I noticed that when I go to the actual CSS validation home page, It has an option where it is possible to select CSS 3 validation. If they have the option on that page, I reckon the validator should automatically use CSS 3 validation when when it detects CSS 3 propertys.

BTW, I have read both your DWWS books and I think they are great!

Text-shadow is a proposed CSS3 property. Apple’s Safari browser supports it, so Safari users (a fair-sized chunk of this site’s readership) get an ever-so-slightly enhanced layout effect when viewing these pages.

Because text-shadow is still just a proposed property, the W3C CSS validation service does not recognize it. When the W3C CSS validation service does not recognize a property, attribute, or value, it flags it as an error. That’s a reasonable thing for the validator to do. Most such occurrences are indeed errors.

But in this case, I’ve written the text-shadow property and its values correctly per CSS3 specs. If the validation service grokked CSS3, no error would be reported.

I’m not saying that the W3C CSS validation service should understand CSS3, I’m just explaining why its “error” message in this case does not worry me, and does not prevent me from using text-shadow.

I noticed that when I use the CSS validity check link at the bottom of this site’s pages, the CSS is not valid because of the text-shadow rule.

I thought you might want to know.