Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) is a style sheet language used to describe the presentation semantics (the look and formatting) of a document written in a markup language. Its most common application is to style web pages written in HTML and XHTML, but the language can also be applied to any kind of XML document, including SVG and XUL.
CSS is designed primarily to enable the separation of document content (written in HTML or a similar markup language) from document presentation, including elements such as the layout, colors, and fonts.[citation needed] This separation can improve content accessibility, provide more flexibility and control in the specification of presentation characteristics, enable multiple pages to share formatting, and reduce complexity and repetition in the structural content (such as by allowing for tableless web design). CSS can also allow the same markup page to be presented in different styles for different rendering methods, such as on-screen, in print, by voice (when read out by a speech-based browser or screen reader) and on Braille-based, tactile devices. While the author of a document typically links that document to a CSS style sheet, readers can use a different style sheet, perhaps one on their own computer, to override the one the author has specified.
CSS specifies a priority scheme to determine which style rules apply if more than one rule matches against a particular element. In this so-called cascade, priorities or weights are calculated and assigned to rules, so that the results are predictable.
Syntax
CSS has a simple syntax and uses a number of English keywords to specify the names of various style properties.
A style sheet consists of a list of rules. Each rule or rule-set consists of one or more selectors and a declaration block. A declaration-block consists of a list of declarations in braces. Each declaration itself consists of a property, a colon (:), a value, then a semi-colon (;).[1]
In CSS, selectors are used to declare which of the markup elements a style applies to, a kind of match expression. Selectors may apply to all elements of a specific type, or only those elements that match a certain attribute; elements may be matched depending on how they are placed relative to each other in the markup code, or on how they are nested within the document object model.
Pseudo-classes are another form of specification used in CSS to identify markup elements, and in some cases, specific user actions to which a particular declaration block applies. An often-used example is the :hover pseudo-class that applies a style only when the user 'points to' the visible element, usually by holding the mouse cursor over it. It is appended to a selector as in a:hover or #elementid:hover. Other pseudo-classes and pseudo-elements are, for example, :first-line, :visited or :before. A special pseudo-class is :lang(c), "c".
A pseudo-class selects entire elements, such as :link or :visited, whereas a pseudo-element makes a selection that may consist of partial elements, such as :first-line or :first-letter.
Selectors may be combined in other ways too, especially in CSS 2.1, to achieve greater specificity and flexibility.[2]
Here is an example summing up the rules above:
selector [, selector2, ...][:pseudo-class] {
property: value;
[property2: value2;
...]
}
/* comment */
[edit] Use
Prior to CSS, nearly all of the presentational attributes of HTML documents were contained within the HTML markup; all font colors, background styles, element alignments, borders and sizes had to be explicitly described, often repeatedly, within the HTML. CSS allows authors to move much of that information to a separate style sheet resulting in considerably simpler HTML markup.
Headings (h1 elements), sub-headings (h2), sub-sub-headings (h3), etc., are defined structurally using HTML. In print and on the screen, choice of font, size, color and emphasis for these elements is presentational.
Prior to CSS, document authors who wanted to assign such typographic characteristics to, say, all h2 headings had to use the HTML font and other presentational elements for each occurrence of that heading type. The additional presentational markup in the HTML made documents more complex, and generally more difficult to maintain. In CSS, presentation is separated from structure. In print, CSS can define color, font, text alignment, size, borders, spacing, layout and many other typographic characteristics. It can do so independently for on-screen and printed views. CSS also defines non-visual styles such as the speed and emphasis with which text is read out by aural text readers. The W3C now considers the advantages of CSS for defining all aspects of the presentation of HTML pages to be superior to other methods. It has therefore deprecated the use of all the original presentational HTML markup.
[edit] Sources
CSS information can be provided by various sources. CSS style information can be either attached as a separate document or embedded in the HTML document. Multiple style sheets can be imported. Different styles can be applied depending on the output device being used; for example, the screen version can be quite different from the printed version, so that authors can tailor the presentation appropriately for each medium.
Priority scheme for CSS sources (from highest to lowest priority):
Author styles (provided by the web page author), in the form of:
Inline styles, inside the HTML document, style information on a single element, specified using the "style" attribute
Embedded style, blocks of CSS information inside the HTML itself
External style sheets, i.e., a separate CSS-file referenced from the document
User style:
A local CSS-file the user specifies with a browser option, which acts as an override applied to all documents
User agent style
Default styles applied by the user agent, i.e., the browser's default settings for element presentation
The style sheet with the highest priority controls the content display. Declarations not set in the highest priority source are passed on by a source of lower priority such as the user agent style. This process is called cascading.
One of the goals of CSS is also to allow users greater control over presentation. Someone who finds red italic headings difficult to read may apply a different style sheet. Depending on their browser and the web site, a user may choose from various style sheets provided by the designers, may remove all added style and view the site using the browser's default styling, or may override just the red italic heading style without altering other attributes.
File highlightheaders.css containing:
h1 { color: white; background-color: orange !important; }
h2 { color: white; background-color: green !important; }
Such a file is stored locally and is applicable if that has been specified in the browser options. "!important" means that it prevails over the author specifications.
[edit] History
Style sheets have existed in one form or another since the beginnings of SGML in the 1970s. Cascading Style Sheets were developed as a means for creating a consistent approach to providing style information for web documents.
As HTML grew, it came to encompass a wider variety of stylistic capabilities to meet the demands of web developers. This evolution gave the designer more control over site appearance but at the cost of HTML becoming more complex to write and maintain. Variations in web browser implementations made consistent site appearance difficult, and users had less control over how web content was displayed.
To improve web presentation capabilities, nine different style sheet languages were proposed to the W3C's www-style mailing list. Of the nine proposals, two were chosen as the foundation for what became CSS: Cascading HTML Style Sheets (CHSS) and Stream-based Style Sheet Proposal (SSP). CHSS, a language that has some resemblance to today's CSS, was proposed by Håkon Wium Lie in October 1994. Bert Bos was working on a browser called Argo, which used its own style sheet language, Stream-based Style Sheet Proposal (SSP).[3] Lie and Yves Lafon joined Dave Raggett to expanded the Arena browser for supporting CSS as a testbed application for the W3C.[4][5][6] Lie and Bos worked together to develop the CSS standard (the 'H' was removed from the name because these style sheets could also be applied to other markup languages besides HTML).[7]
Unlike existing style languages like DSSSL and FOSI, CSS allowed a document's style to be influenced by multiple style sheets. One style sheet could inherit or "cascade" from another, permitting a mixture of stylistic preferences controlled equally by the site designer and user.
Lie's proposal was presented at the "Mosaic and the Web" conference (later called WWW2) in Chicago, Illinois in 1994, and again with Bert Bos in 1995.[7] Around this time the W3C was already being established. and took an interest in the development of CSS. It organized a workshop toward that end chaired by Steven Pemberton. This resulted in W3C adding work on CSS to the deliverables of the HTML editorial review board (ERB). Lie and Bos were the primary technical staff on this aspect of the project, with additional members, including Thomas Reardon of Microsoft, participating as well. In August 1996 Netscape Communication Corporation presented an alternative style sheet language called JavaScript Style Sheets (JSSS).[7] The spec was never finished and is deprecated.[8] By the end of 1996, CSS was ready to become official, and the CSS level 1 Recommendation was published in December.
Development of HTML, CSS, and the DOM had all been taking place in one group, the HTML Editorial Review Board (ERB). Early in 1997, the ERB was split into three working groups: HTML Working group, chaired by Dan Connolly of W3C; DOM Working group, chaired by Lauren Wood of SoftQuad; and CSS Working group, chaired by Chris Lilley of W3C.
The CSS Working Group began tackling issues that had not been addressed with CSS level 1, resulting in the creation of CSS level 2 on November 4, 1997. It was published as a W3C Recommendation on May 12, 1998. CSS level 3, which was started in 1998, is still under development as of 2009.
In 2005 the CSS Working Groups decided to enforce the requirements for standards more strictly. This meant that already published standards like CSS 2.1, CSS 3 Selectors and CSS 3 Text were pulled back from Candidate Recommendation to Working Draft level.
[edit] Difficulty with adoption
Although the CSS1 specification was completed in 1996 and Microsoft's Internet Explorer 3 was released in that year featuring some limited support for CSS, it was more than three years before any web browser achieved near-full implementation of the specification. Internet Explorer 5.0 for the Macintosh, shipped in March 2000, was the first browser to have full (better than 99 percent) CSS1 support[citation needed], surpassing Opera, which had been the leader since its introduction of CSS support 15 months earlier. Other browsers followed soon afterwards, and many of them additionally implemented parts of CSS2. As of July 2008[update], no (finished) browser has fully implemented CSS2, with implementation levels varying (see Comparison of layout engines (CSS)).
Even though early browsers such as Internet Explorer 3 and 4, and Netscape 4.x had support for CSS, it was typically incomplete and afflicted with serious bugs. This was a serious obstacle for the adoption of CSS.
When later 'version 5' browsers began to offer a fairly full implementation of CSS, they were still incorrect in certain areas and were fraught with inconsistencies, bugs and other quirks. The proliferation of such CSS-related inconsistencies and even the variation in feature support has made it difficult for designers to achieve a consistent appearance across platforms. Some authors resort to workarounds such as CSS hacks and CSS filters to obtain consistent results across web browsers and platforms.
Problems with browsers' patchy adoption of CSS along with errata in the original specification led the W3C to revise the CSS2 standard into CSS2.1, which may nearer to a working snapshot of current CSS support in HTML browsers. Some CSS2 properties that no browser successfully implemented were dropped, and in a few cases, defined behaviours were changed to bring the standard into line with the predominant existing implementations. CSS2.1 became a Candidate Recommendation on February 25, 2004, but CSS2.1 was pulled back to Working Draft status on June 13, 2005,[9] and only returned to Candidate Recommendation status on July 19, 2007.[10]
In the past, some web servers were configured to serve all documents with the filename extension .css[11] as mime type application/x-pointplus[12] rather than text/css. At the time, the Net-Scene company was selling PointPlus Maker to convert PowerPoint files into Compact Slide Show files (using a .css extension).[13]
[edit] Variations
CSS has various levels and profiles. Each level of CSS builds upon the last, typically adding new features and typically denoted as CSS1, CSS2, and CSS3. Profiles are typically a subset of one or more levels of CSS built for a particular device or user interface. Currently there are profiles for mobile devices, printers, and television sets. Profiles should not be confused with media types, which were added in CSS2.
[edit] CSS 1
The first CSS specification to become an official W3C Recommendation is CSS level 1, published in December 1996.[14] Among its capabilities are support for:
Font properties such as typeface and emphasis
Color of text, backgrounds, and other elements
Text attributes such as spacing between words, letters, and lines of text
Alignment of text, images, tables and other elements
Margin, border, padding, and positioning for most elements
Unique identification and generic classification of groups of attributes
The W3C no longer maintains the CSS1 Recommendation.[15]
[edit] CSS 2
CSS level 2 was developed by the W3C and published as a Recommendation in May 1998. A superset of CSS1, CSS2 includes a number of new capabilities like absolute, relative, and fixed positioning of elements and z-index, the concept of media types, support for aural style sheets and bidirectional text, and new font properties such as shadows. The W3C maintains the CSS2 Recommendation.[16]
CSS level 2 revision 1 or CSS 2.1 fixes errors in CSS2, removes poorly-supported features and adds already-implemented browser extensions to the specification. While it was a Candidate Recommendation for several months, on June 15, 2005 it was reverted to a working draft for further review.[17] It was returned to Candidate Recommendation status on 19 July 2007.
[edit] CSS 3
CSS level 3 is currently under development,[18] since December 15, 2005.[19] The W3C maintains a CSS3 progress report. CSS3 is modularized and consists of several separate recommendations. The W3C CSS3 Roadmap provides a summary and introduction.[20]
