Ok, I’ve been keeping an eye on this, and with the recent preview 6, there are still some big missing pieces in their CSS3 support:
- CSS3 gradients
- Flexible box model
- Text shadow
Plus, on the JavaScript side, I have yet to be able to get any CSS transforms working, though the way to detect them seems to be:
if (document.body.style.msTransform !== 'undefined')
alert("IE9!");
In short, it seems to have relative parity with Opera 10 as far as cool-yet-useful CSS3 features. Keep going, Microsoft, I’m totally cheering for you!
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by John Wards, Dave Balmer. Dave Balmer said: Adventures with Microsoft's IE9 Preview: http://wp.me/pTyBa-1l [...]
Actually, you ought to download the Developer Preview. It’s different from the browser preview in the same way that Webkit nightlies differ from the shipping version of Safari. The IE9 Developer Preview can sometimes be unstable, but it has more features implemented than the browser preview. For example, transforms are working but require the -ms- prefix. When the IE team works out the kinks, they move the features over to the browser preview. Alas, text shadows and the flexible box model don’t look like they are going to make it in IE9, nor CSS transitions.