Important: This is a preliminary document for an API or technology in development. Although this document has been reviewed for technical accuracy, it is not final. Apple is supplying this information to help you plan for the adoption of the technologies and programming interfaces described herein. This information is subject to change, and software implemented according to this document should be tested with final software and final documentation. Newer versions of this document may be provided with future releases of the API or technology. For information about updates to this and other developer documentation, view the New & Updated sidebars in subsequent seeds of the Reference Library.
All Safari web browsers use the WebKit engine to display webpages. WebKit is an open source framework in Mac OS X that lets developers embed web browser functionality into applications. In providing this browser functionality, WebKit implements a number of extensions to HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. This document covers support of cascading style sheets (CSS) in WebKit.
You can use Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) in conjunction with HTML-based web content to fine-tune the style of the content. The goal of CSS is to separate the structure provided by HTML from the style provided by CSS. Taking style information out of the structure allows designers to independently tune a page’s style for a variety of audiences and readers (such as desktops, hand-held devices like iPhone, and text-based browsers).
You should read this document if you are creating web content for any version of Safari or any other WebKit-based application such as Dashboard.
This document contains the following articles:
“Explanation of Terms” explains terminology used in this reference.
“Supported CSS Properties” describes all of the CSS properties supported by Safari and provides information about which web standards (as defined by the World Wide Web Consortium, or W3C) include those properties, where applicable.
“Supported CSS Rules” describes CSS rules supported by Safari, including media rules, downloadable font rules, and so on.
“CSS Property Functions” describes functions used by CSS transform properties.
There are a variety of other resources for Safari web content developers in the ADC Reference Library.
If you are a designing web content for Safari on iPhone, then you should also read:
iPhone Human Interface Guidelines for Web Applications provides user interface guidelines for designing webpages and web applications for Safari on iPhone.
Apple URL Scheme Reference describes how to use the Phone, Mail, Text, YouTube, iTunes, and Maps applications from your webpages.
If you want to learn more about visual effects, then you should read:
Safari Visual Effects Guide describes how to use the CSS visual effects properties—the transition, animation, and transforms properties. It also covers the JavaScript APIs for handling visual effects events.
If you want to learn more about the JavaScript multi-touch event support, then you should read:
Safari DOM Extensions Reference describes the touch event classes that you use to handle multi-touch gestures in JavaScript.
If you want to use the JavaScript media APIs, then you should read:
JavaScript Scripting Guide for QuickTime describes how to use JavaScript to query and control the QuickTime plug-in directly.
If you want to learn more about what HyperText Markup Language (HTML) tags are supported in Safari, then read:
Safari HTML Reference describes the HTML elements and attributes supported by different Safari and WebKit applications.
If you are using JavaScript and want access to the DOM or use the canvas object, then read:
WebKit DOM Programming Topics describes how to use JavaScript in web content for WebKit-based applications.
WebKit DOM Reference describes the API for accessing the WebKit's Document Object Model.
If you are developing web content for Safari on the desktop and iPhone OS, then you should read:
Safari User Guide for Web Developers describes how to use the Debug menu in Safari.
Dashcode User Guide describes how to use Dashcode to create web applications.
To learn more about other web technologies available on Mac OS X that you can use to create your web applications, read Getting Started with Internet and Web.
If you want to learn more about WebKit or contribute to the open source project, then go to The WebKit Open Source Project.
If you want to read the WebKit W3C proposals then go to: http://www.webkit.org/specs.
Last updated: 2009-02-05
