I don't understand why a div with float right or left is not above a div with relative position or defined with a background color when the last one is declared after.
Here is the html:
<html>
<body>
<div class="container">
Main container <br/><br/>
<div class="header">This is the header</div>
<div class="text-right">Right text</div>
<div class="footer">This is the footer</div>
</div>
</body>
And here is the css:
.header {
background-color:blue;
border: solid;
color: white;
border-color:black;
height: 100px;
}
.text-right{
float: right;
border: solid;
background-color: green;
}
.container{
padding: 10px;
border: solid;
}
.footer{
padding-top: 50px;
border: solid;
background-color: yellow;
position: relative;
}
I know that I can use a .clear: both rule to correct this problem but my main point is: why when I set the background-color or the position or both in the .footer rule, the float div is under the footer?
Thank you very much!
While reading this very good post, at the end of the post, the author talks about the z-order internal working but also say that if you want to learn more, this next one will be a much more detailed article
The key point is that the order in the z-axis where are put the elements.
Here is what the author says:
If we do not specify any z-index values, the default stacking order
from closest to the user to furthest back is as follows:
1. Positioned elements, in order of appearance in source code
2. Inline elements
3. Non-positioned floating elements, in order of appearance in source code
4. All non-positioned, non-floating, block elements in order of source code
5. Root element backgrounds and borders
As we can see, the positioned elements(1) are always on top of non-positioned elements(3-4). If I put a div with just a float property, this element will not be "positioned" onto the surface.
In this case, the second element, my footer div, that is positioned with a relative property value will be at the top of the previous one not just I don't add a clear: both property after the float div property or because the last one is added after the floating element but because it is positioned!
Like powerbuoy said, you must set add a position relative to the float element to be able to go top of the stack the floating element. But it's not enough. Because these two elements are now at the same level and because they are both crossing each other, you must tell the engine which one will be the first and this is why you must set the z-order to 1 to the floating element again like said powerbuoy.
I'm not a very good writer and for this reason, I strongly suggest you to read the referenced articles that I mentioned previously. I think you will have a very deep explanation of the case.
Since the footer comes after the text-right it will be rendered on top of text-right. To avoid this you can give text-right a z-index (and a position other than static):
http://jsfiddle.net/wxMhx/
Edit: hmmm... no that's not entirely correct. If you remove position: relative; from the footer text-right will be rendered on top of it. TBH I'm not sure why that happens. But the solution in either case is to either remove position: relative; from the footer, or add it (as well as a z-index) to text-right.
Because position: relative. If you delete this line you will see div with text-right class. You can set z-index: -1; to footer class and this should work as well.
Related
I have this HTML code:
<div class="header">
<div class="desc">Description</div>
<div class="logo"><img src=""/></div>
<div class="navbar"></div></div>
.header has a height of 150px. .navbar has a height of 20px. When the user scrolls, I want .navbar to stick at the top. So I went to the CSS and set position:sticky and top:0. But this didn't work. I initially thought that firefox is not supporting position:sticky, but that's not the case because I was able to see a working demo of it. I googled about it but found nothing helpful. Anyone knows why this is not working?
Position sticky was not working for me due to the body element having overflow-x: hidden; set.
The 2 most common culprits why position: sticky; might not work are:
You haven't defined top: 0;, bottom: 0;, left: 0 or something similar
One of the parents of your sticky element has overflow (x or y) set to hidden, scroll or auto.
For me it was the first one.
It works fine if you move the navbar outside the header. See below. For the reason, according to MDN:
The element is positioned according to the normal flow of the document, and then offset relative to its flow root and containing block based on the values of top, right, bottom, and left.
For the containing block:
The containing block is the ancestor to which the element is relatively positioned
So, when I do not misunderstand, the navbar is positioned at offset 0 within the header as soon as it is scrolled outside the viewport (which, clearly, means, you can't see it anymore).
.navbar {
background: hotpink;
width: 100%;
height: 50px;
position: sticky;
top: 0;
}
.header {
height: 150px;
background: grey;
}
body {
height: 800px;
position: relative;
}
<div class="header">
<div class="desc">Description</div>
<div class="logo"><img src="" /></div>
</div>
<div class="navbar"></div>
To expand from the answers above and some information to make it work with flexbox parent and overflow other than visible (the examples below assume you use vertical - sticky with either top or bottom set to a certain value and position set to sticky):
The most frequent case is you have an ancestor element (not just immediate parent) with overflow property set to something other than visible and as a result there is no space is left to stick around.
To quickly find out if this is the case, you can run this script in the browser console (please make sure you change the .your-sticky-element class to your element's selector):
var stickyElement = document.querySelector('.your-sticky-element');
var parent = stickyElement.parentElement;
while (parent) {
var hasOverflow = getComputedStyle(parent).overflow;
if(hasOverflow != 'visible') {
console.log(hasOverflow, parent);
}
parent = parent.parentElement;
}
SOLUTION:
a) If you found there is overflow set, and you can remove it, this should solve it
b) If you have to keep your overflow setting, you have to make the parent element's height higher than the sticky element's height. If the parent element has no height or the sticky element fills up all the height, it means there is simply no place to stick within when the page is scrolled. It doesn't need to an explicit height (vertical), but you can inspect to see if your sticky element has extra space left after itself.
Parent is not higher than the sticky element to leave extra space. This particular case can be caused by different circumstances but the solution to this is the same above, please see 1.b
If your sticky element's parent is a flexbox (align-items has default value of normal) or grid, and if the sticky element itself doesn't have a proper align-self set, there will be no space left for the sticky element to hold when scrolling (for example, if it is align-self: stretch or auto [default value]). This is because the child element is stretched to fill up the height of the parent.
SOLUTION:
In this case, align-self: flex-start set for the sticky element can fix the problem because in the element will stand at the start, leaving extra space after itself.
Guide: There are much more complex circumstances both in the case of flexboxes and without it, but the general rule of thumb is your sticky element needs space within the parent to be sticky when scrolled.
Somehow your code only works when the .navbar element is not inside another container like the header. I moved it out and then it works fine. I created a codepen snippet for that, check it out
<header>
<div class="logo">Logo</div>
<div class="description"><div>Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet consectetur adipisicing elit. Quo, veritatis.</div></div>
</header>
<div class="navbar">
<ul>
<li>navitem1</li>
<li>navitem2</li>
<li>navitem3</li>
<li>navitem4</li>
</ul>
</div>
Right now position:sticky is supported quite good as you can see on canIuse. Of course IE currently has no support but the new Edge version will bring full support for this! I found some interesting articles about this topic:
Working demo (chrome,firefox đź‘Ť) https://codepen.io/simevidas/pen/JbdJRZ
Caniuse refernce: http://caniuse.com/#search=sticky
sticky article on MDN including latest browser support table https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/position#Sticky_positioning
But there are good news on the horizon. I think better browser support will follow the next time.
Adding more content after nav inside header provides sticky behavior, but only for a moment - if the user scrolls down too much, nav will disappear with header, since it can't jump out below header's bottom border.
Thus, the only solution with pure CSS is to put nav inside element that is partially visible even after the user scrolls to the bottom of the page (directly inside body or inside some sort of container that spans to the bottom of the page or at least to the footer).
If this solution is not possible, the other way is to use JavaScript. Before transitioning to CSS, I used the following code (found similar jQuery solution somewhere long time ago, don't remember where, so the credit goes to the anonymous author; Vanilla JS can be easily obtained from this):
$(document).ready(function () {
var sticky_navigation_offset_top = $('nav').offset().top;
var sticky_navigation = function () {
var scroll_top = $(window).scrollTop();
if (scroll_top > sticky_navigation_offset_top) {
$('nav').css({
'position': 'fixed',
'top': 0,
'left': 0,
'right': 0,
'margin-left': 'auto',
'margin-right': 'auto'
});
} else {
$('nav').css({
'position': 'relative'
});
}
};
sticky_navigation();
$(window).scroll(function () {
sticky_navigation();
});
});
Looks like if you try to set sticky a container which has many children nodes inside, instead of them being wrapped in a div, and the parent of sticky container is flex, then it will not sticky. Just wrap the childs in a div fixed it for me.
Your HTML code as it is and write CSS class for navigation bar:
.header {
height: 150px;
background-color: #d1d1d1;
}
.navbar {
background: #999;
border-bottom: 1px solid #333;
border-top: 1px solid #333;
color: #FFF;
margin: 0;
padding: 2px 0 0 12px;
position: sticky;
top: -1px;
}
<div class="header">
<div class="desc">Description</div>
<div class="logo"><img src="" /></div>
<div class="navbar"></div>
</div>
Hope this will help
Met some not evident behaviour of horizontal sticky: if width is 100%, then sticky does not work. Width should be less, then container size.
My sticky header would only partly work ... after a couple of scrolls it would disappear but would work initially
It appears the problem was that I had the parent set to height 100%.
I didn't actually need this as the body one was enough so I removed and it and all was good.. sticks forever
Although this now breaks my footer from staying on the bottom when their is no content!
No huge compromises of the HTML structure need to be made to fix this issue. Simply add display: inline; to all of the sticky element's parents up until you get to the element you wish the sticky element to stick to.
Just to add something to #user56reinstatemonica8 great point...
If immediate parent of sticky node has display: flex sticky positioning could not work.
My guess is that culprit is align-items: stretch as default.
In a flex-direction: row scenario, align-items: stretch let children's height grow so that they are equal height.
So, to overcome this and make sticky work as expected with display: flex you can:
define align-items as center | start | baseline to immediate parent that has display: flex.
define align-self as center | start | baseline to sticky node.
define an explicit height to sticky node.
I came across this really interesting thing. Was messing around with floats and clearfix. I have a section (container) which contains 3 left floated div boxes and to avoid container collapsing, I use clearfix method on it. Like that one before and after, empty content, display block and clear both. Nothing special. Now, to see how this clearfix behaves with margin on top and bottom, I created a div box on top, outside container. Container has both margin top and bottom of 50px, so it was working great. But oddly, when I tried to float an orange box outside the container, the box became contained inside container respectfully to childs of the container. I find this weird, coz that box wasn't inside container's tag, it was outside. I understand that floated elements are removed from normal document flow, so container's margin-top couldn't relay on div box any longer since it's been removed from document flow and the only element to rely on was body left. But my question is: Why did orange box became contained inside brown container if orange box is not its child?
Before:
After float: right; was applied to orange box:
I mean orange box could have been moved to any other place oddly, but not contained so nicely inside container when it's not even a child of container,
they are siblings. What's really happening here?
Code is basic:
<body>
<div id="box1"></div>
<section class="clearfix">
<div class="one">One</div>
<div class="two">Two</div>
<div class="three">Three</div>
</section>
<div id="box"></div>
</body>
.clearfix:before,
.clearfix:after {
content: "";
display: block;
clear: both;
}
#box {
width: 300px;
height: 100px;
background: blue;
}
#box1 {
width: 300px;
height: 50px;
background: orange;
float: right;
}
As you mentioned that you are using float:right on orange box and its going inside other div then yes you have not used clear:both after using float. Point to remember that if you are using clearfix before and after on section won't work. You have to use clear:fix just after floated div or else it will break the flow and will cause issue like you are seeing.
See in demo. I simply use clear:both after floated right div and everything seems fine. To make it more simple, try to clear whenever you use float:right or left and you will not get any problem. If you are getting this with ul li tag still after last li use clear div and you are done. Hope this will help you.
I have a problem with footer positioning. It doesn't go to the bottom/last.
So, I have a container div which has 3 divs - float:right , float:left and the center one (which has position:absolute) that comes between the two floated divs.
The center one must have fixed width and height because it's an image.
In that center div I have another div with a lot of content.
The problem is, because the center div has fixed width and height, it doesn't take the childs div height.
So my problem is how to put the footer that it comes last (after the container)?
Note - with JQuery I put the width of the floated divs because they take 100%-980px width.
This is how it looks like.
I tried putting to the center div overflow:auto,overflow:overlay,margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;.
After reading your question again an again i come to conclusion and create the below fiddle using your code and embed a sample image for you desired size.
Please let me know if i am wrong while understanding your question. So i can work around according your needs.
fiddle: http://jsfiddle.net/ah3nr/6
Demo: http://jsfiddle.net/ah3nr/6/embedded/result/
My approach:
I have remove the position:absolute from center div and added new div for image and relate them both using css layer techniques.
Updated css:
.sectionDownContainer {
width: 980px;
/*height:270px;*/
border:1px solid red;
/*position: absolute;*/
position:relative;
top: -32px;
z-index: 1;
}
/*.sectionDownMenu {
margin-left: 50px;
margin-top: 1px;
display: block;
}
*/
#image_container {
position:relative;
width:980px;
height: 270px;
margin-top:-2px;
z-index:2;
}
.sectionDownContent {
width: 640px;
margin-top: -190px;
margin-left: 50px;
position: relative;
z-index:5;
color:#000;
font-weight:bold;
}
Screenshot:
Try this for the parent.
overflow:auto;
Also refer to this stack overflow post: Expanding a parent <div> to the height of its children
You need to set this property of the center-div: height:auto (you could also add a minimum height: min-height:400)
About your second question with the footer, this is much more complicated. You must do this:
<div id="content">
<div id="content_left">
</div>
<div id="content_center">
</div>
<div id="content_right">
</div>
<div id="footer">
</div>
</div>
I'll give you now the full CSS (because it's not so easy):
.content {position:relative; overflow:hidden;} //hidden overflow just a hack for common issues...
.content_left {height:auto; float:left} //set height to auto (very important)
.content_center {height:300; float:left} //a fixed height also works!
.content_right {height:auto; float:right}
.content_footer {width:100%; height:auto; float:right} //for tests you can also set a fixed height
This solution is also according to other threads on Stackoverflow: Align DIV's to bottom or baseline, How to align content of a div to the bottom?
But, if you experience problems with that, you may do this (my preferred solution):
<div id="content">
<div id="content_left">
</div>
<div id="content_center">
</div>
<div id="content_right">
</div>
</div>
<div id="footer">
</div>
And its CSS:
.content {position:relative; overflow:hidden;} //hidden overflow is just a hack
.content_left {height:auto; float:left} //set height to auto (very important)
.content_center {height:300; float:left} //a fixed height also works!
.content_right {height:auto; float:right}
.content_footer {width:100%; height:xxx; float:left} //you can use any height...
Note that all above solutions works only if you set all the "contents" to float, it doesn't work with absolute values! I found this here: http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_can_a_parent_DIV_wrap_around_child_DIVs_which_are_floating_left_or_right
This is due to an issue with divs: It's not possible to "tell" a parent div the size! So childs like "content_center" or "content_right" won't tell the "content" how long they are and how long "content" must be. So it's impossible to tell the footer where to align, if you use absolute values for the childs.
So your second question, although it looks trivial, is a very important question, and not easy to solve.
IMPORTANT UPDATE:
I tried to find a solution with absolute now. The problem is, that absolute and fixed are taken out of the regular (text)flow, so their size can't influence the size/positioning of any other element anymore. But we also have to understand that an absolute element still controls all its childs, so we should rather set the childs as relative than the parent (here: "content")! So I finally found the solution, and it's quite weird, because it's almost the opposite thing I suggested above, but that solution was influenced by the posting of others, while following solution is "my own" one (I added a header for demonstration purpose):
<div id="header">
</div>
<div id="content">
<div id="content_left">
</div>
<div id="content_center">
</div>
<div id="content_right">
</div>
<div id="footer">
</div>
</div>
The CSS (the "header" clearly shows, that "content" inherites all positioning to its childs like "content_left", "content_right", aso.):
.header {position:absolute; left:0; top:0; height:100; width:100%}
.content {position:absolute; left:0; top:100; height:auto; min-width:700} //min-width is only voluntary, but quite useful
.content_left {position:relative; left:0; top:0; width:200; height:auto;} //height:auto is important to adapt the height from containing text!
.content_center {position:relative; left:200; top:0; right:200; width:auto; height:auto;} //in the middle element, also auto-width is important!
.content_right {position:fixed; right:0; top:0; width:200; height:1000;} //we set a fixed position, but that won't influence the footer anymore!
.content_footer {margin:0 0 60 0; position:relative; left:0; bottom:-60; width:100%; height:150;} //a fixed height is also okey...but relative position is needed!
//you still need to add margin:0; border:0; padding:0 or similar values for some elements to get a good layout
The important point here is, that you can decide which child element will be the longest one, and set this element's position:relative, while the other may have absolute or fixed. But if you don't know which element will be the longest, all child's positions need to be set as relative. Anyway, I suggest to set all childs to relative (beside fixed if needed), because their parent "content" will set their absolute height-position already correctly, so there's no need for any absolute at all.
I'm repeating myself: Above I wrote it's not possible to tell a parent div the size...actually it's possible, but not if the values absolute and fixed are used. Only if you use the browser standart value (static) or relative, the parent div will be informed about the size of its childs, an therefore the footer is set correctly at the bottom of the page.
Well, my solution works everywhere...even in IE (tested 6.0 and 8.0!) due to the hack margin:0 0 60 0 where the value 60 should be the positive value of bottom:-60. Now we finally got the non-floating crossbrower-solution. ;)
The problem you're experiencing is that certain CSS properties cause elements to be "removed from the flow" of the document (see the W3C Visual formatting model). Parent elements naturally grow to fit the height of children elements, however, floated and absolutely positioned elements are removed from the document flow. As mentioned in a few comments, setting overflow: auto; or overflow: hidden; on the parent element re-establishes a bounding box around floated elements. This means you can float elements within the parent container, then set overflow: hidden; on the parent element, and the parent element will contain the floats. However, this doesn't work for absolutely positioned elements: the absolutely positioned box is "removed from the normal flow entirely (it has no impact on later siblings)". The only exception is that the entire document will try and grow to display any positioned elements (give an element position: absolute; top: 3000em; and the page scrollbar will grow to allow you to scroll to that element). I don't know of any way to trigger this for elements other than the document.
Back to your intended effect… If you don't need IE7 support, you can use display: table; table-layout: fixed; to achieve a centered column with a fixed width and two columns of variable width on either side.
jsFiddle Demo
In the near future, this will also be possible using the CSS "flexbox" properties. Flexbox will allow for some nifty new features, including horizontal and vertical centering, changing the order of rendered elements, and setting "flex" values for how much of the remaining variable width an element should take. However, the standard is currently going through a period of flux, and the old standard (enjoying moderate support) is being replaced by a new standard (with little to no support). See "Old" Flexbox and "New" Flexbox and the accompanying demo. Considering the glacially slow progress of web standards implementation, I don't expect to see this in use for a few years unless a truly masterful polyfill is produced.
I have two DIVs that I need to position exactly on top of each other. However, when I do that, the formatting gets all screwed up because the containing DIV acts like there is no height. I think this is the expected behavior with position:absolute but I need to find a way to position these two elements on top of each other and have the container stretch as the content stretches:
The top left edge of .layer2 should be exactly aligned to the top left edge of layer1
<!-- HTML -->
<div class="container_row">
<div class="layer1">
Lorem ipsum...
</div>
<div class="layer2">
More lorem ipsum...
</div>
</div>
<div class="container_row">
...same HTML as above. This one should never overlap the .container_row above.
</div>
/* CSS */
.container_row {}
.layer1 {
position:absolute;
z-index: 1;
}
.layer2 {
position:absolute;
z-index: 2;
}
Actually this is possible without position absolute and specifying any height. All You need to do, is use display: grid on parent element and put descendants, into the same row and column.
Please check example below, based on Your HTML. I added only <span> and some colors, so You can see the result.
You can also easily change z-index each of descendant elements, to manipulate its visibility (which one should be on top).
.container_row{
display: grid;
}
.layer1, .layer2{
grid-column: 1;
grid-row: 1;
}
.layer1 span{
color: #fff;
background: #000cf6;
}
.layer2{
background: rgba(255, 0, 0, 0.4);
}
<div class="container_row">
<div class="layer1">
<span>Lorem ipsum...<br>Test test</span>
</div>
<div class="layer2">
More lorem ipsum...
</div>
</div>
<div class="container_row">
...same HTML as above. This one should never overlap the .container_row above.
</div>
First of all, you really should be including the position on absolutely positioned elements or you will come across odd and confusing behavior; you probably want to add top: 0; left: 0 to the CSS for both of your absolutely positioned elements. You'll also want to have position: relative on .container_row if you want the absolutely positioned elements to be positioned with respect to their parent rather than the document's body:
If the element has 'position: absolute', the containing block is established by the nearest ancestor with a 'position' of 'absolute', 'relative' or 'fixed' ...
Your problem is that position: absolute removes elements from the normal flow:
It is removed from the normal flow entirely (it has no impact on later siblings). An absolutely positioned box establishes a new containing block for normal flow children and absolutely (but not fixed) positioned descendants. However, the contents of an absolutely positioned element do not flow around any other boxes.
This means that absolutely positioned elements have no effect whatsoever on their parent element's size and your first <div class="container_row"> will have a height of zero.
So you can't do what you're trying to do with absolutely positioned elements unless you know how tall they're going to be (or, equivalently, you can specify their height). If you can specify the heights then you can put the same heights on the .container_row and everything will line up; you could also put a margin-top on the second .container_row to leave room for the absolutely positioned elements. For example:
http://jsfiddle.net/ambiguous/zVBDc/
Here's another solution using display: flex instead of position: absolute or display: grid.
.container_row{
display: flex;
}
.layer1 {
width: 100%;
background-color: rgba(255,0,0,0.5); /* red */
}
.layer2{
width: 100%;
margin-left: -100%;
background-color: rgba(0,0,255,0.5); /* blue */
}
<div class="container_row">
<div class="layer1">
<span>Lorem ipsum...</span>
</div>
<div class="layer2">
More lorem ipsum...
</div>
</div>
<div class="container_row">
...same HTML as above. This one should never overlap the .container_row above.
</div>
Great answer, "mu is too short".
I was seeking the exact same thing, and after reading your post I found a solution that fitted my problem.
I was having two elements of the exact same size and wanted to stack them.
As each have same size, what I could do was to make
position: absolute;
top: 0px;
left: 0px;
on only the last element. This way the first element is inserted correctly, "pushing" the parents height, and the second element is placed on top.
Hopes this helps other people trying to stacking 2+ elements with same (unknown) height.
Here's some reusable css that will preserve the height of each element without using position: absolute:
.stack {
display: grid;
}
.stack > * {
grid-row: 1;
grid-column: 1;
}
The first element in your stack is the background, and the second is the foreground.
I had to set
Container_height = Element1_height = Element2_height
.Container {
position: relative;
}
.ElementOne, .Container ,.ElementTwo{
width: 283px;
height: 71px;
}
.ElementOne {
position:absolute;
}
.ElementTwo{
position:absolute;
}
Use can use z-index to set which one to be on top.
Due to absolute positioning removing the elements from the document flow position: absolute is not the right tool for the job. Depending on the exact layout you want to create you will be successful using negative margins, position:relative or maybe even transform: translate.
Show us a sample of what you want to do we can help you better.
Of course, the problem is all about getting your height back. But how can you do that if you don't know the height ahead of time? Well, if you know what aspect ratio you want to give the container (and keep it responsive), you can get your height back by adding padding to another child of the container, expressed as a percentage.
You can even add a dummy div to the container and set something like padding-top: 56.25% to give the dummy element a height that is a proportion of the container's width. This will push out the container and give it an aspect ratio, in this case 16:9 (56.25%).
Padding and margin use the percentage of the width, that's really the trick here.
After much testing, I have verified that the original question is already right; missing just a couple of settings:
the container_row MUST have position: relative;
the children (...), MUST have position: absolute; left:0;
to make sure the children (...) align exactly over each other, the
container_row should have additional styling:
height:x; line-height:x; vertical-align:middle;
text-align:center; could, also, help.
ie I have a div, below is a hidden div, which is wider than the div above. I want to specify the div inside to have elements with greater widths than the div above. these elements right hand side is aligned to the right hand side of the div above, but since it is wider, want the left hand side to break out. The div below is on a diff layer than the div above as it only appears on clicking on trigger element of div above.
Basically its a drop down list, with some random elements are wider than the image element above which, when clicked drops this list. but i want the list underneath to expand to the left breaking out of the parent div, without specifying exact positions. Therefore, the elements are all children of the parent div and right aligned to it, just like parent.
Hmmm, hope you can follow. Really appreciate any help. Thanks in advance.
Negative Margins seems to be the best answer. If anyone knows of cross browser issues, please post here. Perhaps I will but shalln't be testing for them for a week or two.
You should probably just use a select tag (for accessibility's sake) even though it won't look as fancy. But if you're set on it, try something like this (and add your javascript code to hide/show the list):
#wrapper {
width: 500px;
}
#select {
border: 1px solid black;
width: 180px;
float: right;
}
#options {
float: right;
clear: right;
text-align: right;
}
and
<div id="wrapper">
<div id="select">pick one...</div>
<div id="options">
<div class="option">I'm short</div>
<div class="option">I'm a very very very very very long option</div>
</div>
</div>
If you end up using this, change the options div to a ul tag and the option divs to li tags, or something semantically closer to what you're building. I just used divs to cut down on the amount of css in my example.