Use of unknown?

[Samuël van Laere]

Dear reader,

I've got multiple questions dealing with unknowns.
First of al: I don't use any unknowns myself, though i haven't got a clue
what they do to begin with.
But i do find them in lots of stylesheets, sometimes in large quantities.
So can someone shine some light on this and explain what its for? :

A:active {
color: #6699ff
}
A:unknown {
color: #6699ff
}

Whats the point of using unknowns in stylesheets?
Is it useful to begin with?
If so what will it do?
Which browsers uses them or perhaps need them?

As allways, thanks in advance.


Regards,
Samuël van Laere
the Lowlands (Holland)

 

[Roy Schestowitz]

Dear reader,

I've got multiple questions dealing with unknowns.
First of al: I don't use any unknowns myself, though i haven't got a clue
what they do to begin with.
But i do find them in lots of stylesheets, sometimes in large quantities.
So can someone shine some light on this and explain what its for? :

A:active {
color: #6699ff
}
A:unknown {
color: #6699ff
}

Whats the point of using unknowns in stylesheets?
Is it useful to begin with?
If so what will it do?
Which browsers uses them or perhaps need them?

As allways, thanks in advance.


Regards,
Samuël van Laere
the Lowlands (Holland)

Even search engined could not find an answer; only similar ananswered
questions.

It is probably an arcane thing that will never be picked up by browsers.
Perhaps if none of the other A:xx categories is matched, unknown will be
used, as a 'safety net'.

Roy

 

[Neal]

First of al: I don't use any unknowns myself,

Excellent. Keep it that way!

though i haven't got a clue
what they do to begin with.

Nor do I. Read on...

But i do find them in lots of stylesheets, sometimes in large quantities.

Can you provide examples?

A:unknown {
color: #6699ff
}

http://www.w3.org/TR/CSS2/selector.html#pseudo-elements

This is not part of official CSS.

Whats the point of using unknowns in stylesheets?
Is it useful to begin with?
If so what will it do?

It should do nothing, being an invalid pseudo. Of course, some browser
someplace may use it, but it's hardly useful in a WWW context. So pretend
you never saw it.

 

[Samuël van Laere]

Can you provide examples?

Well no.
I'm suspecting IE6 now
Some websites have example/demo pages showing all kinds of css stuff.
The pages that i like i usually save local to study later.
Now for what ever reason IE (sometimes) writes addtional information to the
css file:
the css file on the server doesn't contain any class/id:unknown lines, where
the saved file does.

So here's another reason not to use IE
Are there any more?


Regards,
Samuël

 

[brucie]

In alt.html Samuël van Laere said:

I'm suspecting IE6 now

nope, i went and had a look and :unknown isn't one of their pseudos.

could it just be a typo for .unknown

 

[Andrew Urquhart]

In alt.html Samuël van Laere said:

nope, i went and had a look and :unknown isn't one of their pseudos.
could it just be a typo for .unknown

G'day,

focus pseudos turn out as unknown in IE6, as do attribute selectors.