[thelist] Gradient <td> backgrounds

[Jackson Yee]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Jon Haworth" <jhaworth at witanjardine.co.uk>
To: <thelist at lists.evolt.org>
Sent: Thursday, July 11, 2002 09:44
Subject: [thelist] Gradient <td> backgrounds


> Hi list,
>
> Microsoft have a new section on msdn
> (http://msdn.microsoft.com/architecture/), with gradient backgrounds on the
> <td>s:
> <td style="filter:progid:DXImageTransform.Microsoft.Gradient(GradientType=1,
> StartColorStr='#FF003399', EndColorStr='#FF6699CC');">
>
> It might just be me, but it does look a little like they're adding
> proprietary - possibly DirectX-based - extensions to CSS, and I'm sure we
> all remember the fun and games when Netscape and MS went through all this
> with HTML. Gah. Please. Not again.
>
> FWIW, along with IE6, I've had a look in Moz, NN4, and Opera. None of them
> (apart from IE) show the gradients.
>
> *boggle*

Microsoft has had these filters for some time.  A complete list of the static
ones can be found at

http://msdn.microsoft.com/workshop/author/filter/reference/reference.asp?frame=true

I haven't seen them used frequently on the web, but I do have to admit that
some of them are quite nice in terms of being easy methods of enhancing the
visual presentation of a site.  Some of these can be simulated with full
standards-compliance using the SVG plug-in at

http://www.adobe.com/svg/viewer/install/

I wouldn't mind seeing a

background-style: gradient(upper-left-color,
                           upper-right-color,
                           lower-right-color,
                           lower-left-color);

statement in the next CSS either.  It would be a good way of replacing the
non-scalable background gradient images used on my site, and is easily
supported via direct API calls in Windows 98+ or OpenGL.

Regards,
Jackson Yee
jyee at vt.edu
http://www.jacksonyee.com/