Need help targeting all instances of a class EXCEPT when it's a child of another (specific) one

You'll need to provide an example of what you mean because I can't think of one.

Tags containing more than one class are expressed in a single string like this Bootstrap example.

<nav id="topNav" class="navbar navbar-top navbar-expand-md navbar-dark bg-dark">

</nav>

In the above example, the tag <nav> containing unique ID "topNav" is the parent of ALL classes in the string.

Here at the studio we work quite a bit with GPT, so here is his answer :

The following CSS rule selects all elements of class .class1 that are not children of class .class2 :

.class1:not(.class2 > .class1) {
  /* Your styles here */
}

But that supose that .class1 are first child of .class2.

So, I asked GPT : "I thought that the pseudo-class :not could not contain a combination"

GPT get back :

You are right that the :not() pseudo-class cannot contain selector combinations, such as descendant, child, or sibling selectors. Therefore, if the elements of .classe1 are not direct children but nested one level deeper, the selector combination would not work with the :not() pseudo-class.

In this case, you can use another approach by combining selectors to select only the elements of .classe1 that are not descendants of .classe2.

Here is an example of a CSS rule that could work:

.classe1 {
  /* Your styles for all elements with .classe1 here */
}
.classe2 .classe1 {
  /* Your styles for all elements with .classe1 that are descendants of .classe2 here */
}
.classe1:not(.classe2) {
  /* Your styles for all elements with .classe1 that are not descendants of .classe2 here */
}

In this approach, we have defined two different sets of styles for the elements of .classe1:

• The base styles that apply to all elements with .classe1.
• The styles for elements with .classe1 that are descendants of .classe2.

Then, we have used the :not() pseudo-class to select all elements of .classe1 that are not descendants of .classe2, excluding the elements of .classe1 that are descendants of .classe2.

This way, the styles defined in the last rule will only be applied to elements of .classe1 that are not descendants of .classe2.

This should work:

.class1:not(.class2 .class1) {

color: red;

}

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