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CSS Property Reference

Wednesday 29 September, 2004 (12:03PM GMT)

CSS propertiesA CSS property reference has been added to HTML Dog.

'Bout Bloody Time!

It was over nine months ago that the HTML tag reference was added to the site. At the time, the CSS reference was intended to follow shortly after.

The thing is, putting together these references is about as much fun as reading an especially boring phone book and that's my excuse for taking so long - I just couldn't put myself through the maddening ordeal.

But HTML Dog, a "comprehensive" guide to web standard (X)HTML and CSS, was a little incomplete without the property reference, so I just gritted my teeth, got down and did it.

Level Two, Revision One

The properties belong to the CSS 2.1 standard (properties for aural style sheets are excluded). All of the valid values are listed and examples are thrown in for good measure. There are links to related properties and to the Guide pages, when relevant, for a more detailed explanation of usage. When other properties pop up in the description, they are also cross-linked - a feature that some suggested would improve the HTML reference.

As with the tag reference, the reasons behind writing it were to make a reference that is more digestible than the meaty, often confusing W3C documentation and to provide a more accurate reference than other sources, which tend to be either non-standard or non-very good.

As always, if you've got any suggestions for improvement, please contact me or leave a message here.

Comments

Comment 1

Well I hope nobody is complaining that it took you a long time. I can't imagine how much work was involved in this. Plus, you're just one guy, and you're doing it for free. So anybody who complains should be strung up in town square. Thanks for this and all the other work you've shared.

So said nickster on Wednesday 29 September, 2004 at 2:50PM GMT.

Comment 2

I think youre a nutcase! Good work though. v helpful

So said Chris on Wednesday 29 September, 2004 at 3:37PM GMT.

Comment 3

Definitely in a class of your own. Great work and thank you. Now to add a "common" hacks section (maybe next year).

So said Tanny O'Haley on Wednesday 29 September, 2004 at 8:25PM GMT.

Comment 4

Well done, you're a hero in my world of confusion. I think the hack page(s) is a great idea, maybe 2005!

So said Chris Andrews on Thursday 30 September, 2004 at 2:00AM GMT.

Comment 5

Amazing work :D
I will use this for sure.

So said Jens Wedin on Thursday 30 September, 2004 at 8:02AM GMT.

Comment 6

Just a few days ago, I looked over your site trying to find the CSS reference, I was sure had to be hidden somewhere. (Sort of like the Suckerfish articles, which can be rather hard to find as they are only linked to in the blog - how about adding them to your menu?)

Great that you have it now. This means that your site now is THE reference for me, since most other references are either extremely hard to read (like w3c) or describes things the way the work in IE (including mentioning IE-only properties without saying they are IE-only).

Thanks for a great site, and keep up the good work.

So said Ole Hansen on Thursday 30 September, 2004 at 2:25PM GMT.

Comment 7

This is all good, but did you ever finish reading the phone book?

I will sing praises to your good name every time I _don't_ have to visit the W3C documentation.

So said Jack Brewster on Thursday 30 September, 2004 at 7:48PM GMT.

Comment 8

Awesome!
Clearly, a bookmark in the "References" folder.

Slightly tangential, but I wonder how did they figure out dropping "text-shadow" from the 2.1 and then put it back in version 3... I know, so far only Safari and Shiira support it, so there isn't *much* to cry about, but nevertheless, it's confusing... The property is legal in CSS 2, illegal in CSS 2.1 and then legal again in CSS 3.
With no means to specify 2.1 in the advanced interface of the Jigsaw CSS validator...

Muchas gracias, HTMLDog ;)

So said graphic on Friday 1 October, 2004 at 7:36AM GMT.

Comment 9

Excellent. Now how about fixing the errors in cite and address in the HTML reference?

So said Neal on Friday 8 October, 2004 at 5:26AM GMT.

Comment 10

"I will sing praises to your good name every time I _don't_ have to visit the W3C documentation."
--Jack Brewster

Amen to that, brother.

I stumbled upon this haven of CSS-sanity last week, by way of suckerfish (which is a lifesaver!), and I really haven't left the page since then. Too much web-design goodness! Keep up the good work!

So said Nate on Monday 17 January, 2005 at 7:55PM GMT.

Comment 11

Extremely useful! Keep up the good work, that's awesome :)

So said JoLLy on Monday 5 September, 2005 at 5:20AM GMT.

Comment 12

Top stuff. We recommend it to our students. You've saved us a lot of work :)

So said elche on Monday 21 November, 2005 at 1:03AM GMT.

Comment 13

I just spent a long frustrating day trying to find a reference to a basic HTML guide that I could point people at and I kept coming up with:

a) stuff that was simply out of date
b) stuff on XHTML that was "hey look at this sexy new stuff" rather than just "this is how (X)HTML is now"
c) cluttered, unusable, complex, and just too damn prosaic stuff - not the best example for them to follow

I was just about to give up and resign myself to creating something from scratch when I found your wonderful site - thanks.

Oh, and thanks. And thanks again.

Kiss, kiss, grovel.

So said mintcake on Wednesday 7 December, 2005 at 5:19AM GMT.

Comment 14

It is a great work!

So said Dmitriy on Saturday 17 December, 2005 at 7:22PM GMT.

Comment 15

Well I hope nobody is complaining that it took you a long time. I can't imagine how much work was involved in this. Plus, you're just one guy, and you're doing it for free. So anybody who complains should be strung up in town square. Thanks for this and all the other work you've shared.

So said nickster on Wednesday 29 September, 2004 at 2:50PM GMT.

True stuff this nickster fella is sayng man, true stuff. There are so much, not many, nut crackers out there it ain't funny brother. All free and they are still fussing.
It's like CPR. You try to save somebody's life it doesn't quite work out, so they turn around and take ya to court.

Definitely said so by Ducorov on the Friday the 17 of Feburary, 2006 at 3:29PM Eastern Time

So said Ducorov on Friday 17 February, 2006 at 8:29PM GMT.

Comment 16

I wish you would have had the forethought to offer all this information on a single page. I prefer hard copy for my reference sources. So when I try to print out this collection of data I ahve to go and assemble all of it in a file for easy printing. Thanks for putting this altogether, but I wish is had been more user friendly.

So said Levi on Sunday 23 July, 2006 at 8:05AM GMT.

Comment 17

Comments now closed due to spam.

So said Patrick on Monday 14 August, 2006 at 12:22PM GMT.

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