HTML/CSS IE Not displaying my dropdown menu z-index related - html

Question

For some reason I cannot display the dropdown menu on IE when I add a z-index in the header of any number. When I remove it, it works. However the dropdown then appears behind the container and content in Firefox and Chrome. So either I take it out or leave it in, I cant seem to satisfy all browsers. So i tried making a separate IE stylesheet without the z-index but that doesnt work either. I know the separate IE CSS is working because I changed the backgrounds but it uses the dropdown menu in the master stylesheet.
Website is www.stingrayimages.ca
Thank you for your help
Edit: So lets just say i got it all to work on IE since its always IE that gives the problems. But now the dropdown menu appears behind the content on other browsers like firefox and chrome. All i did was remove the z-index in the #head div. Anyway to fix the dropdown menu without adding z-index to the head div?
Edit: I got the dropdown to work on IE9 firefox and chrome. Not IE 6, it just blew up.
#head {
position:relative;
height: 140px;
width: 100%;
background: #FFF;
filter:alpha(opacity=93);
padding-top:20px;
/* CSS3 standard */
opacity:0.93;
-moz-box-shadow: 0 0 5px black;
-webkit-box-shadow: 0 0 5px black;
box-shadow: 0 0 5px black;
z-index:1;
}

Answer 1

OK so I had a look and there's good news and bad ;)
the opacity filter in the #head div means that overflow: hidden is being triggered, which is why no menus (it's the unfortunate side effect of filters and overflow I'm afraid).. remove that and you can have your z-index which you need anyway
next to get the transparency (opacity) for your dropdowns you can just use rgba(255,255,255,0.9) on the #nav ul li ul rule instead of #fff; (though leave #fff before that rule for fallback for browsers that can't do rgba() yet.. read more!)
That's nearly everyone happy - now you can also do rgba() transparency for IE using the gradient filter..
so the rule I landed up with looked like this (in an IE conditional comment):
#nav ul li ul {
zoom: 1;
background: transparent;
-ms-filter: "progid:DXImageTransform.Microsoft.gradient(startColorstr=#E5FFFFFF,endColorstr=#E5FFFFFF)"; /* IE8 */
filter: progid:DXImageTransform.Microsoft.gradient(startColorstr=#E5FFFFFF,endColorstr=#E5FFFFFF); /* IE6 & 7 */
/* behavior: url(PIE.htc);*/ /* yuk filter */
}
and I thought it would be good to go..
BUT the Bad News
the behavior is commented out because you can only have one or the other, transparency or rounded corners, :( apparently
I didn't do too much research though so YMMV
I also noticed a problem or three in IE7, not sure if you want to support that but in case you do.. or want to check my final code which got it to this stage I pasted it in PasteBin
that code replaces your main CSS - the #head rule and whole /*navigation*/ section
Update: more good news and a little bad!
you can have the transparency and the rounded corners thanks to CSS3 PIE's own -pie-background property, but not the box shadow as well, the way PIE deals with box shadow means it fills the div instead of just drawing on the outside so the -pie-background reading of the rgba background is transparent but shows the grey color used for the shadow!
My solution:
I added a border to make up for loss of box-shadow, it's not looking too bad, and it's working across IE's ;)
here's an update to the I conditional comment above:
<!--[if lte IE 9]>
<style type="text/css" media="screen">
#nav ul li ul {
box-shadow: none;
-pie-background: rgba(255,255,255,0.9);
border: 3px double #eee;
border-width: 0 3px 3px 3px;
behavior: url(PIE.htc); /* yuk filter */
}
</style>
<![endif]-->

Answer 2

I am not sure which version of IE you are having a problem with but I tried in IE6 and IE7 and the menu system is completely broken. I don't have IE8, 9 or 10 here to test but I'll take a guess at a solution nonetheless!
If you add a z-index and position to the #container as well, it should solve your problem. z-index only applies to positioned elements.
#container {
position:relative;
z-index:0;
}
It is also worth reading Overlapping and z-index, which summarises the properties and also describes the problems when using z-index and IE.
Edit: Wow, I did not realise what was wrong until I found a machine with IE8 on it. I think you have misunderstood the standard CSS and IE specific CSS principle slightly. The IE specific CSS file(s) should only contain the properties that are different to the standard ones. Your ie-style.css file contains duplicates of all the rules and is being included for all versions of IE. IE8 is much more standards compliant than IE6/7 and you should rarely have to override CSS for that version.
So IE will have multiple copies of the same style being applied. Under normal circumstances most browsers can cope with this duplication, however one of the duplicates is the IE specific filter property.
You have filter:alpha(opacity=93); in both style.css and ie-style.css even though it should really only belong in an IE6/7 CSS file as IE8 filters work differently. If you remove the filter from both stylesheets then the menu correctly displays in IE8.
If you need the opacity to work in IE6 or IE7, I suggest creating a specific CSS file for those browsers and using conditional comments to include it just for those versions.

Answer 3

Have a look at this solution : http://webdemar.com/webdesign/superfish-jquery-menu-ie-z-index-bug/
Another solution that I used already is quite easy, but a pain in the *. You must all the parent container a specific lower z-index value than the one you want to show on top of the others.
Like so :
<parent>//z-index 1
<child>//zindex 2
<yourdropdown>//z-index3
Update 1
The menu didn't show correctly in my chrome so I fixed the #head z-index to 80 and it did way better. Do the following to get the layout the same in IE and Chrome and Firefox. Watch out though, I only tested those change on the homepage.
Add this to the .conbox class :
.conbox {
position:relative;
}
Place the logo correctly
#logo {
position:absolute;
left:0px;
top:0px;
}
Remove the #nav positioning
#nav {
margin-top:80px;
z-index:3;
}
The problem is, I can't even see any effect on the menu mouseover in IE!!

Answer 4

Setting z-index: -1 for elements that menu overlays and z index of men div resolved this problem for me.
#bodyWrapper
{
background: none repeat scroll 0 0 #E4F7FE;
overflow: hidden;
position: relative;
width: 100%;
padding: 0 0 60px;
z-index: -1;
}