Mid Pass Filter: Toward a Hackless Future

Just recently, Tantek revealed his Mid Pass Filter — a handy way of sending IE5.x/Win external CSS styles that all other browsers will ignore. Pretty neat.

I’ve read a few comments regarding the method, which complain of its somewhat messy syntax. My first reply would be “isn’t any hack is somewhat messy?”, but more important is the concept — keeping all IE5.x hacks in one file makes for a nice tidy cleanup when these browsers reach the Netscape 4.x threshold.

This of course could be years down the road, but I like the idea of keeping standards-compliant CSS completely separate from the various hacks that are often necessary to render a design in 2003.

The more methods that use this separation, the better. Imagine a time when getting your CSS 100% hackless is only a matter of removing the import of a single file that’s merely filled with all those old hacks. It’s a nice idea, anyway.