thanks ricardo. you definitely understand specificity. your links confirm: "A style that is designated as important will win out over contradictory styles of otherwise equal weight."
and, if styles of equal weight both use !important, "the last rule specified wins." http://www.htmlhelp.com/reference/css/structure.html#cascade but, as this thread has shown, id's + !important ensure the widget-css will almost always win (in the widget), and NEVER affect the site. no response i've seen in this thread has swayed me from my view that, in most cases, !important in widget-css is safe for the site, simple to use, and nearly infallible. 'nuff said. ------------ p.s. your link offers a scenario in which you might want to AVOID ! important: "!important rules will override normal rules (in the browser-css), so authors are advised to use normal rules almost exclusively to ensure that users with special style needs are able to read the page." i don't agree-- i'm not going to sacrifice site richness and functionality for normal readers to accommodate special readers-- instead, i would provide alternate accessible pages for special readers, and go to town on my normal pages. (but that's a chat for another day).
