CSS3

Google have recently updated their HTML5ROCKS site, originally launched in June this year, with numerous new demos and tutorials for HTML5 and CSS3. The latest update adds, amongst other articles, a tutorial for CSS3 Web Fonts (with @font-face) and a new ‘HTML5 Studio’ – offering a number of live demos for many of the new possibilities offered by HTML5 and CSS3.

Since being updated the site has been causing quite a stir online and if you’ve not come across the site before, it’s an excellent resource for getting to grips with HTML5 & CSS3 and certainly worth a visit.

The CSS Working Group published an updated Candidate Recommendation of the Media Queries module on the 27th July.

Mozilla announced the arrival of Firefox 4 Beta 2 late last week, only three weeks after the release of Beta 1. This updated release includes two major improvements over the first beta release, notably increased performance and increased support for CSS3 Transitions.

You can download the latest release here.

The first public beta of the forthcoming Firefox 4 browser has been released bringing increased support for CSS3 amongst various other improvements.

One of the most notable new additions in Firefox 4 is support for CSS3 Transitions (with the -moz- prefix). Webkit based browsers (such as Safari / Chrome) and Opera have supported CSS3 Transitions for some time, almost three years in Webkit’s case, and it is reassuring to see that Mozilla have finally made an effort to catch up with the competition in this area.

The W3C have today issued a last call working draft for the CSS3 Backgrounds and Borders module.

The updated specification includes several changes from the previous Candidate Recommendation release including:

* Addition of ‘content-box’ value of ‘background-clip’.
* Change to the ‘background’ shorthand syntax for ‘background-clip’ and ‘background-origin’.
* Removal of recommendation to use gradients for color transitions when ‘border-radius’ produces a curve.
* (Re)Addition of ‘box-shadow’ property.
* Various clarifications.

You can read further detail on the changes in our previous article here.

The W3C has set a deadline of the 6th July for comments. Any comments should be submitted to the www-style mailing list, see the status section of the specification for further details.

They may have arrived late to the party, but Microsoft are keen to make their presence known, and in an effort to show just how engaged with the web standards community they are, or perhaps more a chance to try and gain one up on the competition, have published a set of results (on the 5th may) outlining not only how great IE9’s performance in a number of test cases is, but also just how badly the competition compare.

A recent editors draft of the CSS3 Background and Borders module (published on 5th may) indicates that the box-shadow property could be set to make a reappearance before the specification is released as a Proposed Recommendation.

The specification also features several other updates including the addition of a ‘content-box’ value to the background-clip property, changes to the background shorthand syntax for background-clip and background-origin, and the removal of a recommendation to use gradients for color transitions when border-radius produces a curve, further details below.

Last week also saw the release of an updated working draft of the CSS3 Template Layout module, read on for further details.

Microsoft today announced further details of their forthcoming Internet Explorer 9 browser, along with the first platform preview for developers, at their MIX Conference 2010.

Amongst the announcements comes increased support for CSS3, with support promised for CSS3 Selectors, Namespaces, Colors, Values, Backgrounds & Borders and Fonts, along with increased support for HTML5 and improvements in JavaScript performance.

The platform preview, downloadable from the Internet Explorer website, comes with a number of demonstrations including those for CSS3 border-radius and selectors. The preview also scores an impressive 578/578 on our CSS3 Selectors Test and an improved 55/100 on the Acid 3 test, with further improvements promised before the final release.

You can read more on the Internet Explorer blog, or download the platform preview here.

Benjamin Meyer has been busy creating Anigma, an online game designed to showcase some of the functionality in CSS3, particularly CSS3 Transitions and Animations.

Keith Clark, an independent web developer from the UK, has developed a JavaScript solution to IE’s CSS3 shortcomings in relation to CSS3 selectors. CSS3 selectors became the first W3C module to reach proposed recommendation status back in December 2009.

His ie-css3.js project (currently in beta) allows Internet Explorer, versions 5 through 8, to identify CSS3 pseudo-class selectors and render any style rules defined with them. All this is achieved by simply including the script, along with Robert Nyman’s DomAssistant, within the head element of your web pages.