!important Fixed in Later IE7 Releases
By Molly E. Holzschlag | February 3rd, 2006 | Filed in Browsers, Bugs, CSS, Microsoft
Skip to comment formIt was brought to my attention today that the IE7 Beta 2 Preview wasn’t honoring the role of the !important declaration and as such was causing alternative box model hacks to fail.
!important is important for several important reasons. First is the very reason !important exists, which is to provide a balance between author and user styles. It has been part of CSS since CSS 1.0, although implemented differently back then.
The other important reason !important is so important in current practices is because it plays a role in 2 of the 3 Alternate Box Model Hacks outlined by Edwardson Tan.
The hacks in question work when the browser interprets CSS properly, and filters correct information to certain browsers that do not. Ingo Chao has documented why this now fails in the current IE7 Beta 2 Preview.
The good news today is that the IE team has in fact fixed the way IE handles !important in all future builds beyond the IE7 Beta 2 Preview.
So worry not, my important friends, we’ll soon have an IE that understands just how important !important is.
Note: I apologize if any “importants” were inadvertently left out of this message. I assure you that I didn’t mean to suggest they were not (!) important.