What is CSS3?

CSS3 caters for a vast plethora of new ways for you to create strong-impact designs, with a number of significant changes. This first tutorial will give you a short, yet useful insight to the new possibilities created by the standard.

CSS3 Modules

The development of CSS3 is going to be split up into ‘modules’. The old spec was far too large and complex to be updated as one, so it has been broken down into smaller pieces – with new ones also added.

Some of the key modules include:

* The Box Model
* Lists Module
* Hyperlink Presentation
* Speech Module
* Backgrounds and Borders
* Text Effects
* Multi-Column Layout

Timescale for Implementation

It is incredibly difficult to give a projected date when web browsers will adopt the new features of CSS3 – some new builds of Safari have already started to.

New features will be implemented gradually in different browsers, and it could still be a year or two before every module is widely adopted.

How will CSS3 affect the savvy designer?

Hopefully, in a mainly positive way. CSS3 will obviously be completely backwards compatible, so it won’t be necessary to change any of your existing designs to ensure they still work – web browsers will always continue to support CSS2.

The main impact will be the ability to use new selectors and properties which are available. These will allow you to both achieve new design features (animation or gradients for instance), and achieve current design features in a much easier way (e.g. using columns).

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