I've heard a lot of arguments for and against the CSS reset file and most recently had a short conversation with Jonathan Snook about it. He's seemed to be avidly against the use of a reset file due to the extra code you need to make it happen. As a CSS person, I like dumping as much stuff as I can into my CSS rather than javaScript, so I'm all for reseting the crappy browser defaults.

After I read Andy Clarke's Transcending CSS about 6 months ago I started using the one he has in the book. And then Eric Meyer released a version on his blog. Ever since then I've been using a hybrid of the two and I added a little extra in there for myself.

Eric and Andy's reset files don't include reset rules for the HR element, rightfully so; it's damn near impossible to get it right since IE treats it weird (try it, you'll see). So I added the HR into my version of the reset file, it's not perfect, but I think its better than the default value... and really...how often do you use a horizontal rule? I rarely do.

So today I was poking around my reset file and decided to remove some of the absurd elements that I've never used but somehow found their way into my reset file, like q, var and dfn. I have never once used those elements; so I took them out, slimmed down the file a little and thought I'd FINALLY release it. So here it is:

/**
* reset browser defaults
----------------------------------*/
body,div,dl,dt,dd,ul,ol,
li,h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6,
pre,form,fieldset,p,
blockquote,th,td          {margin:0;padding:0;}
body                      {line-height:1;color:#121212;background:#fff;}
h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6,p       {font-size:100%;font-weight:400;}
ol,ul                     {list-style:none;}
caption,cite,code,th      {font-style:normal;font-weight:400;}
fieldset,img              {border:0;}
caption,th                {text-align:left;}
:focus                    {outline:1px dotted #eee;}
table                     {border-collapse:collapse;border-spacing:0;}
hr                        {border:0;border-top:1px solid #555;margin:0;height:1px;}