How to use css linear gradients in IE10?

Question

In IE10, I am trying to create a css linear gradient, from the top of the page to the bottom of the page. This is what I have so far

<!DOCTYPE HTML> 
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
    <head>
        <title>Test</title>
    </head>
    <body>

        <meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="IE=10">
        <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8" />

        <script type='text/javascript' src='./includes/js/jquery-2.0.0.min.js'></script>
        <link rel='stylesheet' type='text/css' href='./includes/css/css.css'/>




        <p id="title">
            Test
        </p>


    </body>
</html>

css

body {
    margin: 0px; 
    padding: 0px;
    background-image: linear-gradient(to bottom, #dcdcdc 0%, #b0b0b0 100%);
}



#title {
    color:red;
}

But it doesn't look the way I want it to look. This ends up with linear gradients that's about the height of 100px, then keeps repeating downwards. Similar to this image:

enter image description here

Does anyone know whats wrong?

Does your page body have any content? Perhaps you'll want to provide an actual rendering screenshot of what you see with that CSS (and the markup being used). — BoltClock
yes it does, but the css is in the body tag, which means it should cover the whole page, right? Currently it is covering the whole page, but it repeats in heights of about 100px. — omega
Well, gradients can behave oddly when applied to body and this behavior often depends on body dimensions, which usually means content. I'll need to see it live so I can determine what exactly is causing the repetition. — BoltClock

BoltClock BoltClock · Accepted Answer · 2013-04-24T01:03:39

This is not an issue with IE10 alone; in fact, it's by design.

Backgrounds have special behavior when applied to body and/or html. When you apply a background to body without touching html, what happens is that the body background gets propagated to the viewport, and that background acts as if it were declared on html:

For documents whose root element is an HTML HTML element or an XHTML html element: if the computed value of ‘background-image’ on the root element is ‘none’ and its ‘background-color’ is ‘transparent’, user agents must instead propagate the computed values of the background properties from that element's first HTML BODY or XHTML body child element. The used values of that BODY element's background properties are their initial values, and the propagated values are treated as if they were specified on the root element.

Even though it appears otherwise, the html and body elements don't actually start with an intrinsic 100% height (except in IE in quirks mode); rather they take the height of their contents, just like any other block boxes. This means html is the same height as the combined height of your p element and its default margins (which are collapsed with the body element).

While gradient backgrounds are designed to stretch across the full height and width by default, the actual height of html doesn't allow enough room for a gradient to cover the entire viewport by itself, so it only stretches to a certain height before it starts repeating. AFAIK, this behavior is consistent across all browsers that implement gradients according to the latest standard.

If you want to make the gradient stretch across the whole viewport even if there isn't enough content for the whole page, simply add this rule:

html {
    min-height: 100%;
}

If you want, you can move the background styles from body to html as well, but as long as you only set a background on one of those elements at a time, it doesn't make a difference which one you apply it to.

How to use css linear gradients in IE10?

2 Answers