CSS Work

Books and Articles by Eric

Mostly they’re about CSS, although there are a few exceptions here and there. Books include CSS: The Definitive Guide, Fourth Edition, CSS Pocket Reference: Fifth Edition, and Cascading Style Sheets 2.0 Programmer’s Reference, among others. The articles are mostly from last millennium.

CSS4 Color Keyword Distribution

A visualization of the 148 color keywords in CSS4 and their distribution around the hue wheel, or along a grayscale bar for the pure grays (and greys). Related: a visualization of the HTML4 Color Keywords in HSL.

Color equivalents table

All 148 SVG-derived color keywords permitted in CSS4 in a sortable table showing the keywords with their equivalents in both hexadecimal notations, both (non-alpha) RGB notations, and non-alpha HSL.

CSS Module Timelines

A visualization of the activity of the CSS Working Group by plotting draft publication dates and W3C statuses over time. The parched desert of the mid-aughties as well as the circa-2010 explosion of work are both easy to see. (Warning: updated sporadically.)

Inline model document

A terse, but hopefully complete, description of how the CSS2 inline box model really works. (As of 2020, this is still essentially correct, although coming changes in CSS may invalidate some or all of it.)

CSS Tests

A fairly large collection of test files I’ve accumulated over the years. The test subjects run the gamut from CSS1 to CSS3, and are rarely if ever documented. Feel free to explore to your heart’s content. Note: Eric is not responsible for anything that happens to your browser or your happiness with it as a result of your loading up these tests.

W3C CSS2 Test Suite Prototyping

What was once the beginnings of the next official W3C CSS test, this one covering CSS1 and CSS2 instead of just CSS1. Now it’s just a collection of tests I created way back when.

CSS References

Sure, you can go get the original versions, or you could use my local frames-based wrappers to quickly find what you want. If the Sidebar Tabs (see below) aren’t an option for you, then feel free to give these a spin!

css/edge

A collection of cutting-edge CSS-driven design demos, created by yours truly as a way of showing just how far you can take CSS in a browser that fully supports it. Some pages may look a little weird in your browser, but that’s to be expected when you’re on the edge...

Offsite

Resources available on other sites.

W3C CSS Test Suite

The official W3C CSS test, as well as the first official W3C test suite of any kind.

SelectORacle

If you find yourself mystified by CSS2 and CSS3 selectors, then the Oracle is ready to help out. Simply provide it with some selectors (or even a whole stylesheet) and it will return English descriptions of what the selectors will match.

Offline

The following resources are currently offline, but are kept here for historical purposes and also against the hope that they will one day be available again.

CSS Support Charts (including "the mastergrid")

Information on what CSS1 is supported by which browsers, plus a little bit of CSS2 support. This material used to be at Web Review before its demise; then the charts were being republished on Netscape DevEdge under a Creative Commons license. They’re basically offline now, but I do have the original source material and hope to put it back up as a historical curiosity.

CSS2 and HTML4.01 Quick Reference Sidebar Tabs

If you're using a Mozilla-derived browser that has the Sidebar, such as Netscape 6+, then you can add handy quick reference tabs which give you quick access to the CSS2 and HTML 4.01 specifications. Warning: these tabs have been known to cause severe dependency in Web designers. (In the meantime, you can get copies for either Netscape 6+ or Opera 6+ at Rijk's Panelizer page or TjL's Sidebars/Panels page.)

Noodling Around

The following is a 2005-era experiment in heavily styled text, relying on pixel-sized text and positioning to function as intended. It may well look terrible in your browser, but only if it’s more than half a decade old or you have a decent visual aesthetic.