CSS fade out horizontal rule / line styled div effect without images

Question

I'm a big fan of minimal use of images and was wondering if anyone had a tactic (or if it's possible) to create this kind of thing with pure static CSS?

http://www.flickr.com/photos/jahimandahalf/6780397612/

I'm referring an effect of a line seemingly getting skinnier and fading out and the shadow effect underneath it.

I was thinking it might be possible to do a CSS shape trick with it like the triangles:

http://css-tricks.com/snippets/css/css-triangle/

Or perhaps with rotation on box-shadow using 'transform':

zenelements.com/blog/css3-transform/

Any ideas?

Answer 1

hr {
  height: 1px;
  margin: 50px 0;
  background: -webkit-gradient(linear, 0 0, 100% 0, from(rgba(0, 0, 0, 0)), color-stop(0.5, #333333), to(rgba(0, 0, 0, 0)));
  background: -webkit-linear-gradient(left, rgba(0, 0, 0, 0), #333333, rgba(0, 0, 0, 0));
  background: -moz-linear-gradient(left, rgba(0, 0, 0, 0), #333333, rgba(0, 0, 0, 0));
  background: -o-linear-gradient(left, rgba(0, 0, 0, 0), #333333, rgba(0, 0, 0, 0));
  background: linear-gradient(left, rgba(0, 0, 0, 0), #333333, rgba(0, 0, 0, 0));
  border: 0;
}
hr:after {
  display: block;
  content: '';
  height: 30px;
  background-image: -webkit-gradient(radial, 50% 0%, 0, 50% 0%, 116, color-stop(0%, #cccccc), color-stop(100%, rgba(255, 255, 255, 0)));
  background-image: -webkit-radial-gradient(center top, farthest-side, #cccccc 0%, rgba(255, 255, 255, 0) 100%);
  background-image: -moz-radial-gradient(center top, farthest-side, #cccccc 0%, rgba(255, 255, 255, 0) 100%);
  background-image: -o-radial-gradient(center top, farthest-side, #cccccc 0%, rgba(255, 255, 255, 0) 100%);
  background-image: radial-gradient(farthest-side at center top, #cccccc 0%, rgba(255, 255, 255, 0) 100%);
}

<hr>

Answer 2

You can use CSS3's stops and the :after pseudo-element to achieve such an effect. The trick is to add a border to the <hr> element by using the :after pseudo-element and position it in the center of the initial gradient with a soft color that ends with the gradient.

Here is a quick demo, and another demo using some color.

Answer 3

In order to reproduce that horizontal rule, you can use a CSS3 linear-gradient. Just create a div with about a 3px height and apply the following CSS (change the colors as needed):

background: #ffffff; /* Old browsers */
background: -moz-linear-gradient(left,  #ffffff 0%, #2989d8 25%, #207cca 75%, #ffffff 100%); /* FF3.6+ */
background: -webkit-gradient(linear, left top, right top, color-stop(0%,#ffffff), color-stop(25%,#2989d8), color-stop(75%,#207cca), color-stop(100%,#ffffff)); /* Chrome,Safari4+ */
background: -webkit-linear-gradient(left,  #ffffff 0%,#2989d8 25%,#207cca 75%,#ffffff 100%); /* Chrome10+,Safari5.1+ */
background: -o-linear-gradient(left,  #ffffff 0%,#2989d8 25%,#207cca 75%,#ffffff 100%); /* Opera 11.10+ */
background: -ms-linear-gradient(left,  #ffffff 0%,#2989d8 25%,#207cca 75%,#ffffff 100%); /* IE10+ */
background: linear-gradient(left,  #ffffff 0%,#2989d8 25%,#207cca 75%,#ffffff 100%); /* W3C */
filter: progid:DXImageTransform.Microsoft.gradient( startColorstr='#ffffff', endColorstr='#ffffff',GradientType=1 ); /* IE6-9 */

Keep in mind that filter does not support color stops, so you may want an image fall back for < IE10.

Build your own CSS3 gradient here: http://www.colorzilla.com/gradient-editor/