CSS Gradients

Aaaaanndd i’m assuming that’s what you meant with “filter”. Safari 5.0.1 loading fallbacks improperlyThe good news is this isn’t really any issue anymore. The only offending browsers were Chrome and Safari and Chrome hasn’t done it since 6 and Safari hasn’t done it as of 5.1, going on three years ago. Radial gradient differ from linear in that they start at a single point and emanate outwards.

As you might know, HTML5 introduced many exciting features for Web developers. One of the features is the ability to specify gradients using pure CSS3, without having to create any images and use them as repeating backgrounds for gradient effects. This example uses multi-position color stops, with adjacent colors having the same color stop value, creating a striped effect.

​Starting color

To create a linear gradient you must define at least two color stops. Color stops are the colors you want to render smooth transitions among. You can also set a starting point and a direction along with the gradient effect. Yes, the CSS will get huge when I need to specify 3-4 backgrounds each time for same element.. But it’s not the same size as what the background image would be, and I write my code nice, so easy to update, I save the requests on the browsers that support it, and some traffic..

I’m sure it’s possible but I don’t like throwing statements like that around. I’m glad to see you didn’t use the IE9 SVG fix for using gradients.

Previous versions

Another way to look at them is that if you use subtle gradients in your site, the fallback can be no gradient at all, just a solid color. So the site won’t look good in IE8 and prior, FF3.5 and prior,Opera 9 and prior,etc. Any non-CSS3 browser that doesn’t support the gradient rule will see a solid color. But very soon, IE9 will be out, and within perhaps a year and a half, this subtle gradient fallback of simply a solid color might be acceptable. I can get pretty lazy when it comes to having to load up PS even to create a simple image. CSS gradients are so much easier and I’m fine backing that up with a solid color for folks that can see the gradient. Sorry that I have to correct you Chris, but Firefox 3.6 does support radial gradients.

Using gradients declared in CSS, rather using an actual image file, is better for control and performance. I still prefer the background image version for now. Anyway, I can still set the image size to 1 pixel width, and turn it into base64 version.

Data Analytics

This comes in useful in a few ways which we’ll get into later. The shorthand background property will know what you mean if you declare one or the other. To create a linear gradient that repeats so as to fill its container, use the repeating-linear-gradient() function instead. As with any gradient, a linear gradient has no intrinsic dimensions; i.e., it has no natural or preferred size, nor a preferred ratio.

@Jonathan – I wouldn’t go so far as to say a use “suffers” from lack of design. I’ll support CSS gradients when I only need one syntax, and no separate browser-declarations. And most of my gradients have a lot of effects that I don’t think css can reproduce easily. Like Sean mentioned, there is a small typo in the demo code.

Enter existing gradient CSS to import

Even IE6 works just fine with linear gradients, which is probably the most common use for them. You can also have a look at my Beautiful Photoshop-like Buttons with CSS3 Tutorial, which features radial gradients in Firefox. With repeating-linear-gradient(), you don’t have to resort to that trickery. The size of the gradient is determined by the final color stop.