-ms- this and -ms- that ... why is this being tolerated.  Why can’t they just do standards right.

It’s like saying hold on we do speak the native language BUT you might be misunderstood if you don’t use OUR accent!

Firefox, Safari, Chrome—forever.  What if FIREFOX only websites started to show up… they’re be a collective fit across the internet.

Other browsers have such extensions as well, like “-moz” for Firefox specific extensions. It’s a way for browsers to introduce their own CSS properties while still being CSS compliant validation wise.

“-ms- this and -ms- that ... why is this being tolerated.  Why can’t they just do standards right. “

knee-jerk anti-microsoft rant (or just knee, jerk!) - wait, you havent seen the moz- and webkit- attributes?

My take on this is: Browser capabilities are rich enough that I can get ALL the formatting and display power I need even when I code to the lowest common denominator (which wasn’t the case back in the browser sniffing days)
Also, JQuery ir a capable Javascript library can heal a lot of the pain, and if you have the ability to run serverside scripts, you can dynamically render the css by cold-sniffing the user agent.

In short, your CSS would interpreted ASP, PHP or ASPX files and “opacity” would be a function that would render the right CSS code to handle opacity -based on the detected browser)

@phil:
Not really knee jerk or anti microsoft (although beyond windows as the base OS and some MS office stuff I do try to get out more!) ...
“My take on this is: Browser capabilities are rich enough that I can get ALL the formatting and display power I need even when I code to the lowest common denominator (which wasn’t the case back in the browser sniffing days) “

I totally agree with you.  Maybe I was thinking about all of that If IE this IF IE that statement stuff you have to deal with!

@georgec: yeah I do recall those -moz things but like PHIL I try to stay away from all of that hey mine does this if you add that bells and whistles.  I’ve only used that moz thingy once where transparency was concerned.

I first became upset (and this has been even in the last year) when I run into sites saying this runs better (or doesn’t run at all) unless you have IE.  I try to stick with the basics of CSS—you know whatever best works on most all platforms without tweaks.

I think it’s completely unnecessary to even consider these browser-specific properties. If you want to waste your time, go ahead by all means…

But in a business market, clients want sites up and running and working well. It would be awesome if I could make a solid transition over to CSS3 tomorrow but I can’t. For next however many years I’m going to have to continue to build sites with valid CSS2, ensuring that they work in all browsers. Only then can I consider including any CSS3.

As for tailoring styles for different browsers… clients aren’t interested, budgets don’t cover this.

Looking through that list of properties, there’s nothing there that I can’t live without. And I really, really don’t care about changing the scrollbar colour…

Maybe this annoys me because I’m not good enough at CSS to appreciate it, or perhaps it annoys me because it’s more CSS for me to learn when I thought I already had a good grasp on it.

Anyway, thumbs up for more reasons to get pissed at Microsoft.

Make no mistake, browser COMPLEXITY is growing by leaps and bounds, and, with Java/Javascript we are forced to consider the end browser NOT as a DISPLAY device primarily, but as a PROGRAMMING device - the same way as when we create applications for desktop consoles back in the day.
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The fracturing is even greater when you consider the extensions to the dom and JS performance wrought by GOOGLECHROME - now, the ability of the browser to PERFORM the calculations you ask of it (separate and apart from the ability to RENDER/INTERPRET the CSS and HTML) is another chore we have to take care of
(Look out in the future for not only custom attributes, but custom JAVASCRIPT CAPABILITIES OBJECTS (and the associated FAKING/SPOOFING OF THOSE OBJECTS!)
- please see: History of the user agent string
example: Since GOOGLECHROME although rendering simple Webkit like SAFARI, is 100 times faster executing Javascript, then code will have to have a way to TARGET and DETECT specific CHROME installations so they can take advantage!
BUT All CHROME installs are not created equally- (Android anyone?) since CHROME will also run on other devices that are NOT high-end pc’s so you will also need to query and retrieve a lot of device capability information as well (look up WURFL and all that crap)

Frankly, even lowest common denominator coding will need specific tweaks and caveat catching code because of IE6 bugs and also the fact that some mobile devices CRASH on complex CSS or pages that are too complicated. I expect that server side coding will be a MUST real soon just to have easily maintainable sites.

in effect, when you want to display a .PNG for example, you dont just output an img tag with a png as the src, you have your code do a DisplayPNG(“picurl”,“alt-tag”)

that code will render based on serverside browser sniffing or something….sigh
welcome to the New World disOrder!