Comments on: !important keyword and IE http://nickcowie.com/2009/important-keyword-and-ie/ Web standards, accessibility and such like with a bias toward Government web sites Thu, 25 Feb 2010 03:29:41 -0600 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.6 hourly 1 By: Nick http://nickcowie.com/2009/important-keyword-and-ie/comment-page-1/#comment-37450 Nick Thu, 08 Jan 2009 01:27:54 +0000 http://nickcowie.com/?p=382#comment-37450 Gary, for me it depends a on the circumstances, I avoid using !important or conditional comments to feed separate rules to IE unless there is no alternative. I will use !important for a quick single fix and if necessary then collect those rules for a separate stylesheet feed by conditional comments to IE. I do not use !important as intended, to overwrite user styles. If a user wants to use user styles, they should have that option. I do not use !important to fix style rules to stop them being overwritten later. I tend to organise by stylesheets well and have a good understanding of specificity and inheritance. @font-face is a little different, you need to feed different file formats to different browsers and you do not want to even attempt to download the alternative format. So I use conditional comments to feed IE first and use !important so it does not overwrite that rule by using the second file (need to test to see if it downloads the file). Gary, for me it depends a on the circumstances, I avoid using !important or conditional comments to feed separate rules to IE unless there is no alternative. I will use !important for a quick single fix and if necessary then collect those rules for a separate stylesheet feed by conditional comments to IE.

I do not use !important as intended, to overwrite user styles. If a user wants to use user styles, they should have that option.

I do not use !important to fix style rules to stop them being overwritten later. I tend to organise by stylesheets well and have a good understanding of specificity and inheritance.

@font-face is a little different, you need to feed different file formats to different browsers and you do not want to even attempt to download the alternative format. So I use conditional comments to feed IE first and use !important so it does not overwrite that rule by using the second file (need to test to see if it downloads the file).

]]> By: Gary Barber http://nickcowie.com/2009/important-keyword-and-ie/comment-page-1/#comment-37449 Gary Barber Wed, 07 Jan 2009 23:29:29 +0000 http://nickcowie.com/?p=382#comment-37449 Personally I avoid using !important at all costs, and only use conditional comments with the bare minimum of alternative rules. Personally I avoid using !important at all costs, and only use conditional comments with the bare minimum of alternative rules.

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