When and how are resources referenced in Stylesheets loaded?

Hello all,

I've been thinking about the URIs in stylesheets, namely of images, and
I was wondering about how they are requested from the server.

I've come up with the following possibilities, but I can't find the part
of the CSS spec that says when they do... anybody out there know for a
fact? Or is it time to do some empirical testing?

1. Browser requests the resource and stores a local copy when it reaches
the URI in the stylesheet... uses the copy for applications of the style
to the page

2. Browser requests the resource and stores a local copy when it first
applies the appropriate style to the page... uses the copy for
subsequent applications to the page

3. Browser requests the resource each time it needs to apply the style
to the page...

This would have particular ramifications for styles applied to LI tags,
or for people making use of the :hover pseudo-class to implement rollovers

Any comments would be most welcome.

Many thanks,

Dan

Dan Rumney wrote:

Hello all,

I've been thinking about the URIs in stylesheets, namely of images, and
I was wondering about how they are requested from the server.

I've come up with the following possibilities, but I can't find the part
of the CSS spec that says when they do... anybody out there know for a
fact? Or is it time to do some empirical testing?

1. Browser requests the resource and stores a local copy when it reaches
the URI in the stylesheet... uses the copy for applications of the style
to the page

2. Browser requests the resource and stores a local copy when it first
applies the appropriate style to the page... uses the copy for
subsequent applications to the page

3. Browser requests the resource each time it needs to apply the style
to the page...

This would have particular ramifications for styles applied to LI tags,
or for people making use of the :hover pseudo-class to implement rollovers

Any comments would be most welcome.

Browsers differ. Firefox and Opera seem to store a copy, while some
versions of IE keeps requesting it again and again.
I've seen it in my logs, when I had background images applied to
a:hover. The weird thing was, that not every IE6 did that. But plenty
did, and I don't know if it's a difference in browsersetting, or that
some IE6 visitors just never hovered over the navigation. (unlikely,
as they did navigate). Never seen any other browser than IE do it
though.

--
Els http://locusmeus.com/
Sonhos vem. Sonhos vão. O resto é imperfeito.
- Renato Russo -
Now playing: Paula Abdul - Opposites Attract