CSS 2 ::Browser-Check
CSS - Overview of Browsers' Capabilities
Contents:
CSS 1/2: Pattern Matching, Selectors & Pseudo-Classes
CSS 1/2: Box Model
CSS 1/2: Visual Formatting and Visual Effects
CSS 1/2: Generated Content, Automatic Numbering and Lists
CSS 1/2: Colors & Backgrounds
CSS 1/2: Fonts
CSS 1/2: Text
CSS 2: Table Formatting
CSS 2: User Interface
CSS 2: Paged Media
CSS 1/2: Final Score
What's not in these tables?
The possibilities one has with these tables are pretty limited. They describe the test of the property/value pairs in basic circumstances only. I.e. many of them work perfectly when tested on their own, on certain elements and/or in certain browsers. However, as soon as additional rules are applied, they work in a not-so-correct way. Considering this experience, it seems to be more helpful to write tutorials that show how CSS can be applied than to produce blankets with lots of yes's and nos in them.
Nevertheless, they give some clue about what's not gonna work and it shows to what degree some browser makers are right that can't stop rambling on about the standards-conformance of their browsers.
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What do the table entries mean?
Y |
The browser is able to render the description tested according to specs. |
C |
The browser is unable to implement this part of the specs due to outside conditions but correctly resorts to the recommended substitution. |
N |
The browser doesn't seem to recognize the declaration tested or severely breaks the rendering of the element. |
D |
This declaration is being recognized but treated different to the explanation in the W3C-specs. |
P |
The browser adheres to the W3C-description only in parts, i.e. recognizes not all the values or in certain circumstances only. |
N/A |
In CSS 2.1, this value is no longer part of the specs as it was in CSS 2. |
What are the numbers for?
I was looking for a way to compare each browsers result against the possible total, basically to verify (or not) the level of standards compliance of browsers. So for every description a browser is capable of rendering, and does it correctly, I gave it 2 points. If the rendering is done correctly but incomplete that's 1 point and in case there's nothing right or something's wrong the score's nil (well, as always..). That way, every browsers' results can be compared against the possible total.
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Why this choice of browsers?
On these tables I considered only Browsers running on Windows/PC: Mozilla 1.3, MS Internet Explorer 6.0, Netscape Navigator 4.x, Opera 7.1 and Opera 6.0. Charts of browsers running on Mac are available over at CodeBitch in a long and a short version.
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How was it done?
The evaluation was done considering the W3C's CSS 2 recommendation and the current CSS 2.1 Working Draft.
There are a few distinctions between CSS 1 and CSS 2, however, with CSS 3 on the horizon, I just concentrated on CSS 2 in compiling these tables. Also, I didn't take into account the numerous interactions required between different properties.
The requirements for standards conformance of browsers are a different story as well, i.e. text-decoration:blink doesn't need to be supported by a browser to achieve standards conformance. The definitions: css1-conformance and css2-conformance.
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