The “When can I use…” page now makes URLs based on selections. For example, I made the following links:
Just selecting the options at the top of the page will immediately generate the URL.
A few weeks ago I was trying to find out which browser supported exactly which experimental feature, be it CSS3, HTML5, or something else. I found a couple of useful pages, but nothing quite as detailed as what I was looking for. Since I enjoy graphs, charts, and showing the world how much IE6 really sucks, I went ahead and made what I was looking for.
Thus was born the “When can I use…” page, which shows tables of a variety of current and upcoming web technologies. For all major browsers (Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari, Opera and Chrome), versions for four different eras (past, present, near and far future).
The page can be customized to show only certain browsers/features/eras, so you have the option to ignore lesser used browsers or for that matter the most used one (it’s a lot of fun to pretend Internet Explorer doesn’t exist). I’ve also included a summary at the bottom of the page, which shows what percentage of the displayed features are supported.
Most features were tested myself, to ensure that the information is accurate. Please let me know if you notice any mistakes. Keep in mind that a “supported” feature may not actually work 100%, as well as the fact that some of the specifications are not set in stone yet, so what may be supported today may not actually work in the future. However, it is likely that in most cases the browser will update its support as the spec changes.
The feature list includes anything I personally feel is of significant use to web designers, but still lacks support in at least one browser version. I am open to adding more features, but only if it’s of significant importance and not just a detailed subset of another feature.
I intend to update the page as new browsers are released, or at the very least once a year. Due to its popularity, the page is updated as soon as new information becomes available.
For an easy way to generate rounded corner SVG files, see my border-radius for all! post.
One of the geekier things that excite me (okay, I guess there’s a lot of those) are upcoming features in web browsers. Specifically when it comes to new and improved support for things like CSS3, Javascript and SVG.
The recently released Opera 9.5 alpha is known for it’s improved CSS support, but what excited me most was the ability to use an SVG file as a background image. Why is this great? It allows for all sorts of neat things. Small file scaling gradients, multiple raster images, even animation!
Sure, no other browser supports this yet, but I’m not going to let that ruin my fun in designing for the future. Besides, one could always use javascript to fix stuff for other browsers if really necessary.