The 411 on CSS3

CSS3, the latest style sheet format, may still be a work in progress and in a continuous development stage, however, it is deemed as a powerful and comfortable tool for developers. CSS3 builds upon the principles of styles, selectors and the cascade which developers have become accustomed to in previous versions. Setting up a layout has become much easier with CSS3 as it offers greater design flexibility, faster completion time and easier maintenance. Additionally, any CSS3 implementation which is currently being done will involve progressive enhancement.

A major concern at the moment is that it is not compatible with certain internet browsers, namely Internet Explorer – meaning that developers cannot fully use any new CSS rules. Some of the CSS3 features have been implemented in modern browsers, such as Firefox 3+, Safari 3+ (which supports every tested CSS3 feature), Google Chrome 1+ and Opera 9.6+. With Internet Explorer 8, none of the new CSS3 features, and only 22 of the 43 available CSS3 selectors are supported. With this said, Microsoft released Internet Explorer 9 beta to the public in March, which supports both CSS3 and HTML5.

CSS3 includes all features of CSS2.1 plus some additions that were missing in CSS2.1, and extends with new selectors, fancy borders and backgrounds, text effects and layout, user interaction, speech, multi-column layout, paged media and generated content, first-letter and first-line pseudo-classes and Ruby. CSS3 also adds a lot of graphical rendering capabilities which are intended to be used with Rich Internet Applications in conjunction with HTML5.

Here are a few useful links to sites and downloads you might find useful in your CSS3 experience: