diff --git a/IPython/html/widgets/widget.py b/IPython/html/widgets/widget.py
index 9fb2ea9..ed1b2ab 100644
--- a/IPython/html/widgets/widget.py
+++ b/IPython/html/widgets/widget.py
@@ -314,9 +314,10 @@ class DOMWidget(Widget):
keys = ['visible', '_css'] + Widget.keys
def get_css(self, key, selector=""):
- """Get a CSS property of the widget. Note, this function does not
- actually request the CSS from the front-end; Only properties that have
- been set with set_css can be read.
+ """Get a CSS property of the widget.
+
+ Note: This function does not actually request the CSS from the
+ front-end; Only properties that have been set with set_css can be read.
Parameters
----------
@@ -332,8 +333,9 @@ class DOMWidget(Widget):
def set_css(self, *args, **kwargs):
- """Set one or more CSS properties of the widget (shared among all of the
- views). This function has two signatures:
+ """Set one or more CSS properties of the widget.
+
+ This function has two signatures:
- set_css(css_dict, selector='')
- set_css(key, value, selector='')
@@ -346,7 +348,12 @@ class DOMWidget(Widget):
value
CSS value
selector: unicode (optional)
- JQuery selector to use to apply the CSS key/value.
+ JQuery selector to use to apply the CSS key/value. If no selector
+ is provided, an empty selector is used. An empty selector makes the
+ front-end try to apply the css to a default element. The default
+ element is an attribute unique to each view, which is a DOM element
+ of the view that should be styled with common CSS (see
+ `$el_to_style` in the Javascript code).
"""
selector = kwargs.get('selector', '')