articles - "All" vs. "All the"

I wrote

Alternatively, we can use any constant element repeating in all items, such as ``Add to Cart".

Here by items I mean all items on the page or all items of a list, but still I don't know if I should use "all the items" or "all items". I remember once I used "all the elements" to mean "all the elements on the page" but I saw "all elements" in the answers!

Answer

The rule is the same as with any other use of the... 'All' makes no difference

If you are talking about a specific group, you would use the:

Pass me all the apples in the bowl

If you are talking about apples as a 'thing' but not as individual apples, you would not use the:

All apples are delicious

To translate this to your case, if you are talking about the elements on one page you would use the:

Some of the elements on the page are left aligned, the rest are justified. It looks strange.

If you are talking about elements in general you would not:

All elements need both a class and ID, otherwise the JavaScript breaks

Note that in the latter case of both examples we are talking about apples/elements as a 'thing' or concept, whereas in the former we are talking about individual objects.