CSS Text Shadows and Background Sizing

The Opera Deveoper Community published a recent article of mine about CSS3 properties text-shadow and background-size.

If both properties were implemented across mainstream browsers, I believe we would see a lot more visually engaging and bulletproof Web site designs. (Of course, the Spider-Man caveat still exists: with great power, comes great responsibility.) Here’s a snippet from the article:

CSS3 offers advancements in how Web designers can apply design touches to their designs. One of the most often wished for properties — text-shadow, which allows easy creation of drop shadowscode — looks to be popular as new versions of popular browsers are starting to support the property.

I will also look at background-size — this is a CSS property that will let Web designers set the backgrounds of elements so that the background images can stretch or fill the entire background image, if widely implemented.

Together both CSS properties can add unique twists to everyday Web design with minimal effort. In this article I will explore both of these, showing how they work with some simple examples. Read More

2 thoughts on “CSS Text Shadows and Background Sizing

  1. Re: text shadows, I think you said it best. 

    For starters, the Web is two-dimensional medium. You shouldn’t overdo it — adding cheesy Photoshop effects like beveling or shadows forces elements on a page to appear three dimensional.”

    I couldn’t agree more. While I like many of the new CSS3 properties (and can’t wait until they go mainstream), from a visual design standpoint alone I grow increasingly concerned that front-end developers will start making design decisions like high schoolers build PowerPoint presentations: through as many cheesy effects on the page as possible, not because they SHOULD do it, but because they CAN do it.

  2. I agree completely to it, because I made the same experience. And how CSS3 offers advancements in how Web designers can apply design touches to their designs is really a solution. And Text-Shadow, one of the most often wished for properties, which allows easy creation of drop shadowscode is really going to be popular as new versions of popular browsers. And they are starting to support the property in a very simple and effective way. And that is fine and makes the work on it very easy. The things seem not that difficult than before. The same with the Background-Size. The CSS property will really let web designers set the backgrounds of elements so that the background images can stretch or fill the entire background image, if widely implemented. Stay on these roads, buddy!

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