How to overwrite css using different classes without !important

Question

In my code I have a generic form for all my button:

input[type="button"],put[type="button"]:active,input[type="button"]:hover {
    width: 172px;
    height: 37px;
    line-height: 2 !important;
    margin: 11px 0px 0px 0px;
    padding: 5px 150px 9px 5px;
    line-height: 19px;
    font-size: 12px;
}

But some buttons in the system are half or a third the width of the generic buttons. And so they are still type button and receive the css above but I want to change only the width and have it look something like this without using !important.

.thirdButton, .thirdButton:active {
    width: 28px;
    padding: 0;
    background-position-x: 50%;
}

Answer 1

You can add more specificity to your CSS, to very precisely target that type of element as well as increase the power of that selector. Like input[type="button"].thirdButton{...} see demo below:

input[type="button"],
input[type="button"]:active,
input[type="button"]:hover {
  width: 172px;
  height: 37px;
  line-height: 2 !important;
  margin: 11px 0px 0px 0px;
  padding: 5px 150px 9px 5px;
  line-height: 19px;
  font-size: 12px;
}

/* this is the selector line to change */
input[type="button"].thirdButton, input[type="button"].thirdButton:hover,     
input[type="button"].thirdButton:active {
  width: 50px;
  padding: 0;
  background-position-x: 50%;
}

<input type="button" name="generic" value="generic" /><br/>
<input type="button" name="third" value="third" class="thirdButton" />