Tomomi Imura

Tomomi Imura

An Open Web advocate and front-end engineer, who loves everything mobile, and writes about HTML5, CSS, JS, UX, tech events, gadgets, etc. She unintentionally got 15min of fame by creating The HTTP Status Cats. Also, the opinions expressed here are solely her own and do not express the views or opinions of my employer.

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CSS3 Box-Shadow with Inset Values – The Aqua Button ReReVisited!

Screenshot ot CSS Aqua buttons

This is my third article on CSS3 No Image Aqua Buttons. The previous articles include:

  1. CSS3 Gradients: No Image Aqua Button
  2. CSS3 Aqua Button – Revisited for Firefox 3.6
  3. And this one – Read on!

Since Smashing Magazine has selected the original Aqua button demo for their article, “50 Brilliant CSS3/JavaScript Coding Techniques”, I have had so much more visitors to my blog.

This resulted quality developers leave useful comments and tips for me – thank you, Zoley for suggesting using box-shadow with the inset value, and a big thank you to Jim for actually re-writing the Aqua button with the technique!!!

So, now the CSS3 Aqua button is revised with semantic markup (no more “glare” div! Yes, I complained it by myself before!) and shorter CSS.
And this time, no CSS gradients! – use CSS box-shadow property with multiple inset values to draw layers of inner-shadows to create the visual effect.

Syntax

box-shadow: none | [inset? && [ <offset-x> <offset-y> <blur-radius>? <spread-radius>? <color>? ] ]#

Values

from Mozilla Developer Center:

inset (optional)
If not specified (default), the shadow is assumed to be a drop shadow (as if the box were raised above the content).
The presence of the inset keyword changes the shadow to one inside the frame (as if the content was depressed inside the box). Inset shadows are drawn above background, but below border and content.

** (optional)** If not specified, the color depends on the browser. In Gecko (Firefox), the value of the `color` property is used. Safari’s shadow is transparent and therefore useless if is omitted.

** (required)** This are two values to set the shadow offset. specifies the horizontal distance. Negative values place the shadow to the left of the element. specifies the vertical distance. Negative values place the shadow above the element. If both values are 0, the shadow is placed behind the element (and may generate a blur effect if and/or is set).

** (optional)** This is a third value. The higher this value, the bigger the blur, so the shadow becomes bigger and lighter. If not specified, it will be 0.

** (optional)** This is a fourth value. Positive values will cause the shadow to expand and grow bigger, negative values will cause the shadow to shrink. If not specified, it will be 0 (the shadow will be the same size as the element).

Note – The box-shadow property has been removed from W3C CSS3 Background Candidate recommendation document.

The Entire Code!

Use -moz and -webkit prefix for box-shodow to support these browsers. For Opera, there’s no need to add -o.

Also, notice there are three inset values are defined for detailed visual effects!

<input type="button" class="new-aqua" value="Login">

input[type=button].new-aqua {
  width: 155px;
  height: 35px;		
  background: #cde; 
  border: 2px solid #ccc; 
  border-color: #8ba2c1 #5890bf #4f93ca #768fa5; 
  font: 600 16px/1 Lucida Sans, Verdana, sans-serif; 
  color: #fff; 
  text-shadow: rgba(10, 10, 10, 0.5) 1px 2px 2px;
  text-align: center; 
  vertical-align: middle; 
  white-space: nowrap; 
  text-overflow: ellipsis; 
  overflow: hidden;
  border-radius: 16px; -moz-border-radius: 16px; -webkit-border-radius: 16px;
  box-shadow: 0 10px 16px rgba(66, 140, 240, 0.5), inset 0 -8px 12px 0 #6bf, inset 0 -8px 0 8px #48c, inset 0 -35px 15px -10px #7ad;
  -moz-box-shadow: 0 10px 16px rgba(66, 140, 240, 0.5), inset 0 -8px 12px 0 #6bf, inset 0 -8px 0 8px #48c, inset 0 -35px 15px -10px #7ad;
  -webkit-box-shadow: 0 10px 16px rgba(66, 140, 240, 0.5), inset 0 -8px 12px 0 #6bf, inset 0 -8px 0 8px #48c, inset 0 -35px 15px -10px #7ad;
}
.new-aqua:hover {
  text-shadow: rgb(255, 255, 255) 0px 0px 5px;
}

View the live demo page! This new aqua button works on FF 3.6, Webkit 4 (the current Safari 4 doesn’t support inset box-shadow yet), Chrome 4 and Opera 10. (But fails on 10.1 on Mac).

* Edited on Feb.5 – Opera 10.1 fail and Safari4 (I noticed this works only on Webkit Nightly after published this!)

And again, a huge thanks to Jim Green for the revised CSS!

References

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