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CSS 2.1 Implementation Reports

I want to provide an update to my last blog post about the W3C process that we follow to develop and finalise Web Standards. The working group published the Release Candidate (RC) of the CSS 2.1 Test Suite on September 17. The next step is for the major browser vendors to submit their implementation reports using the working group’s template within one month from publication of the test suite. The group has set a deadline on October 18.

While each of the browser vendors works through the test suite there has been a flurry of activity on the CSS working group’s mailing list. As a result, the group updated the test suite at the weekend to incorporate the feedback so far. On Wednesday, Microsoft submitted the CSS 2.1 implementation report for IE9 Beta showing that IE9 passes 18960 of the 19403 tests (97.7%). You will be able to find the reports for other browsers here after they are submitted.

It’s taken a lot of hard work in partnership with others in the working group and the community to get to this point. Many people in the IE team have been involved in this project and we’re excited to be almost at the end. It feels like a long time since we submitted our first batch of CSS 2.1 tests alongside IE8 Beta 1.

While we’ll be glad to see CSS 2.1 finished, the real excitement comes from the knowledge that the CSS working group can focus attention solely on the new CSS3 modules that bring richer graphics to the web. Each of these modules has a dependency on finishing CSS 2.1.

Look out for the implementation reports coming from other browsers. These reports will be used to move CSS 2.1 to Proposed Recommendation status providing developers with a stable and interoperable CSS platform. I will blog again when we have more progress to report.

Adrian Bateman
Program Manager

Comments

  • Anonymous
    October 08, 2010
    Does this mean that CSS2.1 will get updated in IE9 so it passes the rest of the tests?

  • Anonymous
    October 08, 2010
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    October 08, 2010
    @Andrew: "You will be able to find the reports for other browsers here after they are submitted." ".....after they are submitted.'

  • Anonymous
    October 08, 2010
    @Arieta Let's hope so but for some odd reason I doubt it. ;)

  • Anonymous
    October 08, 2010
    How ofter do you check the feedback on Microsoft connect? I posted a bug a week ago and still no comment, has someone checked it out? connect.microsoft.com/.../vertical-scroll-bar-on-right-is-duplicated-in-silverlight-app This app works in all other browsers except in IE9.

  • Anonymous
    October 09, 2010
    @Andrew: text-shadow is CSS 2.0, not 2.1 I thought IE8 was pretty complete in its CSS 2.1 support but seems like IE9 will be even completer. :D

  • Anonymous
    October 09, 2010
    @Arieta - The results we've submitted are for IE9 Beta. We're still working on bug fixes and I expect IE9 to improve further. @Andrew - We're not stopping with CSS 2.1 but it is an important foundation for the CSS3 modules. The various CSS3 drafts depend on CSS 2.1 getting to Recommendation before they can become final standards too. You can see examples of some of the CSS3 features in IE9 at http://ietestdrive.com/.

  • Anonymous
    October 09, 2010
    passing a bunch of compliance test is one thing - one very neat thing, mind you. However, in IE 8 and (to a lesser measure) IE 9, the problem is more of breakage in specific situations, such as:

  • not recognizing hover events if a CSS '-ms-filter' is applied to a block (IE 8)
  • list-style-position:inside broken if list uses image for marker (IE9pre3) Can we hope that in IE 9, when such bugs are discovered, they'll be fixed without having to wait for IE 10?
  • Anonymous
    October 10, 2010
    Do you intend to pass the current RC of the testsuite before shipping the final IE9? WebKit currently passes 95.8 percent of the suite, although they might decide to fix some larger issues before submitting their report. Presto (Opera) and Gecko (Firefox) will publish their results as time passes :)

  • Anonymous
    October 10, 2010
    Warning: Totaly off-topic (sorry OP) Google's answer to IE9's fishtank demo: www.youtube.com/watch

  • Anonymous
    October 10, 2010
    Google: -1 for non-standard, -2 for deliberately rendering in Quirks mode A little-less off-topic, the beta's "Send feedback" is a nightmare No back button No mandatory fields 99% odds of duplicates Live! sign-in assistant fiasco Just send them over to Connect directly, like you did with platform previews

  • Anonymous
    October 11, 2010
    Socrates, I also doubt they look at the reports (why were asking for them though??). Mine is over here: connect.microsoft.com/.../iimgctx-fails-to-draw-after-installing-ie9-beta Same story - not a word in response, not even any sign of life..

  • Anonymous
    October 11, 2010
    SG, you should wait at least a month before complaining, this is their average response time.

  • Anonymous
    October 11, 2010
    @Meni That's a Youtube video, not a working demo. I tried the link to the actual demo and it doesn't even work in the latest Chrome Beta (7 beta). That demo will be relevant when they have it working in their latest beta (not some random nightly or trunk build) and on a wide variety of hardware with consistent results. If your browser demo starts requiring a $100+ dedicated graphics card then it's really more a test of your graphics system and not your browser. Besides, WebGL isn't even a W3C spec (yet they rip off the W3C's document template to make it appear as such). WebGL is the antithesis of open standard--it's directly tied to one specific technology. If it were an open standard then we'd have a implementation-agnostic 3D canvas API.....not OpenGL ported to the web masquerading as a "standard."

  • Anonymous
    October 11, 2010
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    October 11, 2010
    You actually did better than you are reporting in this article. After looking at your submitted results, you only failed 383 of the tests for a total of 19343 tests. So the final numbers should be 18960 of the 19343 tests (98.02%)

  • Anonymous
    October 12, 2010
    Damien >> The results aren't only "pass" and "fail" - there are also 60 "?" ;-)

  • Anonymous
    October 12, 2010
    Ahhh...in that case I count 63 "?" for a total of 19406 tests...either way good job.

  • Anonymous
    October 12, 2010
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    October 12, 2010
    Just wondering what the IE Team's response is to this blog post? css3wizardry.com/.../ie9-is-the-ie6-of-css3

  • Anonymous
    October 12, 2010
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    October 13, 2010
    Any idea when you guys will update the VPC Images? Those currently avilable for download at: www.microsoft.com/.../details.aspx have an expiry date of 01 October 2010...

  • Anonymous
    October 13, 2010
    Does IE9 have a limit on included CSS files like previous versions? I think older IEs stop respecting any CSS in a file after the ~288kb point. Other browsers are capable of including one big file instead of breaking them up into smaller pieces.

  • Anonymous
    October 13, 2010
    @John Le Drew How could this guy have "the latest Beta 4 of IE9" ? He's an anti-MS fanboy...what he's using is the PP4... Besides, comparing Safari and Chrome, two WebKit-based browsers, is pointless.

  • Anonymous
    October 13, 2010
    @John Le Drew If one were to take a look at the code for the CSS, it would probably have the webkit prefix on the selcetors.

  • Anonymous
    October 13, 2010
    @ A Tester Just go to Download Center on the MS Homepage and download the VPC images that have an expiry date of  January 11, 2011 www.microsoft.com/.../details.aspx Harry

  • Anonymous
    October 13, 2010
    @ Harry Richter Thanks. It appears that the images, and related web page, were updated shortly after my original post, as the link you provided is the same as mine... Anyway, appreciate the reply!

  • Anonymous
    October 14, 2010
    @ Aethec Isn't IE9 supposed to be all about CSS3? If that's so, then why wouldn't you want to compare Firefox, Webkit or Opera's CSS3 support to IE9? Sounds like you're the one with a sacred cow. From what I'm seeing, IE9 has great backend support for under the hood CSS3 stuff, but not much for the fancy CSS3 visual stuff that the other browsers have been doing for a while. That means all those sites with the cool CSS3 features don't work on IE9. Of course you could do some browser sniffing and give IE9 a canvas/SVG version, something I'm considering.

  • Anonymous
    October 14, 2010
    @ Aethec Isn't IE9 supposed to be all about CSS3? If that's so, then why wouldn't you want to compare Firefox, Webkit or Opera's CSS3 support to IE9? Sounds like you're the one with a sacred cow. From what I'm seeing, IE9 has great backend support for under the hood CSS3 stuff, but not much for the fancy CSS3 visual stuff that the other browsers have been doing for a while. That means all those sites with the cool CSS3 features don't work on IE9. Of course you could do some browser sniffing and give IE9 a canvas/SVG version, something I'm considering.

  • Anonymous
    October 14, 2010
    @Bert Comparing [some other engine]'s CSS3 support to IE9 is a good thing - but showing the same page in Safari and Chrome is not a comparison since they both use WebKit. (or maybe he's using -webkit- attributes just to bash IE9...) And if that guy wants his "test" to be useful, he should give away the source code, and open a bug on Connect about the unsupported features. Doing nothing but complaining is useless.

  • Anonymous
    October 14, 2010
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    October 15, 2010
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    October 15, 2010
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    October 18, 2010
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    October 19, 2010
    I can see only the Safari and IE9 reports on the location listed in this article

  • Anonymous
    October 19, 2010
    +1 to Gerard Talbot's call for a Beta version number. Is there going to be any kind of auto-notification within the first beta when the next is released? In the meantime, what does this mean for bug reports. Should we just consider it an Alpha and wait?

  • Anonymous
    October 20, 2010
    Where is the submitted data of Mozilla, Opera, Google, any Linux distro? Does this "deadline" of Oct 18 have any consequences if not met or is this just an excercise for the W3C?