Appearance-wise, I am struggling to use CSS to create buttons for forms that will look ok cross-platform and be consistent with each other without using images. Is there such a thing? I just need add/delete/cancel/validate buttons for my form, but I’d like them to be uniform, and ideally work cross platform whether they are submit inputs, buttons, or links.
I really don’t want to fiddle in Photoshop though.
I found this resource on Rediscovering the Button Element (archive.org), which shows it can be done with CSS and an image gallery for designers who don’t want to create their own.
The solution looks ok, but there are complaints about what IE submits in the postdata in the comments, and about how IE renders the buttons in IE 6. How can I get around the issues with IE6?
There are a few options, one being color gradients. There is a way to do it in “The Big Three” (Firefox, Chrome/Safari, IE), and you can find a great example here.
A second option is to use jQuery UI, and that is a nice way that tends to be cross-browser safe, but the drawback is that it can be a lot to include for buttons.
The last option would be to use images as the background, but that can be a bit tricky in IE, or at least that I’ve found.