Slightly ajar

While at the Web App Summit yesterday, I was sitting next to Jeremy Keith and mentioned I was quite tired as we were racing with WebKit to become the first browser to pass Acid 3. Jeremy then posted the following fairly humorous Twitter post (edited for more family friendly language):

Suggesting to David Storey that, instead of bickering with Webkit about acid3, they just whip out their [male body parts] and start measuring. - Jeremy Keith

Eric Meyer replied on Twitter with the following:

@adactio +1 on that. Not only would it be as productive and relevant, but also would be done right away. Plus they could sell the video. - Eric Meyer

Firstly, it would be anatomically impossible for our female developers to do this. More seriously, I'd have to disagree with Eric's reply. The extent of our bickering with WebKit is pushing each other to pass Acid 3 quicker. This can only be a good thing. You could argue how relevant the tests are in the Acid tests, but that we are both committed to improving our standards support is only a good thing (and much better than measuring things).

I'm not quite sure how making sure we have support for the likes of RGBA, HSLA and Web Fonts, while ensuring at least some support for SVG. These are quite important web standards. When IE finally supports Acid 3, we'll actually be able to start looking at using SVG in real web sites.

One of the things this test shows (as well as Acid 2) is that developers love competition. I think this is human nature. It is much more motivating to fix difficult issues, if there is a test to pass with a success criteria. Becoming the first team to pass that test is something to be proud of. As people are competing, issues in the spec are often found and fixed faster too. I'm really glad Opera and Apple are going toe to toe improving standards support. I just wish it had some of my favorite standards that I want to be supported: the various properties from the CSS3 backgrounds and borders module (although the spec isn't finalised yet), and SVG as a CSS background-image.

Currently WebKit and Opera only have performance issues left, so any further progress wont benefit standards so much, but I wish Mozilla and Microsoft luck on passing the DM and rendering test. Maybe Mozilla nad Microsoft can have their own personal duel together.

On the video comment, Opera supports Ogg Theora, while WebKit supports Quicktime in the HTML5 video element, so the videos would be incompatible anyway

We've just released information that Opera has overtaken Safari in its Acid3 score. The current score is now 98%, to Safari's 96%. I'd not be surprised if it improves further in the near future. This work is being carried out in a post Core-2.1 build, that most likely wont be included in Kestrel. Check out Anne VK's blog, or CSS3.info for some more information as it comes in.

Update: Working into the night, our core developers have fixed the final 2%, making Opera the first browser to reach 100% in the DOM tests. The test hasn't been passed yet as there are some rendering issues, and it hasn't been released in a public build yet. That experimental build should be released on Opera Labs in the near future.