With so many new trends advancing every year it can be difficult keeping up with the industry. Website designers and frontend developers have been deeply ingrained into the newer CSS3 properties, determining the ultimate browser support and quirky hacks. But there are also brilliant CSS2 code snippets which have been unrequited in comparison.

For this article I want to present 10 handy CSS2/CSS3 code snippets for any web professional. These are perfect for storing in your development IDE of choice, or even keeping them saved in a small CSS file. Either way I am sure designers & developers can find some use for some of the snippets in this collection.

21. Fancy Ampersand

.amp {
  font-family: Baskerville, "Goudy Old Style", Palatino, "Book Antiqua", serif;
  font-style: italic;
  font-weight: normal;
}

Code Source

This class would be applied to one span element wrapped around your ampersand character in page content. It will apply some classic serif fonts and use italics to enhance the ampersand symbol. Try it out on a demo webpage and see how you like the design.

22. Drop-Cap Paragraphs

p:first-letter {
  display: block;
  margin: 5px 0 0 5px;
  float: left;
  color: #ff3366;
  font-size: 5.4em;
  font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;
}

Typically you’ll notice dropped capitals appear in printed mediums, such as newspapers and books. However this can also be a neat effect in webpages or blogs where there is enough extra room in the layout. This CSS rule is targeting all paragraphs but you may limit this based on a single class or ID.

23. Inner CSS3 Box Shadow

#mydiv {
  -moz-box-shadow: inset 2px 0 4px #000;
  -webkit-box-shadow: inset 2px 0 4px #000;
  box-shadow: inset 2px 0 4px #000;
}

The box shadow property has offered immense changes into how we build websites. You can portray box shadows on nearly any element, and they all generally look great. This piece of code will force inner shadows which is a lot harder to design around, but in the right cases it looks pristine.

24. Outer CSS3 Box Shadow

#mydiv {
  -webkit-box-shadow: 0 2px 2px -2px rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.52);
  -moz-box-shadow: 0 2px 2px -2px rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.52);
  box-shadow: 0 2px 2px -2px rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.52);
}

In relation to the inner CSS3 shadows I also want to present an outer shadow code snippet. Note the 3rd number in our syntax represents blur distance while the 4th number represents the spread. You can learn more about these values from W3Schools.

25. Triangular List Bullets

ul {
  margin: 0.75em 0;
  padding: 0 1em;
  list-style: none;
}
li:before {
  content: "";
  border-color: transparent #111;
  border-style: solid;
  border-width: 0.35em 0 0.35em 0.45em;
  display: block;
  height: 0;
  width: 0;
  left: -1em;
  top: 0.9em;
  position: relative;
}

Code Source

Believe it or not it is actually possible to generate triangle-shaped bullets solely in CSS3. This is a really cool technique which does look awesome in respected browsers. The only potential issue is a major lack of support for fallback methods.

26. Centered Layout Fixed Width

#page-wrap {
  width: 800px;
  margin: 0 auto;
}

Code Source

I know earlier it was mentioned how to setup horizontal positioning. I want to jump back in with this quick snippet for horizontal positioning, which is perfect to be used on fixed-width layouts.

27. CSS3 Column Text

#columns -3 {
  text-align: justify;
  -moz-column-count: 3;
  -moz-column-gap: 12px;
  -moz-column-rule: 1px solid #c4c8cc;
  -webkit-column-count: 3;
  -webkit-column-gap: 12px;
  -webkit-column-rule: 1px solid #c4c8cc;
}

Code Source

CSS3 columns would be nice to see in website layouts, but the reality is how we can split up text based on column styles. Use this snippet to place any number of columns inline with your paragraphs, where text will split evenly based on your column number.

28. CSS Fixed Footer

#footer {
  position: fixed;
  left: 0px;
  bottom: 0px;
  height: 30px;
  width: 100%;
  background: #444;
} /* IE 6 */
* html #footer {
  position: absolute;
  top: expression(
    (
        0- (footer.offsetHeight)+ (
            document.documentElement.clientHeight ?
              document.documentElement.clientHeight: document.body.clientHeight
          )+
          (
            ignoreMe = document.documentElement.scrollTop ?
              document.documentElement.scrollTop: document.body.scrollTop
          )
      )+ "px"
  );
}

Code Source

This is actually a lot more useful than it sounds, but appending a fixed footer into your website is quite simple. These footers will scroll with the user and may contain helpful information about your site or unique contact details. Ideally this would only be implemented in cases where it truly adds value to the user interface.

29. Transparent PNG Fix for IE6

.bg {
  width: 200px;
  height: 100px;
  background: url (/ folder/yourimage.png) no-repeat;
  _background: none;
  _filter: progid:DXImageTransform.Microsoft.AlphaImageLoader(src= '/folder/yourimage.png' ,sizingMethod= 'crop' );
} /* 1px gif method */
img,
.png {
  position: relative;
  behavior: expression(
    (this.runtimeStyle.behavior= "none") &&(
        this.pngSet?this.pngSet=true: (
          this.nodeName == "IMG" && this.src.toLowerCase() .indexOf(".png") > -1
            ?(
              this.runtimeStyle.backgroundImage = "none",
              this.runtimeStyle.filter =
                "progid:DXImageTransform.Microsoft.AlphaImageLoader(src='" +
                this.src + "', sizingMethod='image')",
              this.src = "images/transparent.gif"
            ):
            (
              this.origBg = this.origBg? this.origBg:
                this.currentStyle.backgroundImage.toString() .replace(
                  'url("',
                  ""
                )
                .replace('")', ""),
              this.runtimeStyle.filter =
                "progid:DXImageTransform.Microsoft.AlphaImageLoader(src='" +
                this.origBg + "', sizingMethod='crop')",
              this.runtimeStyle.backgroundImage = "none"
            )
        ),
        this.pngSet=true
      )
  );
}

Code Source

Using transparent images inside websites has become a very common practice. This started with gif images, but has evolved into alpha-transparent PNGs. Unfortunately older legacy versions of Internet Explorer have never supported the transparency. Adding this brief CSS snippet should clear up the problem.

30. Cross-Browser Minimum Height

#container {
  min-height: 550px;
  height: auto !important ;
  height: 550px;
}

Developers who have needed to work with min-height know all about the shady support. Many newer browsers can handle this perfectly, however Internet Explorer and older versions of Firefox do have trouble. This set of codes should provide a fix to any related bugs.

Final Thoughts

The frontend style language for websites has grown into a majority controller on the World Wide Web. The W3C has put out public specs for HTML5 and CSS3, deeming them as the default languages for constructing websites. Both experienced and new developers should be able to enjoy this collection and hopefully find some useful codes.

All readers should be able to copy and save any of these snippets without a required attribution. Mostly all CSS codes released today are held under open source licenses and offered free, based on the publication. If you have thoughts or questions about this collection feel free to share with us in the comments discussion area below.