HTML5/CSS3 graphic enhancement: buttons, inputs

DrABELL

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23 Feb 2015CPOL3 min read

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Aesthetic enhancement of HTML5 web elements via pure CSS3; no image files required

Introduction

The solution described in this article serves both practical and didactic purposes. This popular Electrical Engineering Calculator VOLTA demonstrates HTML5/CSS3 styling technique, which does not require any graphic files like .jpg or .png, etc. All aesthetic enhancements, like:

rounded corners
color gradients (in particular, color-stop property)
borders
shadows

are achieved exclusively via CSS3 styling, resulting in very small digital footprint and fast web page load. Following Demo and sample code snippets demonstrate aforementioned HTML5/CSS3 styling technique applied to the core elements of online calculator, i.e. input, button and div elements. The solution implements client-side jQuery scripting, making it rather universal, capable of running in off-line standalone mode (without Internet connectivity).

Demo screenshots

Following are sample screenshots of online Engineering Calculator utilizing aforementioned HTML5/CSS3 graphic enhancements (sample images pertain to the original VOLTA-2011 and subsequent versions including VOLTA-2013, etc.)

Calculator VOLTA-2013, landscape layout adapted for 16:9 display aspect ratio

Calculator VOLTA-2013, landscape layout, rounded corners achieved via CSS3 styling

Another screenshot corresponding to the "light" background (dynamically loaded CSS3) follows:

Calculator VOLTA with "light" background CSS3 styling

Adapted for smartphone, vertically extended version of the Electrical Engineering Calculator showing standard E-Series (E24)

Engineering Calculator with dynamically extented panel showing additional engineering and scientific functions.

Aesthetic HTML5 Button elements

Note: All aesthetic enhancements are achieved via pure HTML5/CSS3 styling; project does not use any graphic/image files.

Listing 1. HTML 5 Button and Input elements styling via pure CSS (no graphical files)

XML

<!DOCTYPE HTML>
<html>
 <head>
    <title>AESTHETIC BUTTONS | HTML5, CSS3</title>
    <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1" />
    <meta http-equiv="Author" content="Alexander Bell" />
    <meta http-equiv="Copyright" content="2011 Alexander Bell" />
    <meta http-equiv="Expires" content="0" />
    <meta http-equiv="Cache-control" content="no-cache">
    <meta name="Robots" content="all" />
    <meta name="Distribution" content="global" />
    <meta name="Keywords" content="HTML5, CSS3, Buttons, CalculatorS " />
    <meta name="Description" content ="Aesthetic buttons with Gradient and Rounded Corners, HTML5, CSS3" />
   <!--CSS-->
   <style type="text/css">
    input
    {
        width:80px;
        height: 60px;
        line-height:60px;
        vertical-align:middle;
        margin: 0px;
        padding: 0px;
        cursor: pointer;
        cursor: hand;
        font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Verdana, Calibri;
        font-size: 28pt;
        text-align: center;
        background:#404040;
        border: 2px solid #ababab;
        color: #dadada;
        -moz-border-radius: 10px;
        -webkit-border-radius: 10px;
        border-radius: 10px;
    }
    input:hover  { font-weight:bold;}
    input:active { border: 2px; }
 
    .btnType1{
        background: -moz-linear-gradient(top, #707070, #505050 48%, #bababa 50%, #303030 52%, #101010);
        background: -webkit-gradient(linear, center top, center bottom, from(#707070), color-stop(0.48, #505050), color-stop(0.5, #bababa ), color-stop(0.52, #303030), to(#101010));
    }
    .btnType2{
        background: -moz-linear-gradient(top, #dadada, #505050 5%, #bababa 50%, #bababa 50%, #303030 52%, #101010);
        background: -webkit-gradient(linear, center top, center bottom, from(#707070), color-stop(0.48, #505050), color-stop(0.5, #bababa ), color-stop(0.52, #303030), to(#101010));
    }
    .btnType3{
        background: -moz-linear-gradient(top, #dadada, #707070 5%, #515151 50%, #bababa 50%, #303030 52%, #101010);
        background: -webkit-gradient(linear, center top, center bottom, from(#707070), color-stop(0.48, #505050), color-stop(0.5, #bababa ), color-stop(0.52, #303030), to(#101010));
    }
    .btnType4{
       color:#505050;
       background: -moz-linear-gradient(top, #f0f0f0, #bababa 10%, #cacaca 46%, #909090 48%, #dadada 52%, #cacaca 54%, #cacaca 90%, #ababab);
       background: -webkit-gradient(linear, center top, center bottom, from(#f0f0f0), color-stop(0.1, #bababa ), color-stop(0.46, #cacaca), color-stop(0.48, #909090), color-stop(0.52, #dadada ), color-stop(0.54, #cacaca), color-stop(0.90, #cacaca), to(#ababab));
    }
    .btnType5{
        color:#505050;
        background: -moz-linear-gradient(top, #f0f0f0, #cacaca 48%, #707070 50%, #cacaca 52%, #fafafa);
        background: -webkit-gradient(linear, center top, center bottom, from(#f0f0f0), color-stop(0.48, #cacaca), color-stop(0.5, #707070 ), color-stop(0.52, #cacaca), to(#fafafa));
    }
    .divClear { clear:both;}
   </style>
  </head>
  <body>
    <input type ="button" button value="A" class="btnType1" />
    <input type ="button" button value="L" class="btnType1" />
    <input type ="button" button value="E" class="btnType1" />
    <input type ="button" button value="X" class="btnType1" />
    <input type ="button" button value="A" class="btnType1" />
    <input type ="button" button value="N" class="btnType1" />
    <input type ="button" button value="D" class="btnType1" />
    <input type ="button" button value="E" class="btnType1" />
    <input type ="button" button value="R" class="btnType1" />
    <div class="divClear"></div>
    <input type ="button" button value="B" class="btnType2" />
    <input type ="button" button value="E" class="btnType2" />
    <input type ="button" button value="L" class="btnType3" />
    <input type ="button" button value="L" class="btnType3" />
    <input type ="button" button value="2" class="btnType4" />
    <input type ="button" button value="0" class="btnType4" />
    <input type ="button" button value="1" class="btnType5" />
    <input type ="button" button value="1" class="btnType5" />
 </body>
</html>

Design Notes

The box shadow effect could be achieved by using the following CSS code block shown in Listing 2:

Listing 2. Box Shadow effect using CSS

CSS

/* add shadows */
-moz-box-shadow: 5px 5px 10px rgba(0,0,0,0.3);
-webkit-box-shadow: 5px 5px 10px rgba(0,0,0,0.3);
box-shadow: 5px 5px 10px rgba(0,0,0,0.3);

Adding Tooltips. Further enhancement could be achieved by adding the context-sensitive help (a.k.a. Tooltips) to the buttons by using HTML elements "abbr" or "acronym". In this case no any Javascript is needed; the pop-up text will correspond to the title attribute of the abbr tag. Listing 3 demonstrates the sample implementation of this feature, pertinent to the Calculator Volta 2011

Listing 3

htm

<nav>
    <menu id="menu1" class="oscMenu">
    <li>
        <a href="http://www.webinfocentral.com" title="Return to the front page">HOME</a>
    </li>
    <li id="active">
        <a href="http://webinfocentral.com/VOLTA/Manual.aspx" title="Read Instruction online">INSTRUCTION</a>
    </li>
    </menu>
</nav>

Points of Interest

Browser compatibility

Online Calculator Volta is compatible with all major Web Browsers that support HTML5, CSS3 and jQuery version(s) 2.0x

Mozilla FireFox v.23+
Google Chrome v.28+
Safari v.6+
IE9+
Opera v.15+

Desktop version

The first desktop version of the Engineering Calculator software was created as a contest submission via direct conversion tool (HTML5 into Windows application) provided by Intel Corporation during the Ultrabooks Application Innovation Contest (AIC 2012). It was placed at the Intel's online App store for some time.

Much better results were achieved by completely re-programming the app using Microsoft .NET framework (WPF/XAML/C#) in Visual Studio 2010.

Demo screenshot: Calculator Volta-814D for Windows implements border-less WPF window with graphic enhancements via XAML, similar to the original online version utilizing HTML5/CSS3

History

Dec 2010: Scientific Calculator ZENO-5000 has been released (HTML5 web app)
Feb 2011: Online Electrical Engineering Calculator Volta-2011 has been released (HTML5)
Mar 2012: Calculator VOLTA-2011 has been tested on newly released Apple iPad
Oct 2012: Calculator Volta-2013 submitted to AppInnovation contest (app submission winner)
Jan 2013: Calculator Volta-814D for Windows has been released
Apr 2013: Online Calculator VOLTA was tested on Azure platform [7]

References

Scientific Calculator ZENO-5000

License

This article, along with any associated source code and files, is licensed under The Code Project Open License (CPOL)