CSS: How to change colour of active navigation page menu

Question

I'm trying to change the colour of the active or current page navigation link which is selected by the user on my website. What am I doing wrong? Thanks.

So far the CSS looks like this:

div.menuBar
{
   font-family: BirchStd;
   font-size: 40px;
   line-height: 40px;
   font-weight: bold;
   text-align: center;
   letter-spacing: -0.1em;
}

div.menuBar li{list-style:none; display: inline;}
div.menuBar li a:active{color:#FF0000;}
div.menuBar ul{margin:0;}

And my HTML calls a page template for the navigation menu using the include PHP function:

<div class="menuBar">
  <ul>
  <li><a href="index.php">HOME</a></li>
  <li><a href="two.php">PORTFOLIO</a></li>
  <li><a href="three.php">ABOUT</a></li>
  <li><a href="four.php">CONTACT</a></li>
  <li><a href="five.php">SHOP</a></li>
 </ul>

Answer 1

I think you are getting confused about what the a:active CSS selector does. This will only change the colour of your link when you click it (and only for the duration of the click i.e. how long your mouse button stays down). What you need to do is introduce a new class e.g. .selected into your CSS and when you select a link, update the selected menu item with new class e.g.

<div class="menuBar">
    <ul>
        <li class="selected"><a href="index.php">HOME</a></li>
        <li><a href="two.php">PORTFOLIO</a></li>
        ....
    </ul>
</div>

// specific CSS for your menu
div.menuBar li.selected a { color: #FF0000; } 
// more general CSS
li.selected a { color: #FF0000; }

You will need to update your template page to take in a selectedPage parameter.

Answer 2

The CSS :active state means the active state of the clicked link - the moment when you clicked on it, but not released the mouse button yet, for example. It doesn't know which page you're on and can't apply any styles to the menu items.

To fix your problem you have to create a class and add it manually to the current page's menu:

a.active { color: #f00 }

<ul>
    <li><a href="index.php" class="active">HOME</a></li>
    <li><a href="two.php">PORTFOLIO</a></li>
    <li><a href="three.php">ABOUT</a></li>
    <li><a href="four.php">CONTACT</a></li>
    <li><a href="five.php">SHOP</a></li>
</ul>

Answer 3

Add ID current for active/current page:

<div class="menuBar">
  <ul>
  <li id="current"><a href="index.php">HOME</a></li>
  <li><a href="two.php">PORTFOLIO</a></li>
  <li><a href="three.php">ABOUT</a></li>
  <li><a href="four.php">CONTACT</a></li>
  <li><a href="five.php">SHOP</a></li>
 </ul>

#current a { color: #ff0000; }