Bootstrap: Remove border and arrows for dropdown field

Question

How can I remove the dropdown-arrows without messing up the height and at the same time hide the border when I use Bootstrap 3?

Here is a plunk where I try to do this. The hide arrow (class custom-select) is based on this blog copying this code.

Perhaps better check out the plunk, but here is the CSS:

.no-border {
    border: 0;
    box-shadow: none;
}

.custom-select {
    background-color: #fff;
    border: 1px solid #ccc;
    -webkit-box-sizing: border-box;
    -moz-box-sizing: border-box;
    box-sizing: border-box;
    margin: 0 0 2em;
    padding: 0;
    position: relative;
    width: 100%;
    z-index: 1;
}

.custom-select:hover {
    border-color: #999;
}

.custom-select:before {
    color: #333;
    display: block;
    font-family: 'FontAwesome';
    font-size: 1em;
    height: 100%;
    line-height: 2.5em;
    padding: 0 0.625em;
    position: absolute;
    top: 0;
    right: 0;
    text-align: center;
    width: 1em;
    z-index: -1;
}

.custom-select select {
    background-color: transparent;
    border: 0 none;
    box-shadow: none;
    color: #333;
    display: block;
    font-size: 100%;
    line-height: normal;
    margin: 0;
    padding: .5em;
    width: 100%;
    -webkit-box-sizing: border-box;
    -moz-box-sizing: border-box;
    box-sizing: border-box;
    -webkit-appearance: none;
    -moz-appearance: none;
    appearance: none;
}

.custom-select select::-ms-expand {
    display: none; /* to ie 10 */
}

.custom-select select:focus {
    outline: none;
}

/* little trick for custom select elements in mozilla firefox  17/06/2014 @rodrigoludgero */

/* pseudo class https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/:any */

:-moz-any(.custom-select):before {
    background-color: #fff; /* this is necessary for overcome the caret default browser */
    pointer-events: none; /* https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/pointer-events  */
    z-index: 1; /* this is necessary for overcome the pseudo element */
}

Edit: If I add !important to my no-border border, then it solves the border-related problem:

.no-border {
    border: 0 !important;
    box-shadow: none;
}

So then remains the height-change issue when toggeling custom-select for removing/adding the dropdown-arrows...

Answer 1

Using !important should really be used only as a last resort.
In my opinion, its the lazy way out.

In your .custom-select class, you have two things

.custom-select {
    background-color: #fff;
    -webkit-box-sizing: border-box;
    -moz-box-sizing: border-box;
    box-sizing: border-box;
    margin: 0 0; /* "0 0 2em" reads as margin-top: 0; margin-left: 0; margin-right: 0; margin-bottom: 2em; (32px) */
    padding: 0;
    position: relative;
    width: 100%;
    z-index: 1;
}

Your margin was margin: 0 0 2em;, and you were giving it a border, youself. I just removed that, instead. Or you could just change it to border: 0;

Also: Semantics... But:

<select id="status" class="form-control" ng-class="{'no-border': border}" id="inputEmail3">
    <option>First option</option>
    <option>Another option</option>
    <option>We also have a tird</option>
</select>

You have two id attributes. You should remove one.