CSS3: Do You Use It? Should You Use It?
Written By smashing on Jun. 22, 2007.
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We've heard a lot about CSS3 recently. Modularity, new selectors, new possibilities, more flexibility. But nobody really knows when CSS3 will be actually implemented. W3C's CSS3 roadmap has been updated on the 23rd of May 2001 and it doesn't look like there was something going on over the last few years.
Apparently, CSS3 is already (partly) implemented in Safari and Mozilla, but do you use it? Do you know any web-sites which use them? And what do you think - when will we be able to actually use CSS3, well knowing that old browsers won't support it?

clicknathan
Written Jun. 22, 2007 / Report /
What?! CSS3? I still haven't figured out T2: Judgement Day yet.....
Until IE# supports it, there's really no reason to try and start pushing it because you'll then be needing to use two versions of CSS to design one page, sounds like a nightmare to me.
darkmotion
Written Jun. 23, 2007 / Report /
:( I want to use it so baaad
alexsuraci
Written Jun. 23, 2007 / Report /
Honestly the thought of dropping IE support is looking nicer and nicer, especially as the percentage of IE users visiting my sites drops lower and lower. It may be the largest in terms of world usage, but what really matters is who's viewing the site.
shellygrrl
Written Jun. 23, 2007 / Report /
I don't think any web designers will be able to use it until it's--at the very least--more widely supported.
Also...
http://www.css3.info/opera-95-races-ahead-with-css-3-support/
Mike
Written Jun. 23, 2007 / Report /
I use it sparingly (aka, the new 9rules uses it sparingly) but only when I'm adding to a design that has no effect on content, since IE users won't be able to see what's up. Basically giving FF users the frosting whereas everyone else just gets the cupcake :)
nubeen
Written Jun. 23, 2007 / Report /
I agree, using CSS2 and CSS3 in one site is just going to create somewhat more of a nightmare with multiple browsers. Microsoft is still struggling with CSS2 as it is. And even though IE is slowly losing users, it's still best to wait until at least IE6 drops out of the lime-light of usage.
espreson
Written Jun. 23, 2007 / Report /
CSS3 will give new look to web graphics. But is that out?
nubeen
Written Jun. 23, 2007 / Report /
Yes it will, but it's really pointless to use it in the mainstream right now because IE still has a vast majority of the market share and well Firefox is really the only browser to utilize CSS3, so you'd have your eye on one crowd which would not only mis-render elements, but also possibly drive users away.
Scrivs
Written Jun. 23, 2007 / Report /
Yeah it seems the only purpose for using it is when you want to add some extra flair like Mike does with 9rules. Just isn't enough support for it to garner mainstream functionality on sites and until IE jumps on board you can be sure mostly everyone will stay hands off. Dealing with IE 5/6 was hard enough.
tekkie
Written Oct. 21, 2007 / Report /
A lot of Dashboard widgets use it these days, e.g. opacity. There's no doubt about the implementations as browsers are willing to provide new features for users. Except of course Microsoft's Internet Explorer that still doesn't entirely support CSS2.1.
I've used CSS3 in obfuscatr widget.
tekkie
Written Oct. 21, 2007 / Report /
And by the way, WebKit's Feature Branch has Web Fonts support (click here for more).
RightOn
Written Oct. 21, 2007 / Report /
What "Frosting" are we FF users getting? Maybe I'm just used to seeing it :)
chaoskaizer
Written Oct. 21, 2007 / Report /
csss3 border-radius and column implementation is great inventions, unfortunately the "most popular browser" doesnt not fully support css 2.1 so its pointless to discuss about css3 and beyond..
and the new "dl list template" is kind of hype too
xirclebox
Written Oct. 22, 2007 / Report /
i don't see using it until the major browsers start supporting it fully.
brandonrichards
Written Oct. 22, 2007 / Report /
ditto to xirclebox's statement, until its supported no reason to wrestle with it.
cpoteet
Written Oct. 26, 2007 / Report /
It's time will come. Only with the release of IE7 does CSS 2.1 have wider commercial appeal. Remember that IE6 (the bane of my existence) is still the most popular browser.
maryann
Written Nov. 4, 2007 / Report /
Is IE6 still so popular because lots of people have pirate Windows? (to upgrade you have to authorize your Windows version)
PRDesign
Written Nov. 4, 2007 / Report /
Well, my latest site conforms to CSS3, but I didn't intend it to. It cant be all that much different from 2...
ldragon
Written Nov. 4, 2007 / Report /
Not only CSS3 but also HTML 5 ... can't wait, <section><header>and<footer> tags should be nice. Oh and you can have multiple background images per block in CSS3 too if I remember correctly.
Unfortunately, IE won't support it until version 13 Im guessing, and by that type we'll have browsers in our fridges anyway.
PRDesign
Written Nov. 4, 2007 / Report /
I think HTML will be superseded by xHTML as standard anyway. But I'll have a play around with it :)
Oli
Written Nov. 5, 2007 / Report /
Nope, not any more. MS took IE7 off the WGA-only list a few months ago.
... A CSS2 feature.
Those bits aside, we don't need full standard support in IE (et al) to start using parts of it. As some people have already said, we're a very long way from having full support for even CSS v1 in Mozilla, even Opera. If we waited for everything, we'd still be CSSless, therefore we need to concentrate less on the overall CSS standard support in browsers and more at how induvidual features are supported across the board.
But CSS really needs 2 things in my eyes, neither catered for in any upcoming or existing draft. 1) better grouping to improve code readability and save bandwidth and 2) maths. Oh my god would relative-pseudo-absolute positioning type things be so much easier if you could do a live dom-style inspecting. Eg: "I want this div to be as high as this div is with it's content in, biatch!". Much more helpful than embedding damned fonts.
To answer the question, it's the same with any tech with backwards compatibility: your minimum entry point is when there are a significantly few people in your audience unable to use it.
xhtmlcss
Written Jan. 15, 2008 / Report /
Recently, I've had a kind mail exchange with Jeffry Zeldman about his website. I checked its validity using the bivalidator* and was surprised that Zeldman himself wasn't valid... or so I thought.
In fact Zeldman's site is valid CSS3 but not CSS2 and this because of him
using text-shadow proprety which isn't available in CSS2.
Now back to the question, I actually often ask myself the same question and when I'm angry I just say to myself: to hell retarded browsers! I will insert a great red nagging div that will ask the visitor to use a decent browser, but still, I never dared to do that yet...
Maybe I'll start using Dean Edward's IE7 javascript library or just wait for an era of great browsers.
* The bivalidator: http://xhtml-css.com (a validator that checks markup and style that I humbly coded and maintain)
dubsar
Written May. 8, 2008 / Report /
Yes I do and YES you should - CSS creates far more flexability and accessability than any other tool in a developer's toolkit...
leliathomas
Written May. 8, 2008 / Report /
lol dubsar
archangelchuck
Written May. 12, 2008 / Report /
My opinion is wait until it's standardized (hahaha) in all of the browsers. God, they haven't been making it easy on us web developers, have they?