VERTICAL CSS POP OUT MENU TUTORIAL

Requirements for Vertical CSS Menus

Grab HTML From Here

Vertical Pop Out Menu

#menu {
width: 12em; /* set width of menu */
background: #eee;
}

#menu ul { /* remove bullets and list indents */
list-style: none;
margin: 0;
padding: 0;
}

/* style, color and size links and headings to suit */
#menu a, #menu h2 {
font: bold 11px/16px arial, helvetica, sans-serif;
display: block;
border-width: 1px;
border-style: solid;
border-color: #ccc #888 #555 #bbb;
margin: 0;
padding: 2px 3px;
}

#menu h2 {
color: #fff;
background: #000;
text-transform: uppercase;
}

#menu a {
color: #000;
background: #efefef;
text-decoration: none;
}

#menu a:hover {
color: #a00;
background: #fff;
}

The CSS above removes the padding/margin and bullets from all the lists, sets the width of the the entire menu and styles the links and heading to suit.

Positioning the Pop Outs

#menu li {
/* make the list elements a containing block for the nested lists */
position: relative;
}

#menu ul ul ul {
position: absolute;
top: 0;
left: 100%; /* to position them to the right of their containing block */
width: 100%; /* width is based on the containing block */
}

The position: relative; applied to the #menu li makes the <li> elements into containing blocks for the nested <ul> elements.

We only want to apply positioning to third level nested lists and deeper so the #menu ul ul ul targets that and the popout is positioned over to the right edge of their containing block (parent <li> element)

Hiding and Revealing using :hover

div#menu ul ul ul,
div#menu ul ul li:hover ul ul
{display: none;}

div#menu ul ul li:hover ul,
div#menu ul ul ul li:hover ul
{display: block;}

This bit could be simplified with the use of child selectors, unfortunately we have to use more specific descendant selectors in order for IE to understand.

This now achieves what we want, in a non-IE browser.

Fixing it for IE!

<!--[if IE]>
<style type="text/css" media="screen">
body {
behavior: url(csshover.htc); /* call hover behaviour file */
font-size: 100%; /* enable IE to resize em fonts */
}
#menu ul li {
float: left; /* cure IE5.x "whitespace in lists" problem */
width: 100%;
}
#menu ul li a {
height: 1%; /* make links honour display: block; properly */
}

#menu a, #menu h2 {
font: bold 0.7em/1.4em arial, helvetica, sans-serif;
/* if required use em's for IE as it won't resize pixels */
}
</style>
<![endif]-->

The above is the entire conditional CSS which we use to target IE/Windows only. It enables us to call the hover behaviour file and also to input some other IE "workaround" CSS without affecting other browsers.Providing the csshover.htc file has been saved to the same directory as the file you're working on you should see that the popouts are now appearing on hover as expected.