Gecko has a really nice css feature called -moz-element (https://developer.mozilla.org/en/CSS/-moz-element) that can be used to apply a _live_ view of a dom subtree as the background of another element.
People have done some awesome stuff with this, such as reflections, transition effects, and even recreating the blurred aero skin, by combining it with svg effects.
People have done some awesome stuff with this, such as reflections, transition effects, and even recreating the blurred aero skin, by combining it with svg effects.
http://hacks.mozilla.org/2010/08/mozelement/ https://developer.mozilla.org/media/uploads/demos/D/a/David%...
And what's even cooler, this has been added to the CSS3 draft spec, so it might actually soon be implemented in the other layout engines! http://dev.w3.org/csswg/css3-images/#element-reference