Question

CSS Compatability between IE and Firefox

Asked by: ncw

With the following html:

<table><tr><td width="100%" height="14" class="categoriesHeading">Categories</td></tr></table>

and the following formatting in a css file:

TD.categoriesHeading {
  font-family: Arial, Helvetica, Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif;
  font-size: 12px;
  font-weight: bold;
  text-align: center;
  text-indent: 0px;
  color: #ffffff;
  background: #002f65;
  padding: 5px 2px 3px 5px;
}

The table cell appears with white text on a blue background with IE, but all formatting is lost with Firefox. Any clues please?

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Asked On
2005-09-25 at 10:13:58ID21573321
Tags

css

,

compatability

,

ie

,

firefox

Topic

Cascading Style Sheets (CSS)

Participating Experts
3
Points
125
Comments
11

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Answers

 

by: GrandSchtroumpfPosted on 2005-09-25 at 11:22:12ID: 14954792

The code you provided gives the same results in both IE and FF:  white text on blue bg.
There must be something else wrong with your page.

 

by: Eternal_StudentPosted on 2005-09-25 at 12:36:20ID: 14954968

Is the cell inheriting any other styles from anywhere else ?

Your code looks fine.

 

by: ncwPosted on 2005-09-25 at 14:06:37ID: 14955235

I'm using php includes and the problem is occuring when the above code is contained in an included file and called with eg:
<?php require_once('includes/test.php'); ?>
or
<?php include('includes/test.php'); ?>

There are 2 stylesheets. How does inheritance work with css?

 

by: ncwPosted on 2005-09-25 at 14:10:31ID: 14955249

If I put the TD formatting code in the other style sheet then it works ok, similarly if I put the reference link for the second css before the first css then it works ok too.

 

by: GrandSchtroumpfPosted on 2005-09-25 at 15:16:37ID: 14955426

CSS itself does not use inheritance.  It uses a "cascading" mechanism.

Each element in the page is matched against the different selectors.
When an element matches the selector, the attributes are set on that element.
In case of conflicting attribute values, it's the most specific selector that will override the others.
When 2 selectors have the same "specificity" it's the latest in the order of declaration that will win.
The complete rules for calculating the specificity are a little complicated, but in most cases it's obvious.

In your 2 stylesheets, you probably have the exact same selectors (same specificity) with different attribute values.  This means that, in case of conflicting attribute values, the rules in the second linked stylesheet will overide the rules first linked stylesheet.

Now, some attributes are inherited by the child nodes of an element (like "font-family" for instance), and some are not inherited (like "width" for instance).  But that's a completely different thing.

 

by: ncwPosted on 2005-09-25 at 15:25:23ID: 14955454

There was no duplicate for 'categoriesHeading', and it worked ok for IE.

 

by: GrandSchtroumpfPosted on 2005-09-25 at 15:31:04ID: 14955463

Get the webdev toolbar for firefox: https://addons.mozilla.org/extensions/moreinfo.php?id=60
Use the menu: CSS/View style information.  Now, when you click an element, it will show you which css rules are applied to that element.

 

by: webwomanPosted on 2005-09-25 at 15:59:18ID: 14955554

Where is this include in the resulting HTML document? Stylesheet calls need to be in the head tags, if it's not there it's very likely it won't work. Also, what doctype are you using? If you're using XHTML, I'm pretty sure all tags have to be lowercase, not upper. So while TD might not work, I suspect td would. Especially if you're using td in the actual HTML -- in XHTML, the case has to match.

Don't go by IE -- it's almost always wrong. And there are very few things that work in Firefox and don't work in IE.

20120131-EE-VQP-002

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