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CSS current work & how to participate

CSS spec­i­fi­ca­tions

This page contains a list of all completed specifications and drafts by the CSS WG (formerly “CSS & FP WG”). If you want to follow the development of CSS3, this is the place to start. You have ideas? Contributions? See “If you want to help” on this page.

A specification is not a manual. There is no excuse for badly written drafts and please complain if you find one. But specs do target a specific audience. See fantasai's Understanding the CSS Specifications.. J. David Eisenberg has written another useful How to read W3C specs. Or you can read about “modules,” “levels,” “snapshots” and the CSS process.

What's new?

(Also available as Atom news feed.)

Ta­ble of spec­i­fi­ca­tions

Ordered from most to least stable:

Com­pleted Cur­rent Up­com­ing Notes ℹ⃝
CSS Snapshot 2010 NOTE Latest stable CSS ℹ⃝
CSS Snapshot 2007 NOTE ℹ⃝
CSS Color Level 3 REC REC See Errata ℹ⃝
CSS Namespaces REC REC ℹ⃝
Selectors Level 3 REC REC ℹ⃝
CSS Level 2 Revision 1 REC REC See Errata ℹ⃝
CSS Level 1 REC Unmaintained, see Snapshot ℹ⃝
Media Queries REC REC ℹ⃝
Stable Cur­rent Up­com­ing Notes ℹ⃝
CSS Style Attributes CR PR ℹ⃝
Testing Cur­rent Up­com­ing Notes ℹ⃝
CSS Backgrounds and Borders Level 3 CR PR ℹ⃝
CSS Image Values and Replaced Content Level 3 CR PR ℹ⃝
CSS Marquee CR PR ℹ⃝
CSS Multi-column Layout CR CR ℹ⃝
CSS Speech CR PR ℹ⃝
CSS Values and Units Level 3 CR PR ℹ⃝
CSS Flexible Box Layout CR PR ℹ⃝
CSS Mobile Profile 2.0 CR PR Status unknown ℹ⃝
CSS TV Profile 1.0 CR ? Status unknown ℹ⃝
Refining Cur­rent Up­com­ing Notes ℹ⃝
CSS Animations WD WD ℹ⃝
CSS Conditional Rules Level 3 WD WD ℹ⃝
CSS Fonts Level 3 WD LC ℹ⃝
CSS Counter Styles Level 3 WD WD ℹ⃝
CSS Text Level 3 WD WD ℹ⃝
CSS Fragmentation Level 3 WD WD ℹ⃝
CSS Text Decoration Module Level 3 LC CR ℹ⃝
CSS Transforms WD WD ℹ⃝
CSS Transitions WD WD ℹ⃝
CSS Writing Modes Level 3 WD WD ℹ⃝
Revising Cur­rent Up­com­ing Notes ℹ⃝
CSS Cascading and Inheritance Level 3 WD WD ℹ⃝
CSS Paged Media Level 3 LC LC Inactive ℹ⃝
CSS Basic User Interface Level 3 CR LC ℹ⃝
CSSOM View WD WD ℹ⃝
Exploring Cur­rent Up­com­ing Notes ℹ⃝
CSS Box Alignment Module Level 3 WD WD ℹ⃝
CSS Backgrounds and Borders Level 4 - WD ℹ⃝
Compositing and Blending WD WD ℹ⃝
CSS Device Adaptation WD WD ℹ⃝
CSS Exclusions and Shapes WD WD ℹ⃝
Filter Effects WD WD ℹ⃝
CSS Generated Content for Paged Media WD WD ℹ⃝
CSS Grid Layout WD WD ℹ⃝
CSS (Grid) Template Layout WD WD ℹ⃝
CSS Intrinsic & Extrinsic Sizing Module Level 3 WD WD ℹ⃝
CSS Line Grid WD ℹ⃝
CSS Lists Level 3 WD WD ℹ⃝
CSS Positioned Layout Level 3 WD WD ℹ⃝
CSS Presentation Levels WD WD Inactive ℹ⃝
CSS Regions WD WD ℹ⃝
CSS Tables Level 3 WD Inactive ℹ⃝
Selectors Level 4 WD WD ℹ⃝
CSS Object Model WD WD ℹ⃝
CSS Masking WD WD ℹ⃝
Rewriting Cur­rent Up­com­ing Notes ℹ⃝
CSS Basic Box Model Level 3 WD WD Dangerously outdated; see CSS 2.1. ℹ⃝
CSS Generated Content Level 3 WD WD Severely outdated ℹ⃝
CSS Line Layout Level 3 WD WD Severely outdated ℹ⃝
CSS Ruby WD WD Outdated and majorly underdefined ℹ⃝
CSS Syntax Level 3 WD WD Severely outdated; see CSS 2.1. ℹ⃝
Abandoned Cur­rent Up­com­ing Notes ℹ⃝
Behavioral Extensions to CSS WD ℹ⃝
CSS Grid Positioning WD ℹ⃝

Some related specifications by other Working Groups:

Title Cur­rent Notes
CSS Techniques for Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 1.0 NOTE WCAG WG
Associating Style Sheets with XML documents 1.0 (Second Edition) REC XML Core WG
The 'view-mode' Media Feature REC Web Appplications WG
Selectors API Level 1 LC Web Appplications WG
Selectors API Level 2 WD Web Appplications WG

See also: Jens Meiert's index of properties.

Ex­pla­na­tion of col­ors & status codes

W3C indicates the maturity of specifications by a status code. The CSS working group uses the following, from least to most stable:

Ab­bre­vi­a­tion Full name
WD Working Draft
LC Last Call
CR Candidate Recommendation
PR Proposed Recommendation
REC Recommendation

The names are defined in sections 7.3 and 7.4 of the W3C process document. A REC is what is normally referred to as a “standard.” W3C encourages everyday use starting from CR.

The informal stability levels used to group the specs are defined in this 2007 description of CSS stability levels.

If you want to help

Everybody can take part in the discussions on the archived mailing list www-style@w3.org. You can subscribe yourself. This is the preferred place for discussions, because the members of the working group will see them. Please, don't use this list for questions of the type How do I… Use comp. infosystems. www. authoring. stylesheets ("ciwas") or see “Learning CSS”.

On the mailing list, you will be talking to many people, many very busy people. Before you post, please, search the archive to see if your great idea has maybe already been discussed. Follow the usual netiquette and W3C's policies on spam, attachments, etc.

If you are sending comments on a specific CSS module, please prefix the subject of your message with the appropriate spec code (given in the “Status of this document” section) in brackets, e.g. “[css3-flexbox] error in margin calculations”. This will help the editors find and track your comments.

Laurens Holst (a.k.a. “Grauw”) maintains an FAQ for www-style. (For additions, please, contact Laurens directly. Laurens is not associated with W3C.)

If you work for a W3C member organization, you can also join the CSS working group and see drafts before they are published. To participate, you need to commit to (on average) 1 day per week. Contact me (Bert Bos) or your organization's W3C contact person. The group's minutes are public and posted on the CSS WG blog.

About the test suites

The CSS working group intends to spend a lot of time on developing the CSS test suites along with the CSS specifications. By providing a test suite for each module as soon as the module is published, we hope not only that CSS3 implementations will conform to the specification much earlier, but also that people will have an easier time understanding the formal text of the spec.

The test suites have their own archived mailing list public-css-testsuite@w3.org. Please send error reports, test case submissions, and any other questions and comments about the CSS test suites there. Elika Etemad maintains the CSS Testing Wiki with more info for contributors.

Mark-up con­ven­tions

The source mark-up of the specifications follows certain conventions (which is useful for automatic processing).

Bert Bos, style activity lead
Copyright © 1994–2013 W3C®

Last updated Thu 17 Jan 2013 09:29:33 AM EST

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