Dropdown menu with transparancy - CSS Validation issue

Inspired by the (very cool) step template i leeched from http://www.tattoocms.it/templates/step.html i modded my own dropdown menu’s to support transparency with the following lines of css code:



I guess it uses those 4 different conventions in order to work across all common browsers and it does (tested FF and IE). My problem is if i include all of these declarations in my css file i get validation errors

Maybe someone knows a workaround. I would be happy to read about it!

Also i am wondering: How important is CSS validation for a website? I know various of reasons to care about (X)HTML validation but what are the main downsides of ignoring CSS validation failures?

In my opinion, the only value to the validation is to find potential errors in my HTML or CSS code. If I want a non-valid tag for some reason, I’m not going to get all excited because the W3C doesn’t recognize my tag... or my target=_blank, for that matter.

Quote from: sottwell at Aug 09, 2006, 07:17 AM

In my opinion, the only value to the validation is to find potential errors in my HTML or CSS code. If I want a non-valid tag for some reason, I’m not going to get all excited because the W3C doesn’t recognize my tag... or my target=_blank, for that matter.

I agree with what you are saying since the error is (in this case) indeed just a formal error from a w3c automated validators point of view and not a *real* error.

The only downside i can think of with having formal/pseudo errors in a website’s css is that it is not a good idea to place a validate-the-css-of-this-page-with-w3c hyperlink on the website in question. But then again for the site in question this is probably not necessary.

And even *if* any client would insist i could explain that it just can’t have formal valid css _and_ support transparancy.

Put the IE stuff in IE conditonals:

http://archivist.incutio.com/viewlist/css-discuss/65335

Quote from: MrDutchy at Aug 09, 2006, 08:18 AM

The only downside i can think of with having formal/pseudo errors in a website’s css is that it is not a good idea to place a validate-the-css-of-this-page-with-w3c hyperlink on the website in question. But then again for the site in question this is probably not necessary.

I can’t actually imagine any site that *needs* the validate link! But yes, that would be the only downside.

As a rule of thumb, if the only reason something doesn’t validate is browser-specific code *in addition to the valid code*, it is not a problem at all. It is more important that a site works across browsers than meets some criteria.