How to change the colours for the list of TOC contents in a Distill article in R, using the CSS file

Question

I'm still very new to this so I'm not sure if it's a R issue or a css issue. I'm trying to change the colour of the elements listed in my table of contents in a distill article. Specifically it is these elements I'm trying to change:

What would this object be called?

For what it is worth here is the css file I'm editing.

/* base variables */

/* Edit the CSS properties in this file to create a custom
   Distill theme. Only edit values in the right column
   for each row; values shown are the CSS defaults.
   To return any property to the default,
   you may set its value to: unset
   All rows must end with a semi-colon.                      */

/* Optional: embed custom fonts here with `@import`          */
/* This must remain at the top of this file.                 */
@import url('https://fonts.googleapis.com/css2?family=Hurricane&display=swap');
@import url('https://fonts.googleapis.com/css2?family=Poppins:ital@1&family=Work+Sans:wght@300&display=swap');


html {
  /*-- Main font sizes --*/
  --title-size:      50px;
  --body-size:       1.06rem;
  --code-size:       14px;
  --aside-size:      12px;
  --fig-cap-size:    13px;
  /*-- Main font colors --*/
  --title-color:     white;
  --header-color:    white;
  --body-color:      white; 
  --aside-color:     white;
  --fig-cap-color:   white;
  /*-- Specify custom fonts ~~~ must be imported above   --*/
  --heading-font:   'Hurricane', cursive;
  --mono-font:       monospace;
  --body-font:      'Poppins', sans-serif;
  --navbar-font:    'Hurricane', cursive;/* websites + blogs only */
}

/*-- ARTICLE METADATA --*/
d-byline {
  --heading-size:    0.6rem;
  --heading-color:   rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.5);
  --body-size:       0.8rem;
  --body-color:      rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.8);
}

/*-- ARTICLE TABLE OF CONTENTS --*/
.d-contents {
  --heading-size:    25px;
  --contents-size:   13px;
}

/*-- ARTICLE APPENDIX --*/
d-appendix {
  --heading-size:    15px;
  --heading-color:   rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.65);
  --text-size:       0.8em;
  --text-color:      rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.5);
}

/*-- WEBSITE HEADER + FOOTER --*/
/* These properties only apply to Distill sites and blogs  */

.distill-site-header {
  --title-size:       30px;
  --text-color:       rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.8);
  --text-size:        30px;
  --hover-color:      black;
  --bkgd-color:    background: hsla(272, 100%, 50%, 1);

background: linear-gradient(315deg, hsla(272, 100%, 50%, 1) 19%, hsla(188, 100%, 49%, 1) 100%, hsla(240, 94%, 50%, 1) 100%);

background: -moz-linear-gradient(315deg, hsla(272, 100%, 50%, 1) 19%, hsla(188, 100%, 49%, 1) 100%, hsla(240, 94%, 50%, 1) 100%);

background: -webkit-linear-gradient(315deg, hsla(272, 100%, 50%, 1) 19%, hsla(188, 100%, 49%, 1) 100%, hsla(240, 94%, 50%, 1) 100%);

filter: progid: DXImageTransform.Microsoft.gradient( startColorstr="#8800ff", endColorstr="#00d9fa", GradientType=1 );
}

.distill-site-footer {
  --text-color:       white;
  --text-size:        15px;
  --hover-color:      black;
  --bkgd-color:       background: hsla(272, 100%, 50%, 1);

background: linear-gradient(315deg, hsla(272, 100%, 50%, 1) 0%, hsla(235, 98%, 65%, 1) 0%, hsla(188, 100%, 49%, 1) 24%, hsla(240, 94%, 50%, 1) 100%);

background: -moz-linear-gradient(315deg, hsla(272, 100%, 50%, 1) 0%, hsla(235, 98%, 65%, 1) 0%, hsla(188, 100%, 49%, 1) 24%, hsla(240, 94%, 50%, 1) 100%);

background: -webkit-linear-gradient(315deg, hsla(272, 100%, 50%, 1) 0%, hsla(235, 98%, 65%, 1) 0%, hsla(188, 100%, 49%, 1) 24%, hsla(240, 94%, 50%, 1) 100%);

filter: progid: DXImageTransform.Microsoft.gradient( startColorstr="#8800FF", endColorstr="#4E5DFD", GradientType=1 );
}

/*-- Additional custom styles --*/
/* Add any additional CSS rules below                      */


/* Change background colour of web page */

body {
background: hsla(272, 100%, 50%, 1);

background: linear-gradient(315deg, hsla(272, 100%, 50%, 1) 0%, hsla(241, 98%, 65%, 1) 33%, hsla(188, 100%, 49%, 1) 56%, hsla(240, 94%, 50%, 1) 100%);

background: -moz-linear-gradient(315deg, hsla(272, 100%, 50%, 1) 0%, hsla(241, 98%, 65%, 1) 33%, hsla(188, 100%, 49%, 1) 56%, hsla(240, 94%, 50%, 1) 100%);

background: -webkit-linear-gradient(315deg, hsla(272, 100%, 50%, 1) 0%, hsla(241, 98%, 65%, 1) 33%, hsla(188, 100%, 49%, 1) 56%, hsla(240, 94%, 50%, 1) 100%);

filter: progid: DXImageTransform.Microsoft.gradient( startColorstr="#8800ff", endColorstr="#5551FD", GradientType=1 );
}


/* colours of text on landing home page */

h1 {
  color: white;
}

p {
  color: white;
}



/* button colours on landing page */

/* Style the buttons */
.btn {
  border: white;
  outline: black;
  padding: 12px 16px;
  color: white;
  background-color: var(--bkgd-color, none);
  cursor: pointer;
}

/* Add a light grey background on mouse-over */
.btn:hover {
  background-color: black;
  color: white
}

/* Add a dark background to the active button */
.btn.active {
  background-color: white;
  color: red;
}

I would've thought it would have been adding:

--text-color: white;

to the d.contents portion. But I guess it is not that. I had looked at a few other people's websites and their GitHub repositories to see if I could find the solution, but to no avail. So I come here for assistance.

Answer 1

To change the color of the table of contents links add the following to your .css theme:

.d-contents a {
  color:     #220055;
}

The a part specifies to change the color for links, which all the parts of the TOC are. Just change the hex codes to whatever color you'd prefer (#FFFFFF for white).

If you want the font color to change as you hover over the links, also add:

.d-contents a:hover {
  color:     #047C91;
}

I came across this question trying to get rid of the underline when you hover over (the default with a distll site) so I don't, unfortunately, know how to turn that off.