CSS3 worth it or not.

Question

Ok, I need a little help. For quite some time now I've been using CSS2, it works with most browsers and it's pretty easy to modify. But all of a sudden I'm hearing about CSS3 and that it works with only certain browsers, so.... What are the benefits of using CSS3 when most of your viewers won't be able to see it in action?

Answer 1

CSS3 hasn't become the standard yet... i believe it works in FF but not in <IE7, which is sadly where the majority of browsers are. while CSS3 has some awesome features, it will still be a while until the internet catches up enough to make it worth using. i think you will save yourself a lot of headaches and cross-browser manipulation staying w/standard CSS...

Answer 2

At the moment, some parts of CSS3 work on some browsers. At some point in the future, however, a lot of CSS3 will work on a lot of browsers.

For now, you should only use the features of CSS3 that the browsers you're targeting support. Browsers should merrily ignore unknown properties though, so you can use those for non-essential eyecandy even if only some browsers support them.

When can I use... and the CSS3 module status should be of help.

Answer 3

In fact, quite a lot of CSS3 properties are supported by Firefox 3.5 and later versions of Webkit; though often using proprietary names. One such example is for corner radius, where to reliably render one must use 3 different property names:

.rounded-corners
{
    -moz-border-radius: 5px;
    -webkit-border-radius: 5px;
    border-radius: 5px;
}

It's still a good idea to add in a few CSS3 properties in a progressive enhancement approach, using it to give an extra few touches to beautify a site's design to those with browsers supporting some CSS3 properties (Firefox and Safari have about 25-30% market share).

In my opinion a site does not have to look the same whichever browser you use; the most important thing is that the site is usable and accessible across all browsers, whether they be the latest version of Firefox or Mosaic 1.0.

Answer 4

i am working on Dashboard widgets and webkit supports quite a lot of css3 and it is extremely useful in achieving results.

I do not have to worry in this environment about cross browser compatibility so it is admittedly easy, i.e. i do not need to think about the issues, just code. The sooner it gets into the wild and IE the better.