CSS1 compliance/support (was Re: @version rule)

From: Ian Hickson <ian@hixie.ch>
Subject: Re: @version rule
Date: Sun, Jul 29, 2001, 6:31 PM

> On Mon, 30 Jul 2001, Bjoern Hoehrmann wrote:
>>>
>>>     Which level should IE6 claim to support?
>>
>> Microsoft claims full CSS Level 1 compliance (or support, don't know
>> the exact wording).
>
> I said _should_. I know Microsoft claim to have full CSS1 support. I also
> know that unless their final release has significant improvements over
> their last preview release, they are not even close.

I can only assume you are trolling Ian, so I'll bite. ;-)

> Don't take this the
> wrong way, I'm very impressed by the improvements that IE 6 Preview has
> over IE 5.5 in terms of CSS1 compliance. However, it is nowhere near the
> compliance of the best browser(s) on the market, and those browser(s)
> rightly do not claim full compliance.

As measured by the W3C CSS1 Test Suite (the only official valid way to
measure compliance to CSS1 - unless you have a better suggestion),
IE6/Windows has full CSS Level 1 compliance, just as IE5/Mac did when it
shipped over a year ago, which was certainly not true for other browsers at
the time (among others, the section 4.1.4 test [1] was particularly brutal,
on even those browsers who at the time were claiming "superior
conformance/compliance" - the results can be seen in Eric Meyer's leader
board [2]).

If other browsers pass the entire W3C CSS1 Test suite, then they too could
claim a similar level of conformance.

>> I sympathize with the idea of an @version statement. I would be great
>> if I can specify "process this block only if you support all used
>> @rules/property-value pairs/selectors/etc." since implementing just
>> _some_ features of CSS may break documents, as shown above.
>
> But then should IE6 claim to support to support 'ex'?
>
> How about 'float'?

Yes, see above.  IE6/Windows passes the CSS1 Test Suite pages which test
'ex' and 'float'.

Tantek

[1]
 http://www.w3.org/Style/CSS/Test/current/sec414.htm

[2]
 http://www.webreview.com/style/css1/leaderboard.shtml

Received on Sunday, 29 July 2001 23:09:28 UTC