The reason for my question is because I like the new CSS3 styling techniques, but i'm not quite sure if it's worth it!
(sub-question; anybody that knows if it's possible to use jQuery to apply a vignetting effect to a page?)
Thanks guys
+2
A:
The gradient is probably always going to be faster, as it will save a HTTP request and provides more possibilities for graphics chips to optimize rendering than a bitmap image. I don't have any benchmarks to back this up, though, it's just educated speculation.
On the other hand, I'm not sure whether rendering speed is really relevant here. The more important downside of those styling techniques at the moment is that not all browsers support them yet. You're not going to support on older Firefoxes and IEs (at least when using the CSS3 properties), and for many sites that need to support those audiences, that is the end of it for the moment.
Related: Here is a tutorial that claims cross-browser support for IE, FF3.6+, and Webkit browsers using proprietary tags.
Pekka
2010-06-24 10:26:05
IE6/7/8 support gradients by way of a [filter](http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms532997(VS.85).aspx), ugly as it may be. Of course, it's not suitable in all situations. For instance, filters bork anti-aliasing on text and images.
Andy E
2010-06-24 10:28:42
For some dumb reason I tend to ignore the people still using IE 6 / 7, don't know if it's because I sub-consciously dislike that people still use them. But I shouldn't so I have to admit that you are right. What if we (developers/designers) want to take our sites to the next level, are we supposed to write fall-back coding for every project? I guess so, thanks for sheding some light!
Noor
2010-06-24 10:32:24
@Andy I'm always surprised to see how powerful and versatile the `filter` commands are (and supported since IE 5.5 no less, years before any other browser came up with this stuff!) too bad they were so proprietary....
Pekka
2010-06-24 10:32:57
@Pekka: yeah, if they'd have implemented them as proper CSS extensions in the first place they might've improved the issues that hogged them over the years. Instead, they made no effort to improve those filters.
Andy E
2010-06-24 10:57:44
@Andy yup. Looking at the functionality they provide, they would have deserved to become part of the standard, and we could have had gradients and alpha transparency in all major browsers in 2005 or so. But no, they had to bind it to ActiveX and whatnot. Typical Microsoft. Too bad, chance missed!
Pekka
2010-06-24 11:00:59
+1
A:
Besides the performance issues. What do you do, if the browser of the user does not support CSS3?
If you use images, everybody sees, the gradient, not only the guys with the latest browsers. So for compability I'd prefer images :)
Damn Pekka was faster :P
faileN
2010-06-24 10:27:29