[css] Gradients in Internet Explorer 9

Does anyone know the vendor prefix for gradients within IE9 or are we still supposed to still be using their proprietry filters?

What I've got for the other browsers is:

background-image: -moz-linear-gradient(top, #444444, #999999); /* FF3.6 */
background-image: -webkit-gradient(linear,left top,left bottom,color-stop(0, #444444),color-stop(1, #999999)); /* Saf4+, Chrome */
filter:  progid:DXImageTransform.Microsoft.gradient(startColorStr='#444444', EndColorStr='#999999'); /* IE6,IE7 */
-ms-filter: "progid:DXImageTransform.Microsoft.gradient(startColorStr='#444444', EndColorStr='#999999')"; /* IE8 */

As a bonus does anyone know Opera's vendor prefix as well?

Opera will soon start having builds available with gradient support, as well as other CSS features.

The W3C CSS Working Group is not even finished with CSS 2.1, y'all know that, right? We intend to be finished very soon. CSS3 is modularized precisely so we can move modules through to implementation faster rather than an entire spec.

Every browser company uses a different software cycle methodology, testing, and so on. So the process takes time.

I'm sure many, many readers well know that if you're using anything in CSS3, you're doing what's called "progressive enhancement" - the browsers with the most support get the best experience. The other part of that is "graceful degradation" meaning the experience will be agreeable but perhaps not the best or most attractive until that browser has implemented the module, or parts of the module that are relevant to what you want to do.

This creates quite an odd situation that unfortunately front-end devs get extremely frustrated by: inconsistent timing on implementations. So it's a real challenge on either side - do you blame the browser companies, the W3C, or worse yet - yourself (goodness knows we can't know it all!) Do those of us who are working for a browser company and W3C group members blame ourselves? You?

Of course not. It's always a game of balance, and as of yet, we've not as an industry figured out where that point of balance really is. That's the joy of working in evolutionary technology :)

IE9 currently lacks CSS3 gradient support. However, here is a nice workaround solution using PHP to return an SVG (vertical linear) gradient instead, which allows us to keep our design in our stylesheets.

<?php

$from_stop = isset($_GET['from']) ? $_GET['from'] : '000000';
$to_stop = isset($_GET['to']) ? $_GET['to'] : '000000';

header('Content-type: image/svg+xml; charset=utf-8');

echo '<?xml version="1.0"?>
';

?>
<svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" version="1.1" width="100%" height="100%">
    <defs>
        <linearGradient id="linear-gradient" x1="0%" y1="0%" x2="0%" y2="100%">
            <stop offset="0%" stop-color="#<?php echo $from_stop; ?>" stop-opacity="1"/>
            <stop offset="100%" stop-color="#<?php echo $to_stop; ?>" stop-opacity="1"/>
        </linearGradient>
    </defs>
    <rect width="100%" height="100%" fill="url(#linear-gradient)"/>
</svg>

Simply upload it to your server and call the URL like so:

gradient.php?from=f00&to=00f

This can be used in conjunction with your CSS3 gradients like this:

.my-color {
    background-color: #f00;
    background-image: url(gradient.php?from=f00&to=00f);
    background-image: -webkit-gradient(linear, left top, left bottom, from(#f00), to(#00f));
    background-image: -webkit-linear-gradient(top, #f00, #00f);
    background-image: -moz-linear-gradient(top, #f00, #00f);
    background-image: linear-gradient(top, #f00, #00f);
}

If you need to target below IE9, you can still use the old proprietary 'filter' method:

.ie7 .my-color, .ie8 .my-color {
    filter: progid:DXImageTransform.Microsoft.Gradient(startColorStr="#ff0000", endColorStr="#0000ff");
}

Of course you can amend the PHP code to add more stops on the gradient, or make it more sophisticated (radial gradients, transparency etc.) but this is great for those simple (vertical) linear gradients.

I understand that IE9 still won't be supporting CSS gradients. Which is a shame, because it's supporting loads of other great new stuff.

You might want to look into CSS3Pie as a way of getting all versions of IE to support various CSS3 features (including gradients, but also border-radius and box-shadow) with the minimum of fuss.

I believe CSS3Pie works with IE9 (I've tried it on the pre-release versions, but not yet on the current beta).

Use an Gradient Generator - and everything will be perfect ;) http://www.colorzilla.com/gradient-editor/

Looks like I'm a little late to the party, but here's an example for some of the top browsers:

/* IE10 */ 
background-image: -ms-linear-gradient(top, #444444 0%, #999999 100%);

/* Mozilla Firefox */ 
background-image: -moz-linear-gradient(top, #444444 0%, #999999 100%);

/* Opera */ 
background-image: -o-linear-gradient(top, #444444 0%, #999999 100%);

/* Webkit (Safari/Chrome 10) */ 
background-image: -webkit-gradient(linear, left top, left bottom, color-stop(0, #444444), color-stop(1, #999999));

/* Webkit (Chrome 11+) */ 
background-image: -webkit-linear-gradient(top, #444444 0%, #999999 100%);

/* Proposed W3C Markup */ 
background-image: linear-gradient(top, #444444 0%, #999999 100%);

Source: http://ie.microsoft.com/testdrive/Graphics/CSSGradientBackgroundMaker/Default.html

Note: all of these browsers also support rgb/rgba in place of hexadecimal notation.

The code I use for all browser gradients:

background: #0A284B;
background: -webkit-gradient(linear, left top, left bottom, from(#0A284B), to(#135887));
background: -webkit-linear-gradient(#0A284B, #135887);
background: -moz-linear-gradient(top, #0A284B, #135887);
background: -ms-linear-gradient(#0A284B, #135887);
background: -o-linear-gradient(#0A284B, #135887);
background: linear-gradient(#0A284B, #135887);
filter: progid:DXImageTransform.Microsoft.gradient(startColorstr='#0A284B', endColorstr='#135887');
zoom: 1;

You will need to specify a height or zoom: 1 to apply hasLayout to the element for this to work in IE.

Update:

Here is a LESS Mixin (CSS) version for all you LESS users out there:

.gradient(@start, @end) {
    background: mix(@start, @end, 50%);
    filter: ~"progid:DXImageTransform.Microsoft.gradient(startColorStr="@start~", EndColorStr="@end~")";
    background: -webkit-gradient(linear, left top, left bottom, from(@start), to(@end));
    background: -webkit-linear-gradient(@start, @end);
    background: -moz-linear-gradient(top, @start, @end);
    background: -ms-linear-gradient(@start, @end);
    background: -o-linear-gradient(@start, @end);
    background: linear-gradient(@start, @end);
    zoom: 1;
}

As of version 11, Opera supports linear gradients with the -o- vendor prefix. Chris Mills wrote a Dev.Opera article about it: http://dev.opera.com/articles/view/css3-linear-gradients/

Radial gradients are still in the works (both in the spec, and within Opera).

Not sure about IE9, but Opera doesn’t seem to have any gradient support yet:

• http://www.opera.com/docs/specs/presto26/#css

No occurrence of “gradient” on that page.

There’s a great article by Robert Nyman on getting CSS gradients working in all browsers that aren’t Opera though:

• http://robertnyman.com/2010/02/15/css-gradients-for-all-web-browsers-without-using-images/

Not sure if that can be extended to use an image as a fallback.

The best cross-browser solution is

background: #fff;
background: -moz-linear-gradient(#fff, #000);
background: -webkit-linear-gradient(#fff, #000);
background: -o-linear-gradient(#fff, #000);
background: -ms-linear-gradient(#fff, #000);/*For IE10*/
background: linear-gradient(#fff, #000);
filter: progid:DXImageTransform.Microsoft.gradient(GradientType=0,startColorstr='#ffffff', endColorstr='#000000');/*For IE7-8-9*/ 
height: 1%;/*For IE7*/