. With CSS variables and currentColor theming has been quite fun.

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rtpharry profile image
Matthew Harris •

What about applying on brand borders