Get current style using MSHTML in C#

Question

I want to use MSHTML to get the style of an html element.

What I want is the computed style but without all the default values. (only the ones that are set in the html and css)

MSHTML has 3 types of styles that I have seen so far style, currentStyle, and runtimeStyle.

style and runtimeStyle only has the inline styles and current Style has everything including inherited and default styles.

Is there a way to get the currently set style (inline, external and internal css) but without all the inherited and default values?

There has got to be a way to do this, the IE developer toolbar seems to know which styles are inherited from where.

Answer 1

When you say you want to exclude "default" and/or inherited properties as opposed to inline, external and internal css that is not entirely correct phrasing since default properties are set through user-agent css.

I'd imagine one way to filter "default" properties from explicitly applied ones would be to compare at runtime an element as rendered on a page with css/inline style vs. that same element rendered in the same DOM structure without external CSS and with inline styles stripped; maybe inside a hidden iframe etc. Does that make sense?

Depending on your comfort level, you could have some luck looking into Firebug Lite sources.