I was reading that in CSS, the users "! important" declaration takes precedence, in CSS1, its the authors, and in CSS2, it goes back to the user.

So, where is the CSS type established? Is it in my browser, or in the webpage itself? How could I determine, while at a website, which CSS version is being used?

Thanks all; Artie

Oh geez, I was just starting to understand CSS basics, and now I read your post.

I didn't even know there was a CSS1 and CSS2.

I'm going back to bed....

The user agent (ie the browser) determines which version of CSS is used. If a browser doesn't support an aspect of CSS2 it ignores it.

To answer your question, you don't specify which "type" of CSS you use, unlike HTML, which you do specify.

The way to determine what is being used is to look at a stylesheet and determine which CSS rules are CSS2. If you can be bothered. Which I can't. :D

Thanks Zopester; that info helps. The reason this came up is, there's a couple of forums I frequent that use God-awful default colors. I thought this would be a good opportunity to experiment with user-side css style sheets, to cutomize the look of the site.

The problem is, some of my settings seem to work - others don't. There doesn't seem to be any ryhme or reason why some do and some don't. Further more, the way the site looks in IE6 is completely different than the way it looks in Opera 7, while using the same local style sheet.

Standards . . . my kingdom for some standards! :D

There are standards - lots of standards! And so many to choose from! :rolleyes:

There's a CSS1 and a CSS2, and several modules of CSS3...but I can't figure out the usage (basically...when can we start using CSS3)? It will probably be a few months after a working recommendation is announced; but since they're now announcing modules, rather than the entire spec...ugh.

And I was really looking forward to autoflowing CSS columns.

CSS would be great if every browser used the same rules. Because of it I have to always use a limited set of attributes.

There's ways and means round everything. People go on (not in this thread, but generally) about CSS being tough because every browser understands it differently like that's a new thing in web design! We were doing that with tables for years!! :)

artied2, specifying !important should work in most cases in your user stylesheet. Though it might be wise to consult the great Mr Meyer (http://www.meyerweb.com/) on this.

living_media, CSS3 won't be fully supported for a very, very very long time. Internet Explorer doesn't fully support CSS2 and even has problems with simple CSS1! And as the next IE release is scheduled to be with Longhorn - that most vaporous of vaporware! - we won't be seeing significant improvement for a good many years yet.