CSS is constantly changing and evolving, new features and capabilities are added to enhance design/styling. Initially/Originally HTML elements and attributes used to define basic styles like bold, italics, size, text color, background color etc.
History of CSS
| Year | History |
|---|---|
| 1996 | CSS 1.0 released |
| 1998 | CSS 2.0 released |
Note:
- Early browser versions focused on market shares rather than compliance & standards
- Initially, due to no Web Standards, many browser companies had proprietary features, standards, and elements
| 2004 | 2.1 recommendations |
|---|---|
| 2005 | 2.1 version moved to working draft by W3C (Due to non-implementation of a feature from browsers) |
| 2007 | CSS 2.1 Candidate recommendation |
| 2011 | CSS 2.1 Fully recommended |
Note:
- CSS3 is not a single specification
- CSS/CSS3 now published as a series of modularised specifications
- Different features/utilities are released separately like selectors, borders, box-shadow, text-shadow, animations, transitions, media query, etc.
The Current State of CSS
CSS is changing in nature, so significant changes keep on happening in the specification.
Checking browser support:
- CSS is a constantly changing and evolving language, many features are implemented and many more are implementing. As a Web Designer/Developer you must know which features works and supports in a browser and which are not
- There are many rendering inconsistencies from browser to browser due to frequent version changes or CSS specifications updations
Online resources to check browser support:
- https://caniuse.com (Support tables for HTML5, CSS3, etc)
- https://quirksmode.org (Compatibility overview – maintained by Peter-Paul Koch)
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_browser_engines_(CSS_support)
- https://www.w3schools.com/cssref/css3_browsersupport.asp
- http://www.positioniseverything.net/ (Modern browser bugs explained in detail!)
- Browser development companies proprietary websites
