Can I select an nth css column?

Question

I have a div with 4 css columns and I'd like to select the 3rd and 4th column to make the text slightly darker because I don't have a good contrast between the text and the background-image. Is this possible? I can accept any css or js solution.

Here's the demo.

--EDIT--

It seems that it's not possible to find a selector for pseudo blocks (if I may say) however I still need to figure out a way of creating responsive blocks (like columns) that will split the text equally (in width) whenever the browser is resized.

Answer 1

As far as I know you won't be able to apply styles to the columns. What you can try however is to use a gradient as a background to make columns 3 and 4 another color.

#columns {
    background: -webkit-linear-gradient(left, rgba(0,0,0,0) 50%, blue 50%);
    /*... appropriate css for other browser engines*/
}

updated jsFiddle updated with all browser support gradient

-- EDIT --

Since the intention was actually to change the text color and not the background for the third and fourth column some additional thoughts.

For now it doesn't seem possible to apply styles to single columns inside a container. One possible workaround to change the text color in specific columns is to put every word inside a span. Then to use JavaScript to iterate over the words and determine where a new column starts. Assigning the first element in the third column a new class would make it possible to style this and the following siblings with a different text color.

Because the container is part of a responsive layout and could change in size, the script would have to be re-run on the resize event to account for changing column widths.

The purpose of the code example is to outline how to implement such a solution and should be improved for use in an actual application (e.g. the spans are being re-created every time styleCols is run, lots of console output...).

JavaScript

function styleCols() {
    // get #columns
    var columns = document.getElementById('columns');
    // split the text into words
    var words = columns.innerText.split(' ');
    // remove the text from #columns
    columns.innerText = '';

    // readd the text to #columns with one span per word
    var spans = []
    for (var i=0;i<words.length;i++) {
        var span = document.createElement('span');
        span.innerText = words[i] + ' ';
        spans.push(span);
        columns.appendChild(span);
    }

    // offset of the previous word
    var prev = null;
    // offset of the column
    var colStart = null;
    // number of the column
    var colCount = 0;
    // first element with a specific offset
    var firsts = [];
    // loop through the spans
    for (var i=0;i<spans.length;i++) {
        var first = false;
        var oL = spans[i].offsetLeft;
        console.info(spans[i].innerText, oL);
        // test if this is the first span with this offset
        if (firsts[oL] === undefined) {
            console.info('-- first');
            // add span to firsts
            firsts[oL] = spans[i];
            first = true;
        }
        // if the offset is smaller or equal to the previous offset this
        // is a new line
        // if the offset is also greater than the column offset we are in
        // (the second row of) a new column
        if ((prev === null || oL <= prev) && (colStart === null || oL > colStart)) {
            console.info('-- col++', colCount + 1);
            // update the column offset
            colStart = oL;
            // raise the column count
            colCount++;
        }
        // if we have reached the third column
        if (colCount == 3) {
            // add our new class to the first span with the column offset
            // (this is the first span in the current column
            firsts[oL].classList.add('first-in-col3');
            return;
        }
        // update prev to reflect the current offset
        prev = oL;
    }
}
styleCols();
addEventListener('resize', styleCols, false);

CSS

.first-in-col3, .first-in-col3~span {
    color: red;
}

jsFiddle