Safari 4+, Chrome 1+, Firefox 3.6+, and Opera 11.10+ are all now supporting CSS3 gradients. This wide browser support makes using them for progressive enhancement all the more appealing. More good news, CSS3 gradients fall into the camp where you can specify fallbacks (i.e. images) so that browsers that don’t support them just use the image instead.

But wait… if you need to use an image anyway, why bother with declaring the gradient with CSS? That is kind of how I felt for a long time, but there is one important aspect that makes it worth it: browsers that support them don’t load the image fallback. One less HTTP Request = all the faster your site will load.

How it’s done

Cutting to the chase, here is the CSS for the most simple possible top-to-bottom linear gradient:

.gradient-bg {
/* fallback/image non-cover color */
background-color: #1a82f7;

/* fallback image */
background-image: url(images/fallback-gradient.png);

/* Safari 4+, Chrome 1-9 */
background-image: -webkit-gradient(linear, 0% 0%, 0% 100%, from(#2F2727), to(#1a82f7));

/* Safari 5.1+, Mobile Safari, Chrome 10+ */
background-image: -webkit-linear-gradient(top, #2F2727, #1a82f7);

/* Firefox 3.6+ */
background-image: -moz-linear-gradient(top, #2F2727, #1a82f7);

/* IE 10+ */
background-image: -ms-linear-gradient(top, #2F2727, #1a82f7);

/* Opera 11.10+ */
background-image: -o-linear-gradient(top, #2F2727, #1a82f7);
}

You could add the non-prefixed version too, but since that’s not yet supported in anything I typically opt out of that, in case there are last minute changes to spec.

And once more with better formatting and without the comments:

.gradient-bg {
   background-color: #1a82f7; 
   background-image: url(images/fallback-gradient.png); 
   background-image: -webkit-gradient(linear, 0% 0%, 0% 100%, from(#2F2727), to(#1a82f7));
   background-image: -webkit-linear-gradient(top, #2F2727, #1a82f7); 
   background-image:    -moz-linear-gradient(top, #2F2727, #1a82f7);
   background-image:     -ms-linear-gradient(top, #2F2727, #1a82f7);
   background-image:      -o-linear-gradient(top, #2F2727, #1a82f7);
}

Demo