CSSquirrel

Every time I have to slave away at a CSS solution to a problem that could be easily solved by CSS3’s multiple backgrounds or border-radius, I want to inflict harm upon myself. This is exasperated by the number of rounded corner designs I seem to be working on today. (Are those currently in, out, or tacky?)

At the moment, the only notable (sorry Konqueror) browser to support both is Webkit (Safari). Firefox supports border-radius, but neither IE or Opera support either. Granted, Opera’s percentage of the browser population doesn’t make its feature set a deal breaker, but it’s simply impossible to put these solutions into play when IE’s massive user-base can’t see them.

*sigh*

I’d be less melancholy about it if Internet Explorer 8 was going to bring at least one of these with it. But no, that would be too nice.

It annoys me that out of the various improvements CSS3 is supposed to bring to the table that these two are so far away from implementation. The amount of presentation-only markup (the great enemy that CSS is meant to fight) that would be eliminated is immense.

That’s alright. I don’t mind putting three to five elements on a page where I should only need one.

I’m going to go get some warm milk and cry myself to sleep.

As discussed here, I’m really getting into CSS3 Attribute Selectors. As mentioned earlier in my Yo-Yo post, I’ve been looking into solutions to make these guys more accessible, and I’ve come full circle to realize that I don’t need to do anything extra to incorporate them in my website and have users see them in any major browser. This is because:

1. The modern versions of Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari, and Opera all support them. (Here’s a test page at Mindfly’s website to prove the point).

2. The Dean Edwards IE7 script DOES extend full CSS3 attribute selector support to IE6 (I’m guessing my earlier tests had an error, because now I’m showing full compliance with this second test page that includes that script (once again, at Mindfly).

The CSS3 features I’m really looking for support for now, then, are the CSS3 pseudoclasses and multiple background images. *drool* Multiple background images alone would help cut down on my markup immensely, making features such as rounded boxes so much less of a pain in the arse.

I’ve been getting more obsessed with attribute selectors these days. They do such delightful things, and really help me cut down on the markup I need for a site. The problem, of course, is browser compatibility. So I started working on some javascript to give IE7 the functionality for CSS3 attribute selectors.

Then I discovered to my total shock that IE7 actually does support CSS3 attribute selectors.

Someone should tell Sitepoint this, as their reference incorrectly states that it does not.

However, IE6 doesn’t support ANY attribute selectors, so I went to the blackboard again to write a script for that.

Then I discovered that Dean Edwards’ IE7 script does give IE6 attribute support. So I stopped writing my own script and went to check that out.

A while later, I discovered that the Dean Edwards script, however, does not give full support to IE6 for css3 attribute selectors. (Most notably, *= doesn’t seem to work).

So now I’m working on that script again.

I think I’m beginning to understand what a yo-yo feels like.

I tried really hard to start this post with a pop culture reference that somehow allegorically tied Alan Ruck’s relative anonymity despite his years of acting (including a major role in the pinnacle of 80’s teen films: Ferris Bueller’s Day Off) to the subject of toiling away at web design solutions on a daily basis. After reading what I just wrote, I realize that I may have too much spare time on my hands.

Fortunately for me, I spend at least a little of that time doing other things, like actually working on previously mentioned web design solutions. One area of interest that I’ve been getting more and more obsessed with is using Javascript to allow cross-browser CSS3 functionality on modern browsers, despite the fact that short of Konquerer, (which really annoys me because of the ‘cool’ spelling of a word with the letter K) browsers probably won’t be doing a lot of note with CSS3 until sometime after global warming causes the seas to rise and dolphins enslave humanity.

(more…)

My so-called social calendar has suddenly filled up right after uploading all my blog software. So although this site will eventually look customized, sleek, and entirely different, for the moment it’ll have to look just like a really nekkid blog.

Misspelling words on purpose, how enjoyable!

My current CSS tomfoolery involves creating a javascript file that can convert proper CSS3 selector pseudoclasses like :nth-child(#) into Offspring-compatible fake pseudoclasses like “.nth-child-#”. It’s about 80% there, but I’ve ran into an issue where JS doesn’t recognize a selector as a selector if it’s got “(” or “)” in it, which is what nth-child makes heavy use of. If I can’t conceive of a workaround, it’ll tank the mini-project. Arrr…