- [Voiceover] Okay, so now that we know
a little bit more about about the history of CSS,
let's take a look at what's going on with it currently.
Please keep in mind that the changing nature of CSS
means that what I'm about to show you here
is likely to have changed significantly
since I recorded this movie.
So, a better way to look at
what I'm about to show you is,
it's more of a guide to finding out
what's going on with CSS
rather than a snapshot of its current state.
To get a high-level overview of what's going on with CSS
visit the W3C's cascading style sheets
current work page and how to participate.
Here, you're going to find a complete list
of all the CSS modules.
Their current state, their priority,
and a timeline for when the module
could reach recommendation status.
So, let's take a closer look at this page.
Now, the first thing you're going to notice
is that we have a list of modules and specifications
that are split into groups.
You'll notice we have
Completed, Stable, Testing, Refining, and so forth.
Now, these are ordered from most to least stable.
Listed beside the modules themselves
are their current status
and then any upcoming revisions.
If the documents are live on the W3C site,
you can simply click the status
for the latest version of that CSS specification.
Now, you might have also noticed
that out to the very far right here
we have a little information icon.
Clicking on that icon's going to take you to a
brief description of that
and then out to the right you'll see any current tests
for that specification.
You'll find a little history snapshot of the specification
which will tell you how long the specification's been around
and at what point it reached
certain recommendation statuses.
Now, to help make sense of those module status,
it helps if you know the steps the document goes through
on its way to a recommendation.
So, I'm going to go back to the document
and then, if I scroll
all the way down here towards the bottom,
I've got a nice little key down here
that explains the different colors and status codes
of the spec.
So, these documents are first published
as a public Working Draft.
Now, this is the stage where most of the collaborative work
behind the standards is done.
As the Working Draft stage comes to a close,
the standard is going to go into
what it's known as, "Last Call".
Last Call is, essentially, a way of letting people know
that the standard is about to move
to the next stage of testing.
So, any reviews, edits, or additional implementations
need to be done before the proposed deadline.
After Last Call,
the standard moves on to Candidate Recommendation.
Although the standard is considered stable at this point,
implementations are studied,
and changes can be made at this stage
if they're required.
From there, specifications move onto
the Proposed Recommendation
and publish recommendation statuses.
Using those as a guide,
it's actually pretty easy to see as we scroll through here
which modules are stable
and which ones still might see
significant changes prior to publication.
I also want to make sure
that you don't confuse a specification status
with the current state of its implementation.
Certainly, keeping track of these CSS modules
and their timelines, will give you a better idea
of which modules to focus on
as you learn CSS
versus the ones that
you can maybe put off for the near future.
However, many of the features
that are currently in working draft status
are actually further along
in terms of being implemented by browsers
than some of those that are in Candidate Recommendations.
The bottom line is that you need to keep your eye on
both what's going on with the specification
and how browsers are implementing them.
We'll discuss how to track browser implementation
a little bit later on
after we're through taking a closer look
at reading through the CSS specifications.