The CSS3 fonts module has a number of interesting CSS3 properties and features. Browser support for many of these is pretty limited right now, but I thought I’d summarize some of these features here.
The first three properties discussed here are CSS3 properties, while the last section will discuss features that have existed for a while but that you may not know about because of their limited potential for use.
As much as we would like to turn a blind eye to the large number people using Internet Explorer and thus take advantage of CSS3 and HTML5 in all its glory, with certain projects, we really don’t have much of a choice.
If the traffic in a particular niche is IE-heavy, then you have to deal with that accordingly. If you go the Andy Clarke route then you may choose to use those new enhancements to the full, but allow a degraded experience in IE.
If you go the traditional corporate route, then you do everything you can to get IE to look and behave the same as the other browsers. That could mean ignoring a lot of new CSS3 and HTML5 stuff, or else it means filling in the gaps with scripts, hacks, and IE-only filters.
Over the winter and spring I’ve been pretty busy researching and putting the final touches on four chapters of a new book published by SitePoint.
The book is called HTML5 & CSS3 for the Real World and was officially launched on SitePoint this morning (North American time).
Two other authors took part in this exciting new project: Estelle Weyl — who probably doesn’t need much of an introduction if you’re familiar with many conference speakers in the web standards world — and Alexis Goldstein, a well-rounded programmer from Brooklyn.
Creating a website with HTML5 and CSS3 without having to worry about using techniques like progressive enrichment and polyfills is the ultimate dream for modern-day front-end developers.
But unfortunately, mainly because of the widespread use of IE6-8, that is still just a distant dream. But it is getting closer.
I thought it would be a good idea to summarize where CSS3 stands as far as browser support goes, so you can feel comfortable making decisions about what to use or abuse when incorporating CSS3 into new projects.
This outline will be divided up into sections beginning with the safest CSS3 features to use, and going down the list towards the not-so-safe. Of course, in all cases, you have the option to declare fallbacks and polyfills that will give nonsupporting browsers a similar and/or acceptable experience. Just remember to take care that your content is accessible and your brand isn’t negatively impacted by any design decisions you make. Also, for the purpose of this article, I’m only taking into consideration A-Grade browsers.