css for dropdown selector - css

Question

I'm not a web developer by any stretch of the imagination, I get things to the way I want them basically thru trial and lots of error. I can't seem to figure this one out.
I want to change the style of my dropdown selector from using the default OS styling to a suitable style I found but I can't figure out what goes where.
Here is my existing dropdown selector css:
/* select
==========================================================*/
.selector, .selector * {
/* margin: 0;
padding: 0; */
}
.selector select:focus { outline: 0; }
div.selector {
/* background-position: -490px -24px;
display: inline-block;
overflow: hidden;
padding-left: 2px;
position: relative;
vertical-align: middle;
-webkit-border-radius: 3px;
-moz-border-radius: 3px;
border-radius: 3px;
-webkit-box-shadow: 1px 1px 3px 0px rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.2);
-moz-box-shadow: 1px 1px 3px 0px rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.2);
box-shadow: 1px 1px 3px 0px rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.2); */
}
div.selector span {
/* background-position: 100% 0;
color: #fff;
font-size: 11px;
font-weight: bold;
overflow: hidden;
padding: 0px 27px 0px 7px;
text-overflow: ellipsis;
text-shadow: 1px 1px 0 #000;
white-space: nowrap; */
}
div.selector select {
/*background: #fff;
color: #000;
border: none;
left: 0;
opacity: 0;
position: absolute;
top: 0;
width: 100%;
text-transform:none;*/
font-size:12px;
opacity: 1 !important;
}
div.selector, div.selector span {
/*background-repeat: no-repeat;
line-height: 24px;
text-transform: uppercase;
background-image: url("sprite.png");
background-repeat: no-repeat;
line-height: 24px;*/
}
div.selector, div.selector span, div.selector select { /*height: 24px;*/ }
/* #sort {
margin: 10px 0;
float:right;
width:257px;
}
#sort span {display:none;}
#sort SELECT {
background: none repeat scroll 0 0 #fff;
color: #000;
vertical-align: bottom;
opacity:1 !important;
float:left;
} */
button, textarea, input[type=text], input[type=password] {
border: 0;
margin: 0;
padding: 0;
}
textarea, input[type=text], input[type=password], select, .selector span {
color: #888;
font: 12px 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, sans-serif;
}
input[type=submit] { font: 12px 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, sans-serif; }
textarea, input[type=text], input[type=password] {
border: 1px solid #a9a9a9;
padding: 4px 8px;
}
button {
background: transparent;
color: #1b1e00;
font-size: 28px;
text-transform: lowercase;
}
button, label, input[type=submit] { cursor: pointer; }
.selector span { display: block; }
.selector, .selector span, .selector select { cursor: pointer; }
And here is the css for what I would like it to look like:
/* all form DIVs have position property set to relative so we can easily position newly created SPAN */
form div{position:relative;}
/* setting the width and height of the SELECT element to match the replacing graphics */
select.select{
position:relative;
z-index:10;
width:166px !important;
height:26px !important;
line-height:26px;
}
/* dynamically created SPAN, placed below the SELECT */
span.select{
position:absolute;
bottom:0;
float:left;
left:0;
width:166px;
height:26px;
line-height:26px;
text-indent:10px;
background:url(images/bg_select.gif) no-repeat 0 0;
cursor:default;
z-index:1;
}
Basically I don't know where anything goes. Any help would be very much appreciated.
Thank you!

Answer 1

Right now the only browsers to fully support styling of dropdown menus is chrome. See this post:
How to style a <select> dropdown with CSS only without JavaScript?
If you need your drop downs to match cross browsers there are a couple options.
1) http://harvesthq.github.com/chosen/ or others like it (my usual pick),
2) Compeletly redesign a drop down from scratch. This is not recommended as is is very complicated and easy to create errors. see http://www.jankoatwarpspeed.com/post/2009/07/28/reinventing-drop-down-with-css-jquery.aspx or http://css-tricks.com/dropdown-default-styling/
Hope this helps!