CSS3 Pie

Has anybody used this and have you any comments http://css3pie.com/ I have just dropped it into the website I am working on and it seems to do the trick.

What is the downside?

Websites not only don’t need to look the same in all browsers, the should not look the same. It is impossible to have everything 100% identical in every screen resolution, every OS, every device, and every browser and their respective versions. The thought alone is absurd. We shouldn’t (and can’t) expect a site to look the same on a screen as large as a TV as it would on a mobile phone. Likewise, it’d be absurd - perhaps even impossible - to serve each device their own stylesheet.

With that said, you don’t need to include that CSS3 fix for IE. It’s nice having it if you feel that the features add to the experience. If it doesn’t, you could as well save the extra bytes and just let IE degrade gracefully and have these users see square corners instead.

I take the view that it makes for good practice to use the lightest, most efficient and sensible coding techniques that serve the majority of users. The rest of users are served a functional, aesthetically pleasing site without the extra fine touches.

So what you are saying is that if you are just relying on CSS3 for aesthetic needs then you are ok? I have seen a bit of debate about whether sites need to be the same in all browsers but what is the general consensus?

When I say a bit of debate I only remember seeing this site http://dowebsitesneedtolookexactlythesameineverybrowser.com/ but can’t remember what else was said about the matter. This site doesn’t really give a very balanced view :slight_smile:

I use the script as well.

There are plenty advantages that far outweigh the disadvantages as far as I can tell. The script is very small, much smaller than the equivalent (any images you’d use to accomplish similar effects for rounded corners, different colour shades (RGBa)) making your CSS leaner and, to some extent cleaner too.

Just make sure that everyone who uses IE < 9 and does not have JS enabled will get a good experience too (graceful degradation). But other than that, I really cannot see the downsides outweighing the advantages because it allows to keep the code fairly lean and clean. It’s pretty much the only script I use to take advantage of some CSS3 features because most other scripts for similar purposes are bloated or have too much of an impact on the performance.

I have always made my pages “gracefully degrade” IE is just not modern. Even before CSS3 I would use conditonal statements to augment :hover support in versions of IE; I kept mindful of not making it crucial to site content or navigation of course, for those IE users who REFUSED to have js on. PIE seems like a cookie cutter version of what i needed to script by hand before.

The key here is to remember NOT to depend on CSS3 for content or navigation, if you do that PIE will simply augment the amount of viewers who see a consistent site design.

you have to have javascript enabled on the client side, which is not always the case.

using javascript to accomplish css 3 unfinished draft specs feats.

a toy for enthusiasts, really.

That is what I was hoping someone would say. I have used the border radius to create rounded corners and was prepared to have it square in IE, so this appears to be a win win. If they have JS turned off then they get what I planned for and if they don’t then the rounded corners show, unless anybody knows any different?