Different colours for different articles using a:hover - php

Question

I'm trying to assign three different colours to three different articles on a single page using a:hover in Wordpress.
This is the site http://paragrams.wpshower.com/
At present all the articles turn pale yellow on a:hover. I'm trying to create different colours for each article (for example, first article to be yellow, the second article red, third blue and so on).
Below is the php & CSS for the a:hover at present. I assume I need to wrap each thumb id in a different div and specify the colour in the CSS?
PHP:
<ul class="mcol">
<?php if(have_posts()) : ?><?php while(have_posts()) : the_post(); ?>
<li class="article">
<?php
if ( has_post_thumbnail() ) { ?>
<?php
$imgsrcparam = array(
'alt' => trim(strip_tags( $post- >post_excerpt )),
'title' => trim(strip_tags( $post- >post_title )),
);
$thumbID = get_the_post_thumbnail( $post->ID, 'background', $imgsrcparam ); ?>
<div><?php echo "$thumbID"; ?></div>
<?php } ?>
<h2><?php the_title(); ?></h2>
and CSS:
.li_container {
background-attachment: scroll;
background-image: url(images/main-bg.gif);
background-repeat: repeat-y;
background-position: left top;
}
.li_container .article:hover {
background-color:#57bfeb;
}
This is the js:
# * Splits a <ul>/<ol>-list into equal-sized columns.
# *
# * Requirements:
# * <ul>
# * <li>"ul" or "ol" element must be styled with margin</li>
# * </ul>
# *
# * #see http://www.codeasily.com/jquery/multi-column-list-with-jquery
# */
jQuery.fn.makeacolumnlists = function(settings){
settings = jQuery.extend({
cols: 3, // set number of columns
colWidth: 0, // set width for each column or leave 0 for auto width
equalHeight: 'li', // can be false, 'ul', 'ol', 'li'
startN: 1 // first number on your ordered list
}, settings);
if(jQuery('> li', this)) {
this.each(function(y) {
var y=jQuery('.li_container').size(),
height = 0,
maxHeight = 0,
t = jQuery(this),
classN = t.attr('class'),
listsize = jQuery('> li', this).size(),
percol = Math.ceil(listsize/settings.cols),
contW = t.width(),
bl = ( isNaN(parseInt(t.css('borderLeftWidth'),10)) ? 0 : parseInt(t.css('borderLeftWidth'),10) ),
br = ( isNaN(parseInt(t.css('borderRightWidth'),10)) ? 0 : parseInt(t.css('borderRightWidth'),10) ),
pl = parseInt(t.css('paddingLeft'),10),
pr = parseInt(t.css('paddingRight'),10),
ml = parseInt(t.css('marginLeft'),10),
mr = parseInt(t.css('marginRight'),10),
col_Width = Math.floor((contW - (settings.cols-1)*(bl+br+pl+pr+ml+mr))/settings.cols);
if (settings.colWidth) {
col_Width = settings.colWidth;
}
var colnum=1,
percol2=percol;
jQuery(this).addClass('li_cont1').wrap('<div id="li_container' + (++y) + '" class="li_container"></div>');
for (var i=0; i<=listsize; i++) {
if (colnum > settings.cols) colnum = 1;
var eq = jQuery('> li:eq('+i+')',this);
eq.addClass('li_col'+colnum);
colnum++;
//if(i>=percol2) { percol2+=percol; colnum++; }
//var eq = jQuery('> li:eq('+i+')',this);
//eq.addClass('li_col'+ colnum);
//if(jQuery(this).is('ol')){eq.attr('value', ''+(i+settings.startN))+'';}
}
jQuery(this).css({cssFloat:'left', width:''+col_Width+'px'});
for (colnum=2; colnum<=settings.cols; colnum++) {
if(jQuery(this).is('ol')) {
jQuery('li.li_col'+ colnum, this).appendTo('#li_container' + y).wrapAll('<ol class="li_cont'+colnum +' ' + classN + '" style="float:left; width: '+col_Width+'px;"></ol>');
} else {
jQuery('li.li_col'+ colnum, this).appendTo('#li_container' + y).wrapAll('<ul class="li_cont'+colnum +' ' + classN + '" style="float:left; width: '+col_Width+'px;"></ul>');
}
}
if (settings.equalHeight=='li') {
for (colnum=1; colnum<=settings.cols; colnum++) {
jQuery('#li_container'+ y +' li').each(function() {
var e = jQuery(this);
var border_top = ( isNaN(parseInt(e.css('borderTopWidth'),10)) ? 0 : parseInt(e.css('borderTopWidth'),10) );
var border_bottom = ( isNaN(parseInt(e.css('borderBottomWidth'),10)) ? 0 : parseInt(e.css('borderBottomWidth'),10) );
height = e.height() + parseInt(e.css('paddingTop'), 10) + parseInt(e.css('paddingBottom'), 10) + border_top + border_bottom;
maxHeight = (height > maxHeight) ? height : maxHeight;
});
}
for (colnum=1; colnum<=settings.cols; colnum++) {
var eh = jQuery('#li_container'+ y +' li');
var border_top = ( isNaN(parseInt(eh.css('borderTopWidth'),10)) ? 0 : parseInt(eh.css('borderTopWidth'),10) );
var border_bottom = ( isNaN(parseInt(eh.css('borderBottomWidth'),10)) ? 0 : parseInt(eh.css('borderBottomWidth'),10) );
mh = maxHeight - (parseInt(eh.css('paddingTop'), 10) + parseInt(eh.css('paddingBottom'), 10) + border_top + border_bottom );
eh.height(mh);
}
} else
if (settings.equalHeight=='ul' || settings.equalHeight=='ol') {
for (colnum=1; colnum<=settings.cols; colnum++) {
jQuery('#li_container'+ y +' .li_cont'+colnum).each(function() {
var e = jQuery(this);
var border_top = ( isNaN(parseInt(e.css('borderTopWidth'),10)) ? 0 : parseInt(e.css('borderTopWidth'),10) );
var border_bottom = ( isNaN(parseInt(e.css('borderBottomWidth'),10)) ? 0 : parseInt(e.css('borderBottomWidth'),10) );
height = e.height() + parseInt(e.css('paddingTop'), 10) + parseInt(e.css('paddingBottom'), 10) + border_top + border_bottom;
maxHeight = (height > maxHeight) ? height : maxHeight;
});
}
for (colnum=1; colnum<=settings.cols; colnum++) {
var eh = jQuery('#li_container'+ y +' .li_cont'+colnum);
var border_top = ( isNaN(parseInt(eh.css('borderTopWidth'),10)) ? 0 : parseInt(eh.css('borderTopWidth'),10) );
var border_bottom = ( isNaN(parseInt(eh.css('borderBottomWidth'),10)) ? 0 : parseInt(eh.css('borderBottomWidth'),10) );
mh = maxHeight - (parseInt(eh.css('paddingTop'), 10) + parseInt(eh.css('paddingBottom'), 10) + border_top + border_bottom );
/*eh.height(mh);*/
}
}
jQuery('#li_container' + y).append('<div style="clear:both; overflow:hidden; height:0px;"></div>');
});
}
}
jQuery.fn.uncolumnlists = function(){
jQuery('.li_cont1').each(function(i) {
var onecolSize = jQuery('#li_container' + (++i) + ' .li_cont1 > li').size();
if(jQuery('#li_container' + i + ' .li_cont1').is('ul')) {
jQuery('#li_container' + i + ' > ul > li').appendTo('#li_container' + i + ' ul:first');
for (var j=1; j<=onecolSize; j++) {
jQuery('#li_container' + i + ' ul:first li').removeAttr('class').removeAttr('style');
}
jQuery('#li_container' + i + ' ul:first').removeAttr('style').removeClass('li_cont1').insertBefore('#li_container' + i);
} else {
jQuery('#li_container' + i + ' > ol > li').appendTo('#li_container' + i + ' ol:first');
for (var j=1; j<=onecolSize; j++) {
jQuery('#li_container' + i + ' ol:first li').removeAttr('class').removeAttr('style');
}
jQuery('#li_container' + i + ' ol:first').removeAttr('style').removeClass('li_cont1').insertBefore('#li_container' + i);
}
jQuery('#li_container' + i).remove();
});
}

Answer 1

You wouldn't need to do anything fancy with divs; just give each li tag a unique class, and specify those class colors in css.
From your code, you could change the line
<li class="article">
to
<?php
switch($post->ID) {
case 1:
$class = 'yellow'; break;
case 2:
$class = 'blue'; break;
case 3:
$class = 'green'; break;
}
?>
<li class="article <?php echo $class; ?>">
This will effectively output class='article yellow' for the first article, class='article blue' for the second, etc. You can then make this all work by changing the css as follows:
.li_container .article.yellow:hover { background-color:#57bfeb; }
.li_container .article.green:hover { background-color:green; }
.li_container .article.blue:hover { background-color:blue; }
If you want to get fancy, you could also change switch($post->ID) to switch(mod($post->ID,3)) to do lots of color changing.

Answer 2

eykanal has a good solution. Just to throw out another option, you could use jquery and just dynamically add the classes based on the article positions in the dom. Something like:
Add this inside the head element of your page:
<script type="text/javascript"src="https://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.5.0/jquery.min.js"></script>
<script type="text/javascript">
$(document).ready(function () {
$('.mcol li.article:nth-child(1)').addClass('yellow')
$('.mcol li.article:nth-child(2)').addClass('red')
$('.mcol li.article:nth-child(3)').addClass('blue')
});
</script>
You would then add something like this to your css file:
.yellow:hover { background-color: yellow; }
.red:hover { background-color: red; }
.blue:hover { background-color: blue; }
Change the colors to the hex codes of your choice of course.
Have Fun!

Answer 3

What i'd personally do is add an incrementing class using PHP, like so..
<ul class="mcol">
<?php if(have_posts()) : $i = 0; while(have_posts()) : the_post(); $i++; ?>
<li class="article <?php echo "item-$i";?>">
You then get something like..
<li class="article item-1">content</li>
<li class="article item-2">content</li>
<li class="article item-3">content</li>
Then toggle a class on hover to..
$(document).ready(function(){
$('li.article').hover(function(){
$(this).toggleClass('active-item');
});
});
That then gives you one class that covers all list items, one unique to each item shown, and one that is only attached to the element on hover..
li.article { /* CSS for all list items */ }
li.article.active-item { /* CSS for all any item active */ }
li.item-1 { /* CSS for the first item */ }
li.item-2 { /* CSS for the second item */ }
li.active-item.item-1 { /* CSS for the first item when hovered */ }
li.active-item.item-2 { /* CSS for the secpnd item when hovered */ }
NOTE: It doesn't hurt to make your CSS selectors more specific, adding an ID infront of those(say, the parent list ID) will help ensure you get less conflict with other competing styles.
I hope that's helpful.. ;)