Css Properties

September 11, 2009 at 4:05 am · Filed under Css properties

Syntax Used in Property Definitions

<Foo>
Value of type Foo. Common types are discussed in the Units section.
Foo
A keyword that must appear literally (though without case sensitivity). Commas and slashes must also appear literally.
A B C
A must occur, then B, then C, in that order.
A | B
A or B must occur.
A || B
A or B or both must occur, in any order.
[ Foo ]
Brackets are used to group items together.
Foo*
Foo is repeated zero or more times.
Foo+
Foo is repeated one or more times.
Foo?
Foo is optional.
Foo{A,B}
Foo must occur at least A times and at most B times.

Font Properties

* Font Family
* Font Style
* Font Variant
* Font Weight
* Font Size
* Font

Font Family

Syntax:     font-family: [[<family-name> | <generic-family>],]* [<family-name> | <generic-family>]
Possible Values:     <family-name>

* Any font family name may be used

<generic-family>

* serif (e.g., Times)
* sans-serif (e.g., Arial or Helvetica)
* cursive (e.g., Zapf-Chancery)
* fantasy (e.g., Western)
* monospace (e.g., Courier)

Initial Value:     Determined by browser
Applies to:     All elements
Inherited:     Yes

Font families may be assigned by a specific font name or a generic font family. Obviously, defining a specific font will not be as likely to match as a generic font family. Multiple family assignments can be made, and if a specific font assignment is made it should be followed by a generic family name in case the first choice is not present.

A sample font-family declaration might look like this:

P { font-family: “New Century Schoolbook”, Times, serif }

Notice that the first two assignments are specific type faces: New Century Schoolbook and Times. However, since both of them are serif fonts, the generic font family is listed as a backup in case the system does not have either of these but has another serif font which meets the qualifications.

Any font name containing whitespace must be quoted, with either single or double quotes.

The font family may also be given with the font property.

Font Style

Syntax:     font-style: <value>
Possible Values:     normal | italic | oblique
Initial Value:     normal
Applies to:     All elements
Inherited:     Yes

The font-style property defines that the font be displayed in one of three ways: normal, italic or oblique (slanted). A sample style sheet with font-style declarations might look like this:

H1 { font-style: oblique }
P  { font-style: normal }

Font Variant

Syntax:     font-variant: <value>
Possible Values:     normal | small-caps
Initial Value:     normal
Applies to:     All elements
Inherited:     Yes

The font-variant property determines if the font is to display in normal or small-caps. Small-caps are displayed when all the letters of the word are in capitals with uppercase characters slightly larger than lowercase. Later versions of CSS may support additional variants such as condensed, expanded, small-caps numerals or other custom variants. An example of a font-variant assignment would be:

SPAN { font-variant: small-caps }

Font Weight

Syntax:     font-weight: <value>
Possible Values:     normal | bold | bolder | lighter | 100 | 200 | 300 | 400 | 500 | 600 | 700 | 800 | 900
Initial Value:     normal
Applies to:     All elements
Inherited:     Yes

The font-weight property is used to specify the weight of the font. The bolder and lighter values are relative to the inherited font weight, while the other values are absolute font weights.

Note: Since not all fonts have nine possible display weights some of the weights may be grouped together in assignment. If the specified weight is not available, an alternate will be chosen on the following basis:

* 500 may be switched with 400, and vice versa
* 100-300 may be assigned to the next lighter weight, if any, or the next darker weight otherwise
* 600-900 may be assigned to the next darker weight, if any, or the next lighter weight otherwise

Some example font-weight assignments would be:

H1 { font-weight: 800 }
P  { font-weight: normal }

Font Size

Syntax:     font-size: <absolute-size> | <relative-size> | <length> | <percentage>
Possible Values:

* <absolute-size>
o xx-small | x-small | small | medium | large | x-large | xx-large
* <relative-size>
o larger | smaller
* <length>
* <percentage> (in relation to parent element)

Initial Value:     medium
Applies to:     All elements
Inherited:     Yes

The font-size property is used to modify the size of the displayed font. Absolute lengths (using units like pt and in) should be used sparingly due to their weakness in adapting to different browsing environments. Fonts with absolute lengths can very easily be too small or too large for a user.

Some example size assignments would be:

H1     { font-size: large }
P      { font-size: 12pt }
LI     { font-size: 90% }
STRONG { font-size: larger }

Authors should be aware that Microsoft Internet Explorer 3.x incorrectly treats em and ex units as pixels, which can easily make text using these units unreadable. The browser also incorrectly applies percentage values relative to its default font size for the selector, rather than relative to the parent element’s font size. This makes rules like

H1 { font-size: 200% }

dangerous in that the size will be twice IE’s default font size for level-one headings, rather than twice the parent element’s font size. In this case, BODY would most likely be the parent element, and it would likely define a medium font size, whereas the default level-one heading font size imposed by IE would probably be considered xx-large.

Given these bugs, authors should take care in using percentage values for font-size, and should probably avoid em and ex units for this property.

Font

Syntax:     font: <value>
Possible Values:     [ <font-style> || <font-variant> || <font-weight> ]? <font-size> [ / <line-height> ]? <font-family>
Initial Value:     Not defined
Applies to:     All elements
Inherited:     Yes

The font property may be used as a shorthand for the various font properties, as well as the line height. For example,

P { font: italic bold 12pt/14pt Times, serif }

specifies paragraphs with a bold and italic Times or serif font with a size of 12 points and a line height of 14 points.

Color and Background Properties

* Color
* Background Color
* Background Image
* Background Repeat
* Background Attachment
* Background Position
* Background

Color

Syntax:     color: <color>
Initial Value:     Determined by browser
Applies to:     All elements
Inherited:     Yes

The color property allows authors to specify the color of an element. See the Units section for color value descriptions. Some example color rules include:

H1 { color: blue }
H2 { color: #000080 }
H3 { color: #0c0 }

To help avoid conflicts with user style sheets, background and color properties should always be specified together.

Background Color

Syntax:     background-color: <value>
Possible Values:     <color> | transparent
Initial Value:     transparent
Applies to:     All elements
Inherited:     No

The background-color property sets the background color of an element. For example:

BODY { background-color: white }
H1   { background-color: #000080 }

To help avoid conflicts with user style sheets, background-image should be specified whenever background-color is used. In most cases, background-image: none is suitable.

Authors may also use the shorthand background property, which is currently better supported than the background-color property.
Background Image
Syntax:     background-image: <value>
Possible Values:     <url> | none
Initial Value:     none
Applies to:     All elements
Inherited:     No

The background-image property sets the background image of an element. For example:

BODY { background-image: url(/images/foo.gif) }
P    { background-image: url(http://www.htmlhelp.com/bg.png) }

When a background image is defined, a similar background color should also be defined for those not loading images.

Authors may also use the shorthand background property, which is currently better supported than the background-image property.
Background Repeat
Syntax:     background-repeat: <value>
Possible Values:     repeat | repeat-x | repeat-y | no-repeat
Initial Value:     repeat
Applies to:     All elements
Inherited:     No

The background-repeat property determines how a specified background image is repeated. The repeat-x value will repeat the image horizontally while the repeat-y value will repeat the image vertically. For example:

BODY { background: white url(candybar.gif);
background-repeat: repeat-x }

In the above example, the image will only be tiled horizontally.

Authors may also use the shorthand background property, which is currently better supported than the background-repeat property.

Background Attachment

Syntax:     background-attachment: <value>
Possible Values:     scroll | fixed
Initial Value:     scroll
Applies to:     All elements
Inherited:     No

The background-attachment property determines if a specified background image will scroll with the content or be fixed with regard to the canvas. For example, the following specifies a fixed background image:

BODY { background: white url(candybar.gif);
background-attachment: fixed }

Authors may also use the shorthand background property, which is currently better supported than the background-attachment property.
Background Position
Syntax:     background-position: <value>
Possible Values:     [<percentage> | <length>]{1,2} | [top | center | bottom] || [left | center | right]
Initial Value:     0% 0%
Applies to:     Block-level and replaced elements
Inherited:     No

The background-position property gives the initial position of a specified background image. This property may only be applied to block-level elements and replaced elements. (A replaced element is one for which only the intrinsic dimensions are known; HTML replaced elements include IMG, INPUT, TEXTAREA, SELECT, and OBJECT.)

The easiest way to assign a background position is with keywords:

* Horizontal keywords (left, center, right)
* Vertical keywords (top, center, bottom)

Percentages and lengths may also be used to assign the position of the background image. Percentages are relative to the size of the element. Although lengths are allowed, they are not recommended due to their inherent weakness in dealing with differing display resolutions.

When using percentages or lengths, the horizontal position is specified first, followed by the vertical position. A value such as 20% 65% specifies that the point 20% across and 65% down the image be placed at the point 20% across and 65% down the element. A value such as 5px 10px specifies that the upper left corner of the image be placed 5 pixels to the right of and 10 pixels below the upper left corner of the element.

If only the horizontal value is given, the vertical position will be 50%. Combinations of lengths and percentages are allowed, as are negative positions. For example, 10% -2cm is permitted. However, percentages and lengths cannot be combined with keywords.

The keywords are interpreted as follows:

* top left = left top = 0% 0%
* top = top center = center top = 50% 0%
* right top = top right = 100% 0%
* left = left center = center left = 0% 50%
* center = center center = 50% 50%
* right = right center = center right = 100% 50%
* bottom left = left bottom = 0% 100%
* bottom = bottom center = center bottom = 50% 100%
* bottom right = right bottom = 100% 100%

If the background image is fixed with regard to the canvas, the image is placed relative to the canvas instead of the element.

Authors may also use the shorthand background property, which is currently better supported than the background-position property.

Background

Syntax:     background: <value>
Possible Values:     <background-color> || <background-image> || <background-repeat> || <background-attachment> || <background-position>
Initial Value:     Not defined
Applies to:     All elements
Inherited:     No

The background property is a shorthand for the more specific background-related properties. Some examples of background declarations follow:

BODY       { background: white url(http://www.htmlhelp.com/foo.gif) }
BLOCKQUOTE { background: #7fffd4 }
P          { background: url(../backgrounds/pawn.png) #f0f8ff fixed }
TABLE      { background: #0c0 url(leaves.jpg) no-repeat bottom right }

A value not specified will receive its initial value. For example, in the first three rules above, the background-position property will be set to 0% 0%.

To help avoid conflicts with user style sheets, background and color properties should always be specified together.
Text Properties

* Word Spacing
* Letter Spacing
* Text Decoration
* Vertical Alignment
* Text Transformation
* Text Alignment
* Text Indentation
* Line Height

Word Spacing

Syntax:     word-spacing: <value>
Possible Values:     normal | <length>
Initial Value:     normal
Applies to:     All elements
Inherited:     Yes

The word-spacing property defines an additional amount of space between words. The value must be in the length format; negative values are permitted.

Examples:

P EM   { word-spacing: 0.4em }
P.note { word-spacing: -0.2em }

Letter Spacing

Syntax:     letter-spacing: <value>
Possible Values:     normal | <length>
Initial Value:     normal
Applies to:     All elements
Inherited:     Yes

The letter-spacing property defines an additional amount of space between characters. The value must be in the length format; negative values are permitted. A setting of 0 will prevent justification.

Examples:

H1     { letter-spacing: 0.1em }
P.note { letter-spacing: -0.1em }

Text Decoration

Syntax:     text-decoration: <value>
Possible Values:     none | [ underline || overline || line-through || blink ]
Initial Value:     none
Applies to:     All elements
Inherited:     No

The text-decoration property allows text to be decorated through one of five properties: underline, overline, line-through, blink, or the default, none.

For example, one can suggest that links not be underlined with

A:link, A:visited, A:active { text-decoration: none }

Vertical Alignment

Syntax:     vertical-align: <value>
Possible Values:     baseline | sub | super | top | text-top | middle | bottom | text-bottom | <percentage>
Initial Value:     baseline
Applies to:     Inline elements
Inherited:     No

The vertical-align property may be used to alter the vertical positioning of an inline element, relative to its parent element or to the element’s line. (An inline element is one which has no line break before and after it, for example, EM, A, and IMG in HTML.)

The value may be a percentage relative to the element’s line-height property, which would raise the element’s baseline the specified amount above the parent’s baseline. Negative values are permitted.

The value may also be a keyword. The following keywords affect the positioning relative to the parent element:

* baseline (align baselines of element and parent)
* middle (align vertical midpoint of element with baseline plus half the x-height–the height of the letter “x”–of the parent)
* sub (subscript)
* super (superscript)
* text-top (align tops of element and parent’s font)
* text-bottom (align bottoms of element and parent’s font)

The keywords affecting the positioning relative to the element’s line are

* top (align top of element with tallest element on the line)
* bottom (align bottom of element with lowest element on the line)

The vertical-align property is particularly useful for aligning images. Some examples follow:

IMG.middle { vertical-align: middle }
IMG        { vertical-align: 50% }
.exponent  { vertical-align: super }

Text Transformation

Syntax:     text-transform: <value>
Possible Values:     none | capitalize | uppercase | lowercase
Initial Value:     none
Applies to:     All elements
Inherited:     Yes

The text-transform property allows text to be transformed by one of four properties:

* capitalize (capitalizes first character of each word)
* uppercase (capitalizes all characters of each word)
* lowercase (uses small letters for all characters of each word)
* none (the initial value)

Examples:

H1 { text-transform: uppercase }
H2 { text-transform: capitalize }

The text-transform property should only be used to express a stylistic desire. It would be inappropriate, for example, to use text-transform to capitalize a list of countries or names.
Text Alignment
Syntax:     text-align: <value>
Possible Values:     left | right | center | justify
Initial Value:     Determined by browser
Applies to:     Block-level elements
Inherited:     Yes

The text-align property can be applied to block-level elements (P, H1, etc.) to give the alignment of the element’s text. This property is similar in function to HTML’s ALIGN attribute on paragraphs, headings, and divisions.

Some examples follow:

H1          { text-align: center }
P.newspaper { text-align: justify }

Text Indentation

Syntax:     text-indent: <value>
Possible Values:     <length> | <percentage>
Initial Value:     0
Applies to:     Block-level elements
Inherited:     Yes

The text-indent property can be applied to block-level elements (P, H1, etc.) to define the amount of indentation that the first line of the element should receive. The value must be a length or a percentage; percentages refer to the parent element’s width. A common use of text-indent would be to indent a paragraph:

P { text-indent: 5em }

Line Height

Syntax:     line-height: <value>
Possible Values:     normal | <number> | <length> | <percentage>
Initial Value:     normal
Applies to:     All elements
Inherited:     Yes

The line-height property will accept a value to control the spacing between baselines of text. When the value is a number, the line height is calculated by multiplying the element’s font size by the number. Percentage values are relative to the element’s font size. Negative values are not permitted.

Line height may also be given in the font property along with a font size.

The line-height property could be used to double space text:

P { line-height: 200% }

Microsoft Internet Explorer 3.x incorrectly treats number values and values with em or ex units as pixel values. This bug can easily make pages unreadable, and so authors should avoid provoking it wherever possible; percentage units are often a good choice.
Box Properties

* Top Margin
* Right Margin
* Bottom Margin
* Left Margin
* Margin
* Top Padding
* Right Padding
* Bottom Padding
* Left Padding
* Padding
* Top Border Width
* Right Border Width
* Bottom Border Width
* Left Border Width
* Border Width
* Border Color
* Border Style
* Top Border
* Right Border
* Bottom Border
* Left Border
* Border
* Width
* Height
* Float
* Clear

Top Margin

Syntax:     margin-top: <value>
Possible Values:     <length> | <percentage> | auto
Initial Value:     0
Applies to:     All elements
Inherited:     No

The margin-top property sets the top margin of an element by specifying a length or a percentage. Percentage values refer to the parent element’s width. Negative margins are permitted.

For example, the following rule would eliminate the top margin of a document:

BODY { margin-top: 0 }

Note that adjoining vertical margins are collapsed to use the maximum of the margin values.
Right Margin
Syntax:     margin-right: <value>
Possible Values:     <length> | <percentage> | auto
Initial Value:     0
Applies to:     All elements
Inherited:     No

The margin-right property sets the right margin of an element by specifying a length or a percentage. Percentage values refer to the parent element’s width. Negative margins are permitted.

Example:

P.narrow { margin-right: 50% }

Note that adjoining horizontal margins are not collapsed.
Bottom Margin
Syntax:     margin-bottom: <value>
Possible Values:     <length> | <percentage> | auto
Initial Value:     0
Applies to:     All elements
Inherited:     No

The margin-bottom property sets the bottom margin of an element by specifying a length or a percentage. Percentage values refer to the parent element’s width. Negative margins are permitted.

Example:

DT { margin-bottom: 3em }

Note that adjoining vertical margins are collapsed to use the maximum of the margin values.
Left Margin
Syntax:     margin-left: <value>
Possible Values:     <length> | <percentage> | auto
Initial Value:     0
Applies to:     All elements
Inherited:     No

The margin-left property sets the left margin of an element by specifying a length or a percentage. Percentage values refer to the parent element’s width. Negative margins are permitted.

Example:

ADDRESS { margin-left: 50% }

Note that adjoining horizontal margins are not collapsed.
Margin
Syntax:     margin: <value>
Possible Values:     [ <length> | <percentage> | auto ]{1,4}
Initial Value:     Not defined
Applies to:     All elements
Inherited:     No

The margin property sets the margins of an element by specifying between one and four values, where each value is a length, a percentage, or auto. Percentage values refer to the parent element’s width. Negative margins are permitted.

If four values are given, they apply to top, right, bottom, and left margin, respectively. If one value is given, it applies to all sides. If two or three values are given, the missing values are taken from the opposite side.

Examples of margin declarations include:

BODY { margin: 5em }             /* all margins 5em */
P    { margin: 2em 4em }         /* top and bottom margins 2em,
left and right margins 4em */
DIV  { margin: 1em 2em 3em 4em } /* top margin 1em,
right margin 2em,
bottom margin 3em,
left margin 4em */

Note that adjoining vertical margins are collapsed to use the maximum of the margin values. Horizontal margins are not collapsed.

Using the margin property allows one to set all margins; alternatively, the properties margin-top, margin-bottom, margin-left, and margin-right may be used.
Top Padding
Syntax:     padding-top: <value>
Possible Values:     <length> | <percentage>
Initial Value:     0
Applies to:     All elements
Inherited:     No

The padding-top property describes how much space to put between the top border and the content of the selector. The value is either a length or a percentage. Percentage values refer to the parent element’s width. Negative values are not permitted.
Right Padding
Syntax:     padding-right: <value>
Possible Values:     <length> | <percentage>
Initial Value:     0
Applies to:     All elements
Inherited:     No

The padding-right property describes how much space to put between the right border and the content of the selector. The value is either a length or a percentage. Percentage values refer to the parent element’s width. Negative values are not permitted.
Bottom Padding
Syntax:     padding-bottom: <value>
Possible Values:     <length> | <percentage>
Initial Value:     0
Applies to:     All elements
Inherited:     No

The padding-bottom property describes how much space to put between the bottom border and the content of the selector. The value is either a length or a percentage. Percentage values refer to the parent element’s width. Negative values are not permitted.
Left Padding
Syntax:     padding-left: <value>
Possible Values:     <length> | <percentage>
Initial Value:     0
Applies to:     All elements
Inherited:     No

The padding-left property describes how much space to put between the left border and the content of the selector. The value is either a length or a percentage. Percentage values refer to the parent element’s width. Negative values are not permitted.
Padding
Syntax:     padding: <value>
Possible Values:     [ <length> | <percentage> ]{1,4}
Initial Value:     0
Applies to:     All elements
Inherited:     No

The padding property is a shorthand for the padding-top, padding-right, padding-bottom, and padding-left properties.

An element’s padding is the amount of space between the border and the content of the element. Between one and four values are given, where each value is either a length or a percentage. Percentage values refer to the parent element’s width. Negative values are not permitted.

If four values are given, they apply to top, right, bottom, and left padding, respectively. If one value is given, it applies to all sides. If two or three values are given, the missing values are taken from the opposite side.

For example, the following rule sets the top padding to 2em, the right padding to 4em, the bottom padding to 5em, and the left padding to 4em:

BLOCKQUOTE { padding: 2em 4em 5em }

Top Border Width

Syntax:     border-top-width: <value>
Possible Values:     thin | medium | thick | <length>
Initial Value:     medium
Applies to:     All elements
Inherited:     No

The border-top-width property is used to specify the width of an element’s top border. The value may be one of three keywords, which are not affected by font size, or a length, which can be used to achieve relative widths. Negative values are not allowed.

One may also use the border-top, border-width, or border shorthand properties.
Right Border Width
Syntax:     border-right-width: <value>
Possible Values:     thin | medium | thick | <length>
Initial Value:     medium
Applies to:     All elements
Inherited:     No

The border-right-width property is used to specify the width of an element’s right border. The value may be one of three keywords, which are not affected by font size, or a length, which can be used to achieve relative widths. Negative values are not allowed.

One may also use the border-right, border-width, or border shorthand properties.
Bottom Border Width
Syntax:     border-bottom-width: <value>
Possible Values:     thin | medium | thick | <length>
Initial Value:     medium
Applies to:     All elements
Inherited:     No

The border-bottom-width property is used to specify the width of an element’s bottom border. The value may be one of three keywords, which are not affected by font size, or a length, which can be used to achieve relative widths. Negative values are not allowed.

One may also use the border-bottom, border-width, or border shorthand properties.
Left Border Width
Syntax:     border-left-width: <value>
Possible Values:     thin | medium | thick | <length>
Initial Value:     medium
Applies to:     All elements
Inherited:     No

The border-left-width property is used to specify the width of an element’s left border. The value may be one of three keywords, which are not affected by font size, or a length, which can be used to achieve relative widths. Negative values are not allowed.

One may also use the border-left, border-width, or border shorthand properties.
Border Width
Syntax:     border-width: <value>
Possible Values:     [ thin | medium | thick | <length> ]{1,4}
Initial Value:     Not defined
Applies to:     All elements
Inherited:     No

The border-width property is used to set the border width of an element by specifying between one and four values, where each value is a keyword or a length. Negative lengths are not permitted.

If four values are given, they apply to top, right, bottom, and left border width, respectively. If one value is given, it applies to all sides. If two or three values are given, the missing values are taken from the opposite side.

This property is a shorthand for the border-top-width, border-right-width, border-bottom-width, and border-left-width properties.

One may also use the border shorthand property.
Border Color
Syntax:     border-color: <value>
Possible Values:     <color>{1,4}
Initial Value:     The value of the color property
Applies to:     All elements
Inherited:     No

The border-color property sets the color of an element’s border. Between one and four color values are specified. If four values are given, they apply to top, right, bottom, and left border color, respectively. If one value is given, it applies to all sides. If two or three values are given, the missing values are taken from the opposite side.

One may also use the border shorthand property.

Border Style

Syntax:     border-style: <value>
Possible Values:     [ none | dotted | dashed | solid | double | groove | ridge | inset | outset ]{1,4}
Initial Value:     none
Applies to:     All elements
Inherited:     No

The border-style property sets the style of an element’s border. This property must be specified for the border to be visible.

Between one and four keywords are specified. If four values are given, they apply to top, right, bottom, and left border style, respectively. If one value is given, it applies to all sides. If two or three values are given, the missing values are taken from the opposite side.

One may also use the border shorthand property.

Top Border

Syntax:     border-top: <value>
Possible Values:     <border-top-width> || <border-style> || <color>
Initial Value:     Not defined
Applies to:     All elements
Inherited:     No

The border-top property is a shorthand for setting the width, style, and color of an element’s top border.

Note that only one border-style value may be given.

One may also use the border shorthand property.

Right Border

Syntax:     border-right: <value>
Possible Values:     <border-right-width> || <border-style> || <color>
Initial Value:     Not defined
Applies to:     All elements
Inherited:     No

The border-right property is a shorthand for setting the width, style, and color of an element’s right border.

Note that only one border-style value may be given.

One may also use the border shorthand property.

Bottom Border

Syntax:     border-bottom: <value>
Possible Values:     <border-bottom-width> || <border-style> || <color>
Initial Value:     Not defined
Applies to:     All elements
Inherited:     No

The border-bottom property is a shorthand for setting the width, style, and color of an element’s bottom border.

Note that only one border-style value may be given.

One may also use the border shorthand property.

Left Border

Syntax:     border-left: <value>
Possible Values:     <border-left-width> || <border-style> || <color>
Initial Value:     Not defined
Applies to:     All elements
Inherited:     No

The border-left property is a shorthand for setting the width, style, and color of an element’s left border.

Note that only one border-style value may be given.

One may also use the border shorthand property.

Border

Syntax:     border: <value>
Possible Values:     <border-width> || <border-style> || <color>
Initial Value:     Not defined
Applies to:     All elements
Inherited:     No

The border property is a shorthand for setting the width, style, and color of an element’s border.

Examples of border declarations include:

H2        { border: groove 3em }
A:link    { border: solid blue }
A:visited { border: thin dotted #800080 }
A:active  { border: thick double red }

The border property can only set all four borders; only one border width and border style may be given. To give different values to an element’s four borders, an author must use one or more of the border-top, border-right, border-bottom, border-left, border-color, border-width, border-style, border-top-width, border-right-width, border-bottom-width, or border-left-width properties.

Width

Syntax:     width: <value>
Possible Values:     <length> | <percentage> | auto
Initial Value:     auto
Applies to:     Block-level and replaced elements
Inherited:     No

Each block-level or replaced element can be given a width, specified as a length, a percentage, or as auto. (A replaced element is one for which only the intrinsic dimensions are known; HTML replaced elements include IMG, INPUT, TEXTAREA, SELECT, and OBJECT.) The initial value for the width property is auto, which results in the element’s intrinsic width (i.e., the width of the element itself, for example the width of an image). Percentages refer to the parent element’s width. Negative values are not allowed.

This property could be used to give common widths to some INPUT elements, such as submit and reset buttons:

INPUT.button { width: 10em }

Height

Syntax:     height: <value>
Possible Values:     <length> | auto
Initial Value:     auto
Applies to:     Block-level and replaced elements
Inherited:     No

Each block-level or replaced element can be given a height, specified as a length or as auto. (A replaced element is one for which only the intrinsic dimensions are known; HTML replaced elements include IMG, INPUT, TEXTAREA, SELECT, and OBJECT.) The initial value for the height property is auto, which results in the element’s intrinsic height (i.e., the height of the element itself, for example the height of an image). Negative lengths are not allowed.

As with the width property, height can be used to scale an image:

IMG.foo { width: 40px; height: 40px }

In most cases, authors are advised to scale the image in an image editing program, since browsers will not likely scale images with high quality, and since scaling down causes the user to download an unnecessarily large file. However, scaling through the width and height properties is a useful option for user-defined style sheets in order to overcome vision problems.

Float

Syntax:     float: <value>
Possible Values:     left | right | none
Initial Value:     none
Applies to:     All elements
Inherited:     No

The float property allows authors to wrap text around an element. This is identical in purpose to HTML 3.2’s ALIGN=left and ALIGN=right for the IMG element, but CSS1 allows all elements to “float,” not just the images and tables that HTML 3.2 allows.

Clear

Syntax:     clear: <value>
Possible Values:     none | left | right | both
Initial Value:     none
Applies to:     All elements
Inherited:     No

The clear property specifies if an element allows floating elements to its sides. A value of left moves the element below any floating element on its left; right acts similarly for floating elements on the right. Other values are none, which is the initial value, and both, which moves the element below floating elements on both of its sides. This property is similar in function to HTML 3.2’s <BR CLEAR=left|right|all|none>, but it can be applied to all elements.
Classification Properties

* Display
* Whitespace
* List Style Type
* List Style Image
* List Style Position
* List Style

Display

Syntax:     display: <value>
Possible Values:     block | inline | list-item | none
Initial Value:     block
Applies to:     All elements
Inherited:     No

The display property is used to define an element with one of four values:

* block (a line break before and after the element)
* inline (no line break before and after the element)
* list-item (same as block except a list-item marker is added)
* none (no display)

Each element typically is given a default display value by the browser, based on suggested rendering in the HTML specification.

The display property can be dangerous because of its ability to display elements in what would otherwise be an improper format. The use of the value none will turn off display of the element to which it is assigned, including any children elements!

Whitespace

Syntax:     white-space: <value>
Possible Values:     normal | pre | nowrap
Initial Value:     normal
Applies to:     All elements
Inherited:     Yes

The white-space property will determine how spaces within the element are treated. This property takes one of three values:

* normal (collapses multiple spaces into one)
* pre (does not collapse multiple spaces)
* nowrap (does not allow line wrapping without a <BR> tag)

List Style Type

Syntax:     list-style-type: <value>
Possible Values:     disc | circle | square | decimal | lower-roman | upper-roman | lower-alpha | upper-alpha | none
Initial Value:     disc
Applies to:     Elements with display value list-item
Inherited:     Yes

The list-style-type property specifies the type of list-item marker, and is used if list-style-image is none or if image loading is turned off.

Examples:

LI.square { list-style-type: square }
UL.plain  { list-style-type: none }
OL        { list-style-type: upper-alpha }  /* A B C D E etc. */
OL OL     { list-style-type: decimal }      /* 1 2 3 4 5 etc. */
OL OL OL  { list-style-type: lower-roman }  /* i ii iii iv v etc. */

List Style Image

Syntax:     list-style-image: <value>
Possible Values:     <url> | none
Initial Value:     none
Applies to:     Elements with display value list-item
Inherited:     Yes

The list-style-image property specifies the image that will be used as list-item marker when image loading is turned on, replacing the marker specified in the list-style-type property.

Examples:

UL.check { list-style-image: url(/LI-markers/checkmark.gif) }
UL LI.x  { list-style-image: url(x.png) }

List Style Position

Syntax:     list-style-position: <value>
Possible Values:     inside | outside
Initial Value:     outside
Applies to:     Elements with display value list-item
Inherited:     Yes

The list-style-position property takes the value inside or outside, with outside being the default. This property determines where the marker is placed in regard to the list item. If the value inside is used, the lines will wrap under the marker instead of being indented. An example rendering is:

Outside rendering:

* List item 1
second line of list item

Inside rendering:

* List item 1
second line of list item

List Style

Syntax:     list-style: <value>
Possible Values:     <list-style-type> || <list-style-position> || <url>
Initial Value:     Not defined
Applies to:     Elements with display value list-item
Inherited:     Yes

The list-style property is a shorthand for the list-style-type, list-style-position, and list-style-image properties.

Examples:

LI.square { list-style: square inside }
UL.plain  { list-style: none }
UL.check  { list-style: url(/LI-markers/checkmark.gif) circle }
OL        { list-style: upper-alpha }
OL OL     { list-style: lower-roman inside }

Units

* Length Units
* Percentage Units
* Color Units
* URLs

Length Units

A length value is formed by an optional + or -, followed by a number, followed by a two-letter abbreviation that indicates the unit. There are no spaces in a length value; e.g., 1.3 em is not a valid length value, but 1.3em is valid. A length of 0 does not require the two-letter unit identifier.

Both relative and absolute length units are supported in CSS1. Relative units give a length relative to another length property, and are preferred since they will better adjust to different media. The following relative units are available:

* em (ems, the height of the element’s font)
* ex (x-height, the height of the letter “x”)
* px (pixels, relative to the canvas resolution)

Absolute length units are highly dependent on the output medium, and so are less useful than relative units. The following absolute units are available:

* in (inches; 1in=2.54cm)
* cm (centimeters; 1cm=10mm)
* mm (millimeters)
* pt (points; 1pt=1/72in)
* pc (picas; 1pc=12pt)

Percentage Units

A percentage value is formed by an optional + or -, followed by a number, followed by %. There are no spaces in a percentage value.

Percentage values are relative to other values, as defined for each property. Most often the percentage value is relative to the element’s font size.
Color Units

A color value is a keyword or a numerical RGB specification.

The 16 keywords are taken from the Windows VGA palette: aqua, black, blue, fuchsia, gray, green, lime, maroon, navy, olive, purple, red, silver, teal, white, and yellow.

RGB colors are given in one of four ways:

* #rrggbb (e.g., #00cc00)
* #rgb (e.g., #0c0)
* rgb(x,x,x) where x is an integer between 0 and 255 inclusive (e.g., rgb(0,204,0))
* rgb(y%,y%,y%) where y is a number between 0.0 and 100.0 inclusive (e.g., rgb(0%,80%,0%))

The examples above all specify the same color.

Douglas R. Jacobson has also developed a handy quick reference RGB Color Chart (61 kB).
URLs

A URL value is given by url(foo), where foo is the URL. The URL may be optionally quoted with either single (‘) or double (“) quotes and may contain whitespace before or after the (optionally quoted) URL.

Parentheses, commas, spaces, single quotes, or double quotes in the URL must be escaped with a backslash. Partial URLs are interpreted relative to the style sheet source, not to the HTML source.

Note that Netscape Navigator 4.x incorrectly interprets partial URLs relative to the HTML source. Given this bug, authors may wish to use full URLs where possible.

Examples:

BODY { background: url(stripe.gif) }
BODY { background: url(http://www.htmlhelp.com/stripe.gif) }
BODY { background: url( stripe.gif ) }
BODY { background: url(“stripe.gif”) }
BODY { background: url(\”Ulalume\”.png) } /* quotes in URL escaped */

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Sexy Drop down Menu

September 4, 2009 at 8:19 am · Filed under Jquery, Sexy Drop down Menu ·Tagged , , , ,

Step1. HTML

First create an unordered list for your base top navigation. Then simply nest another unordered list for your sub navigation.

<ul>
<li><a href=”#”>Home</a></li>
<li>
<a href=”#”>Tutorials</a>
<ul>
<li><a href=”#”>Sub Nav Link</a></li>
<li><a href=”#”>Sub Nav Link</a></li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>
<a href=”#”>Resources</a>
<ul>
<li><a href=”#”>Sub Nav Link</a></li>
<li><a href=”#”>Sub Nav Link</a></li>
</ul>
</li>
<li><a href=”#”>About Us</a></li>
<li><a href=”#”>Advertise</a></li>
<li><a href=”#”>Submit</a></li>
<li><a href=”#”>Contact Us</a></li>
</ul>

Step2. CSS

Next, it’s time to style the navigation wireframe with CSS.

ul.topnav {
list-style: none;
padding: 0 20px;
margin: 0;
float: left;
width: 920px;
background: #222;
font-size: 1.2em;
background: url(topnav_bg.gif) repeat-x;
}
ul.topnav li {
float: left;
margin: 0;
padding: 0 15px 0 0;
position: relative; /*–Declare X and Y axis base for sub navigation–*/
}
ul.topnav li a{
padding: 10px 5px;
color: #fff;
display: block;
text-decoration: none;
float: left;
}
ul.topnav li a:hover{
background: url(topnav_hover.gif) no-repeat center top;
}
ul.topnav li span { /*–Drop down trigger styles–*/
width: 17px;
height: 35px;
float: left;
background: url(subnav_btn.gif) no-repeat center top;
}
ul.topnav li span.subhover {background-position: center bottom; cursor: pointer;} /*–Hover effect for trigger–*/
ul.topnav li ul.subnav {
list-style: none;
position: absolute; /*–Important – Keeps subnav from affecting main navigation flow–*/
left: 0; top: 35px;
background: #333;
margin: 0; padding: 0;
display: none;
float: left;
width: 170px;
border: 1px solid #111;
}
ul.topnav li ul.subnav li{
margin: 0; padding: 0;
border-top: 1px solid #252525; /*–Create bevel effect–*/
border-bottom: 1px solid #444; /*–Create bevel effect–*/
clear: both;
width: 170px;
}
html ul.topnav li ul.subnav li a {
float: left;
width: 145px;
background: #333 url(dropdown_linkbg.gif) no-repeat 10px center;
padding-left: 20px;
}
html ul.topnav li ul.subnav li a:hover { /*–Hover effect for subnav links–*/
background: #222 url(dropdown_linkbg.gif) no-repeat 10px center;
}

Step3. jQuery

The following script contains comments explaining which jQuery actions are being performed.

$(document).ready(function(){

$(“ul.subnav”).parent().append(“<span></span>”); //Only shows drop down trigger when js is enabled (Adds empty span tag after ul.subnav*)

$(“ul.topnav li span”).click(function() { //When trigger is clicked…

//Following events are applied to the subnav itself (moving subnav up and down)
$(this).parent().find(“ul.subnav”).slideDown(‘fast’).show(); //Drop down the subnav on click

$(this).parent().hover(function() {
}, function(){
$(this).parent().find(“ul.subnav”).slideUp(’slow’); //When the mouse hovers out of the subnav, move it back up
});

//Following events are applied to the trigger (Hover events for the trigger)
}).hover(function() {
$(this).addClass(“subhover”); //On hover over, add class “subhover”
}, function(){    //On Hover Out
$(this).removeClass(“subhover”); //On hover out, remove class “subhover”
});

});

View Demo of Sexy Drop Down Menu

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Css3 Advantages

September 2, 2009 at 2:39 pm · Filed under Css3 advantages ·Tagged ,

CSS3 Advantages

Having got a detailed idea of CSS3 and its features with some of the vital attributes of CSS3 let us see the advantages or uses of CSS3 in brief in this section. There are numerous and variety of areas in which CSS3 makes it mark and thus users finds it one of the comfortable and powerful tools for usage thus making it a reason for its popularity. Let us see some of the important advantages and uses of CSS3 in detail.

Usage of style sheet:

Long before introduction of CSS3 in fact the Cascading style sheets concepts designers of web were using HTML markup to denote the font colors, background styles, border size. But after the introduction of Cascading style sheets concept all these got moved into a separate style sheet area thus making the users to have an easier and comfortable HTML markup. This gives another associated advantage of CSS3 are easier maintenance by which updations and changes are made only to the individual modules needed and testing of the individual modules is carried out and then integrating with the total system thus making the maintenance part very simple.

Differentiation and Isolation:

The concept of CSS3 helps users to have presentation separated from structure. That is for instance prior to the concept of CSS3 while users and web designers were using HTML markup the way of depicting or denoting a heading to be centered on the page in Bold, Blue with Ariel font would be as follows:

&lt;h2 align=”center”&gt;
&lt;font color=”blue” size=”+6″ face=”Ariel”&gt;
&lt;i&gt;Usage of CSS&lt;/i&gt;
&lt;/font&gt;
&lt;/h2&gt;

The above structure is very difficult to manage because the markup had to be repeated for each heading to apply wherever needed thus making more complex maintenance and presentation. But by the concept of Cascading style sheets and CSS3 the presentation separated from structure. That is clear differentiation and isolation is made where by the style sheet defines presentational characteristics and the structure of document defined in heading &lt;h2&gt;. Thus taking the following format:

&lt;h2&gt;Benefits of Cascading style sheets&lt;/h2&gt;

h2 {
text-align: center;
color: blue;
font: bold “Ariel”;
}

The above separation of presentation from structure concept helps the users to maintain in an efficient, easier and comfortable manner. Thus the modularized approach helps to develop and maintain the system on a per module basis and thus gives more flexibility to the system.

Helps to achieve Multi Column Layout:

Multi-Column Module is a vital feature present in CSS3.This feature enables users to flow the content of an element into multiple columns. The CSS3 Multi-Column Module is a important feature because it gives users the following features or advantages are there is no need to for users to scroll up and down while reading the text from one column to the next column, it prevents the need for horizontal scrolling, wraps text user friendly and easier to read without making too short words or lines and most of all everything could be embedded in a single page making it comfortable and economical. We have seen about this Multi-Column Module feature in detail in our earlier section of CSS3.

Flexibility in Handling:

The Cascading style sheets concept helps users to handle in a flexible and convenient way the web designing because it is possible to attach the CSS style information as a separate document or if the user wishes it is also possible to attach the CSS style information embedded within the HTML document. Also it is possible to handle multiple style sheets that is to say in other words multiple style sheets can be imported anywhere. It is also possible for users to specify many alternative style sheets which enable users to make a choice between them as needed. Thus the modularized approach of CSS3 helps to develop and maintain the system on a per module basis and thus gives more flexibility to the system .Thus greater control and flexibility is achieved at presentation level by user of CSS3 because of the advantages and powerful features of CSS3.

Handling multiple background images:

The drawback with CSS2 was that CSS2 allowed only a single background image per element. This drawback was removed in CSS3 by its capability of handling multiple background images per element.

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Applying CSS to forms

September 2, 2009 at 5:01 am · Filed under Css form ·Tagged , , , ,

The original form

Name  text
E-mail text

That form looks horrible! Here’s the code behind it:

<form action=”#”>
<p><label for=”name”>Name</label> <input type=”text” id=”name” /></p>
<p><label for=”e-mail”>E-mail</label> <input type=”text” id=”e-mail” /></p>
<p><input type=”submit” value=”Submit” /></p>
</form>

Positioning the form with CSS

The first thing we need to do to the form is make it line up nicely. In the old days this could only be achieved with tables – not anymore, courtesy of our old friend, CSS. We’ll need to assign some CSS rules to them:

label
{
width: 4em;
float: left;
text-align: right;
margin-right: 0.5em;
display: block
}

.submit input
{
margin-left: 4.5em;
}

Right, let’s go through that CSS bit-by-bit. We gave the label a fixed width of 4em, although this should obviously be increased if the prompt text in the form is anything longer than what we’ve got now (‘name’ and ‘e-mail’). We also specified the width in terms of em and not px so that if users increase the text size3 the width will increase with the larger letters.

The margin-right: 0.5em CSS command means the labels will have a small amount of spacing after them, so that the text isn’t up against the input box.

The submit button has a left margin of 4.5em so that it aligns with the input boxes, which are 5em from the left. This includes the 4em width and the 0.5em right margin of the prompt text.

So, putting that altogether gives us this form:

form

Looks much better, but it’s still rather plain. Let’s use some more CSS to jazz up the form so it’s more inline with the colour scheme on the page.

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Curved corner without image

September 2, 2009 at 4:43 am · Filed under Curved corner without image ·Tagged , , , ,

rounded corners without images

Rounded Corners with CSS are a hot topic in web design: I think that there are hundreds of articles on them. This page is intended to present the solution I came up, that doesn’t requires images, extra markup nor CSS. Let’s start.

Stripe it to get it rounded

This is the markup to get a rounded div:

<div id=”container”>
<b class=”rtop”>
<b class=”r1″></b> <b class=”r2″></b> <b class=”r3″></b> <b class=”r4″></b>
</b>
<!–content goes here –>
<b class=”rbottom”>
<b class=”r4″></b> <b class=”r3″></b> <b class=”r2″></b> <b class=”r1″></b>
</b>
</div>

And here’s it the basic CSS:

.rtop, .rbottom{display:block}
.rtop *, .rbottom *{display: block; height: 1px; overflow: hidden}
.r1{margin: 0 5px}
.r2{margin: 0 3px}
.r3{margin: 0 2px}
.r4{margin: 0 1px; height: 2px}

You can see the final effect on this Simple example. A few words on the use of the <b> element. I needed an inline element to obtain the rounded corners, since it could be nested in almost every kind of tag mainting the markup valid. So the choice fell on b because it doesn’t have semantical meaning and it’s shorter than span, like Eric Meyer said.

The technique works even on floated, absolute positioned or percentage-width elements. It fails on element with fixed height, or with padding. Both of the problem could be easily solved with an extra wrapper around the content.

Known bugs are: text-indent won’t work on the element that has been rounded in Opera, and IE (both Mac & version 6 PC) would mess up on floated elements without specific width.

The support should be extended to all modern browsers: the technique has been tested with success in Internet Explorer 6, Opera 7.6, FireFox 1.0, Safari 1.1 Mac IE. It fails on IE 5.x PC.

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Curved corner

September 2, 2009 at 3:53 am · Filed under Curved corners ·Tagged , , , , ,

CSS and Round Corners: Build Boxes with Curves

One of the main reasons why designers use images on a Web page is to create curves and round corners. It’s currently impossible to create any kind of curved shapes using pure HTML, so images need to be applied.

The problem? Putting these images into an HTML document with a table layout can create a large amount of superfluous code. In this tutorial, we’ll use CSS to create this box with round corners, without an <img> tag in sight!

How it Works

The above is basically a normal box that has an orange background colour, over which four corner images are superimposed. All these images have been called up through CSS commands.

So, we start off with the following snippet:

<div class=”b1″>Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet consectetur adipisicing elit</div>

We’ve used class=”b1″ as we’re going to assign our bottom right corner to this <div> through a CSS command. As a rule, you can only assign one background image to an HTML tag using CSS, so this is the only image we’ll assign to this <div>.

1bl

We’ll use the image, called bl.gif, which we’ll place in the bottom-left corner with the following CSS command:

.bl {background: url(bl.gif) 0 100% no-repeat; width: 20em}

The CSS background command is broken into three sections: the image URL, its position, and a repeat command. We also inserted a width CSS command so that the box doesn’t cover the whole of the screen. Let’s examine the three background commands in turn:

1. Image URL – Remember, the image is being called through the CSS, so the path to the image must be the path from the CSS document, not the HTML document.

2. Image Position – In this example, we’ve used the command 0 100% in our CSS rule. The first number represents the distance from the left edge of the <div> ; the second number identifies the distance from the top edge. In this instance % was used, but a different distance value, such as em or px, could just as easily have been used instead. If this command was left out, the default value, 0 0, would be used, and the image would be placed in the top-left corner.

3. Repeat Command – Obviously, we don’t want this image to repeat, so we insert the no-repeat CSS command. If we wanted to, we could have used repeat-x, to repeat the image horizontally, repeat-y, to repeat it vertically, and repeat to repeat it both horizontally and vertically. If this command was left out, the default value, repeat, would be used.

It doesn’t matter in which order these three CSS background commands are placed.

Next, we’ll stick in that bottom-right curve. As previously mentioned, we can only assign one background image to each <div> in the CSS, so we’ll need to insert a new <div>:

<div class=”b1″><div class=”br”>
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet consectetur adipisicing elit
</div></div>

Here’s the image we’ll use:

1br

Naming this bottom-right image br.gif, we’ll insert a new CSS rule:

.br {background: url(br.gif) 100% 100% no-repeat}

This CSS rule is essentially the same as the last one, although now we’ve changed the position from the left to 100%, where previously it was 0%. The box now looks like this.
Top Curves

To make our top curves, we’ll need two new images:

We’ll call these  tl.gif and tr.gif.

1tl

1tr

We’ll need to create two new <div>s for them:

<div class=”b1 “><div class=”br “><div class=”tl “><div class=”tr “>
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet consectetur adipisicing elit
</div></div></div></div>

The new CSS rules are as follows:

.tl {background: url(tl.gif) 0 0 no-repeat}
.tr {background: url(tr.gif) 100% 0 no-repeat}

These give us this display.
Background Colour

We’ll now insert our orange background colour into the box, in order to achieve the whole round corners effects.

The background colour must always be assigned to the very first CSS rule. This is because each CSS background rule is essentially a layer on top of the previous one. So, in this example, we have a layering order of br.gif, bl.gif, tl.gif and then tr.gif. But, in this example, the images don’t overlap, so we don’t really notice this layering effect.

By default, a background colour covers the entire <div> and will layer on top of any other previously assigned background images and/or colours. Therefore, if we place the orange colour in any <div> other than the first, it will be placed on top of the preceding images and will essentially cause them to disappear. Therefore, we must place our orange background colour (#e68200) in the very first CSS rule:

.bl {background: url(bl.gif) 0 100% no-repeat #e68200; width: 20em}

As before, it doesn’t matter where we place this colour command within the CSS background rule. Our box now looks like this.
Padding

Padding is needed to prevent the text from overlapping on to the images, which are 10px x 10px in size. Therefore, we need 10px-worth of padding on the text. But to which <div> should we assign the padding CSS rule? Does it matter? Well, yes it does.

Whichever element we assign padding to, each of the elements inside it will inherit that padding. If we were to assign padding to the very first <div>, <div class=”bl”>, we’d get this effect.

To get this padding to work properly, we need to assign it to the very last <div class=”b1″><div>:

.tr {background: url(tr.gif) 100% 0 no-repeat; padding:10px}

You may have noticed the bottom corners were called up before the top corners. If we were to do things the other way round, that is, call the top corners first, some parts of the orange background colour would sneak out under the bottom curves, causing a rather unsightly effect. Switch the order of the <div>s around and see for yourself.

Another issue in Internet Explorer is that the background colour of the box sometimes overlaps on to the element below, again causing an unattractive effect. This can be solved simply by placing a tiny placeholder beneath the box with round corners. Immediately after the fourth closing </div>, insert the following HTML:

<div class=”clear”>&nbsp;</div>

Now, assign it this CSS rule:

.clear {font-size: 1px; height: 1px}
The Final Code

Our finished HTML now looks like this:

<div class=”b1″><div class=”br”><div class=”tl”><div class=”tr”>
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet consectetur adipisicing elit
</div></div></div></div>
<div class=”clear”>&nbsp;</div>

Here’s the CSS that makes it all happen:

.bl {background: url(bl.gif) 0 100% no-repeat #e68200; width: 20em}
.br {background: url(br.gif) 100% 100% no-repeat}
.tl {background: url(tl.gif) 0 0 no-repeat}
.tr {background: url(tr.gif) 100% 0 no-repeat; padding:10px}
.clear {font-size: 1px; height: 1px}

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Css Dropshadow

September 1, 2009 at 2:04 pm · Filed under Css Dropshadow ·Tagged , , , ,

CSS drop shadow

Overview

Technique to build flexible CSS drop shadows applied to arbitrary block elements. Most of the existing techniques for creating element shadows use images, this one doesn’t. IT uses plain simple CSS. Have a look below.

First include the style sheet at the top of your code. Do it in <head> tag, then you can write your code.
Source code for index.html

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd”>
<html xmlns=”http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml” xml:lang=”en”>
<head>
<title>My project</title>
<meta http-equiv=”Content-Type” content=”text/html; charset=UTF-8″ />
<link media=”screen” type=”text/css” rel=”stylesheet” href=”webtoolkit.shadow.css” />

<style>
body {
margin: 0px;
padding: 20px;
font-family: verdana;
font-size: 12px;
}
</style>

</head>

<body>

<div id=”shadow-container”>
<div>
<div>
<div>
<div>
Lorem Ipsum is simply dummy text of the printing and typesetting industry. Lorem Ipsum has been the industry’s standard dummy text ever since the 1500s, when an unknown printer took a galley of type and scrambled it to make a type specimen book. It has survived not only five centuries, but also the leap into electronic typesetting, remaining essentially unchanged. It was popularised in the 1960s with the release of Letraset sheets containing Lorem Ipsum passages, and more recently with desktop publishing software like Aldus PageMaker including versions of Lorem Ipsum.
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>

</body>
</html>

Source code for webtoolkit.shadow.css

#shadow-container {
position: relative;
left: 3px;
top: 3px;
margin-right: 3px;
margin-bottom: 3px;
}

#shadow-container .shadow2,
#shadow-container .shadow3,
#shadow-container .container {
position: relative;
left: -1px;
top: -1px;
}

#shadow-container .shadow1 {
background: #F1F0F1;
}

#shadow-container .shadow2 {
background: #DBDADB;
}

#shadow-container .shadow3 {
background: #B8B6B8;
}

#shadow-container .container {
background: #ffffff;
border: 1px solid #848284;
padding: 10px;
}

CSS: clean IE8 css hack
A new browser, Internet Explorer 8 was released recently. Of course it wasn’t bug free, no browser is bug free. I ran into a problem that required me to alter css only for IE8, so I searched web for a css hack that works and found few but they all were very ugly.

While looking at IE8 bugs, I found this little bug (#23): Multiple Type ID selector statement is incorrectly ignored, which means to make style work with all browsers except for IE8, all designer has to do is add selector that IE8 considers invalid.

So here is a clean IE8 hack:

Code:
div.test { color: red; }
div.test, #ie8#fix { color: blue; }

This code will set color to blue in all browsers, except for IE8, in IE8 it will be red.

How it works: IE8 thinks that #ie8#fix is an invalid selector and ignores everything from following { to matching }

Another example. I’ve highlighted part of code that IE8 sees:

Code:
body {
font-family: Verdana, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;
background-color: white;
color: black; /* for IE8 */
}
body, #ie8#fix {
color: #444; /* for all browsers other than IE8 */
}

IE8 was released a while ago, but I couldn’t find any mentions of similar IE8 css hack on the web, so I posted it as tutorial hoping it will help other designers.

I’ve tested this hack with quite a lot of browsers (including many ancient browsers) on my computers and on browsershots, it works perfectly and doesn’t affect any browsers other than IE8.

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Css Hacks

September 1, 2009 at 2:01 pm · Filed under Css hacks, css ·Tagged , , , , ,

CSS: clean IE8 css hack
A new browser, Internet Explorer 8 was released recently. Of course it wasn’t bug free, no browser is bug free. I ran into a problem that required me to alter css only for IE8, so I searched web for a css hack that works and found few but they all were very ugly.

While looking at IE8 bugs, I found this little bug (#23): Multiple Type ID selector statement is incorrectly ignored, which means to make style work with all browsers except for IE8, all designer has to do is add selector that IE8 considers invalid.

So here is a clean IE8 hack:

Code:
div.test { color: red; }
div.test, #ie8#fix { color: blue; }

This code will set color to blue in all browsers, except for IE8, in IE8 it will be red.

How it works: IE8 thinks that #ie8#fix is an invalid selector and ignores everything from following { to matching }

Another example. I’ve highlighted part of code that IE8 sees:

Code:
body {
font-family: Verdana, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;
background-color: white;
color: black; /* for IE8 */
}
body, #ie8#fix {
color: #444; /* for all browsers other than IE8 */
}

IE8 was released a while ago, but I couldn’t find any mentions of similar IE8 css hack on the web, so I posted it as tutorial hoping it will help other designers.

I’ve tested this hack with quite a lot of browsers (including many ancient browsers) on my computers and on browsershots, it works perfectly and doesn’t affect any browsers other than IE8.

Leave a Comment