Emulating CSS3 border-radius and box-shadow in IE7

Question

I'm working on HTML for a small web application; the design calls for a content area with rounded corners and a drop shadow. I've been able to produce this with CSS3, and it works flawlessly on Firefox and Chrome:

However, Internet Explorer 7 and 8 (not supporting CSS3) is a different story:

Is there an easy, lightweight JavaScript solution that would allow me to either 1) use IE-specific features to achieve this, or 2) modify the DOM (programmatically) in such a way that adds custom images around the content area to emulate the effect?

Answer 1

It was just released and it's in beta but check it out: http://css3pie.com/

Answer 2

I've started using the .htc script found here: CSS3 support for Internet Explorer 6, 7, and 8

It's the simplest implementation of CSS3 for IE6+ that I've seen.

.box {
  -moz-border-radius: 15px; /* Firefox */
  -webkit-border-radius: 15px; /* Safari and Chrome */
  border-radius: 15px; /* Opera 10.5+, future browsers, and now also Internet Explorer 6+ using IE-CSS3 */

  -moz-box-shadow: 10px 10px 20px #000; /* Firefox */
  -webkit-box-shadow: 10px 10px 20px #000; /* Safari and Chrome */
  box-shadow: 10px 10px 20px #000; /* Opera 10.5+, future browsers and IE6+ using IE-CSS3 */

  behavior: url(ie-css3.htc); /* This lets IE know to call the script on all elements which get the 'box' class */
}

Answer 3

First of all I like to mention that there is no perfect solution for this until IE9, where the CSS border-radius is gonna be implemented.

Here are the different solutions you have until then:

You could use one of many JS scripts that simulates rounded corners. But none of them implement the shadow properly. Here is the list of the scripts i tried and my conclusions. All of this scripts have something in common, they are placing additional elements in your HTML to give you the illusion of rounded corners.

• DD Roundies: This script is very lightweight an works pretty well. It works without any framework and plays nice with jQuery & Prototype (i assume its working well with the others to, but i can't tell for sure). It uses the CSS3 proprieties on browsers who support CSS3. And uses the same hack as all the others for IE. The antialiazing on this one works very good. edit i have to correct my self here. This one works with a HTC File. It does not placing additional elements in your HTML.

• Curvy Corners and the jQuery Plugin Curvy Corners: I like this one to. The antialiazing is working very good to. And it plays nice with background images. But it does not play nice with CSS3 shadows. It does not check if your Browser support CSS3 and always uses the ugly solution of adding elements to your dom.

• Nifty Corners & jquery Corner: Both have a bad antialiazing and the corners look very edgy. jQuery corners has trouble to handle background images.

Here is the reason why none of them is a proper solution in my opinion:

curvy corners dom messing screenshot http://meodai.ch/stackoverflow/curvy.png curvy dom mess

nifty dom mess http://meodai.ch/stackoverflow/nifty.png nifty dom mess

There are a few other but i think they are not mentionable at this place.

As you can see they are adding a lot of elements to your dom. This can cause trouble if you want to add rounded corners to a huge amount of elements. It can make some older browser / computers crash. For the shadows its pretty much the same problem. There is a jQuery plugin that handles shadows on boxes and fonts: http://dropshadow.webvex.limebits.com/

My conclusion: If i am doing a small budget job, IE users just have edges and no shadows. If the client has some money to spend, so i am doing it with CSS only and i make images for every corner. If they absolutely have to be there but there is no time or no money to do it, i use one of the mentioned JS Scripts DD_roundies with preference. Now its up to you.

PS: IE users are used to ugly interfaces, they don't gonna see that the corners and shadows are missing anyway :P

Answer 4

Check out this post: http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2010/04/28/css3-solutions-for-internet-explorer/

It covers specifically rounded corners and box shadow for CSS3 in IE7/8.