CSS3

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.

Opera has today issued a pre-alpha release of Opera 10.5 offering increased support for CSS3 and HTML5 as well as vastly increased JavaScript performance and improvements to the browser’s user interface.

Following on from the W3C TPAC 2009, held back in November, CSS3 Selectors was officially advanced to Proposed Recommendation by the W3C Director earlier this week.

The annual W3C Technical Plenary / Advisory Committee (TPAC) meetings week took place last month bringing together the CSS Working Group, amongst others, for a series of face to face meetings in Santa Clara, California. Minutes from the meeting have now been made available online and promise progress for a number of CSS3 modules including CSS3 Selectors, Multicolumn Layout, Transitions, Transforms and Animations.

Microsoft today offered developers an early glimpse of Internet Explorer 9 (IE9) at their 2009 Professional Developers Conference.

Although only at an early stage of development, the IE9 team already looks to have made some impressive leaps forward in terms of web standards support, particularly with regard to CSS3 selectors which, by the looks of the image below (taken from the IE blog), IE9 appears to score an impressive 574 out of 578 in our CSS3 selectors test, a vast improvement over IE8 which scored only 330/578.

CSS3 Selectors Test Results (courtesy of blogs.mdsn.com)

IE9 also looks set to boast support for CSS3 border-radius, an improved scoring in the Acid 3 test (if only slightly) and support for HTML5. You can read the full announcement on the IE blog here and we’ll bring you further announcements on the subject as more information becomes available.

Adobe today released a public beta of AIR 2, available for download from their Adobe Labs website, with the final release expected somewhere in the first half of 2010.

Adobe AIR 2 offers a number of improvements and advantages over its predecessor, including advanced support for CSS3 & HTML5 thanks to an updated version of the Webkit browser engine – in fact the same version as used to power Safari 4.0.3. This means developers can now create desktop apps with advanced support for CSS3 modules, notably 2D transformations, transitions, animations, gradients, zoom and Webkit CSS selectors.

Adobe AIR 2 provides end users with exceptional application experiences while giving developers the easiest and most powerful way to develop desktop applications across multiple platforms (Mac, Windows, and Linux). You can find out more about the release of the AIR 2 beta here.

This development will undoubtedly lead to an increased usage of CSS3, which has already gained widespread use in mobile application development this year.