IE6 fix for select box over absolute positioned element

IE6 sux. General css/javascript hover drop-down menu uses a div or ul with position:absolute. No matter how much you increase the value of z-index the select box (windowed element) will always remain on top most – yes only on a special browser, Internet Explorer 6. The reason is IE6 considers select element as windowed element and keeps it always on top layer.

Solution is using iframe on top of select element, as iframe is also a windowed element placing it on top of select box fix the problem.

Here is the typical HTML code for this drop-down menu:

<div class="top-menus" style="left: 221px; top: 127px;">
<iframe frameborder="0" scrolling="no" align="bottom" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" src="javascript:'';" style="height: 200px;"></iframe>
    <ul>
      <li><a href="#">Bracelets</a></li>
      <li><a href="#">Rings</a></li>
      <li><a href="#">Earrings</a></li>
      <li><a href="#">Necklaces</a></li>
    </ul>
</div>

The inline css is calculated using jQuery offset() function. FYI, you can easily get the width,height,left,top position of any element using jQuery(“element”).offset(). Make sure the width and height of the iframe is exactly same of it’s overlying UL element. If you apply any border to the UL, you have to consider that during calculating the proper width/height of the iframe.

This is the sample jQuery code:

var timer = null; // global
$("#top-nav a").hover(function(){
	clearTimeout(timer);
	$("#top-nav a:not('.cur')").removeClass("selected");
	$(this).addClass("selected");

	var o = $(this).offset();
	var left = o.left + 1; // 1px extra for border
	var top = o.top + 32; // 32px for placing it just below the horizontal menu
	if($(".top-menus").length){
		if(left == $(".top-menus").offset().left)
			return;
		else $(".top-menus").remove();
	}

	$("body").prepend('<div style="left:'+left+'px;top:'+top+'px;" class="top-menus"><iframe src="javascript:\'\';" marginwidth="0" marginheight="0" align="bottom" scrolling="no" frameborder="0"></iframe><ul>'+html+'</ul></div>');
		$(".top-menus").find(".parent, .child").remove();
		var hi = $(".top-menus").find("ul").height();
		$("iframe").height(hi + 2); // extra 2px for border

}, function(){
	clearTimeout(timer);
	timer = setTimeout(function(){$("body").find("iframe,.top-menus").remove(); $("#top-nav a:not('.cur')").removeClass("selected");},300);
});

$(".top-menus").live("mouseover",function(){
	clearTimeout(timer);
}).live("mouseout",function(){
	clearTimeout(timer);
	timer = setTimeout(function(){$("body").find("iframe,.top-menus").remove(); $("#top-nav a:not('.cur')").removeClass("selected");},300);
});

I know this code won’t exactly fulfill your requirement, you can get the main idea from this and write your own code yourself. You can see it in action on www.trendtogo.com.

IE6 png alpha transparency fix for dynamically loaded images via ajax

IE6 is always a nightmare for web developers. The most painful drawback is it does not support the alpha transparency of transparent png images and you know how to solve this problem using iepngfix or jquery.pngFix.js.

You must be thinking.. what is new in my post then!! Have you ever used any of them for dynamic png images? Some people call it “Loading an image via ajax”. Let me explain what I mean by “dynamic png images”.. say you have a page where clicking on a link does not reload the page, but load a transparent/semitransparent png image. Most specifically, I was working on a project where user types some text in a text box, it is converted to transparent png image on the fly using php and then it is displayed inside a div which has a graph-paper like background-image. This whole thing is done without reloading the page at all.

It looks okay on FF, safari, IE7 but on IE6 the transparent portion looks Grey. The iepngfix.htc script didn’t help, cos it only works on the images which are loaded and showed at the beginning of page loading. After the page is fully loaded and you load another png image using ajax this script won’t work. But I could not do that for my project as it is meant to be loaded dynamically using ajax for the sake of advanced user experience.

I started googling for it, no luck. Finally I modified a portion of code used in the iepngfix.htc file and fixed the problem using this simple javascript code. (FYI, I was using YUI so only the browser checking part is done using it, you can use jQuery or pure javascript for browser detection)

var textImage = new Image();
textImage.src = "text.png"; // src of the png image. okay if not ie6
if (YAHOO.env.ua.ie > 5 && YAHOO.env.ua.ie < 7) { // if IE 5+ or 6 or 6+
    var timg_src = textImage.src;  // textImage
    var new_img = new Image();  // just as a preloader
    new_img.src = timg_src;

    new_img.onload = function(){ // remember, the image is being loaded dynamically, so apply the filter after it is loaded.
        var ti = document.getElementById("textImage"); // the ID of the img tag where it'll be loaded
        ti.style.width = new_img.width; // you can get the width/height of image after it is fully loaded
        ti.style.height = new_img.height; // and you must "DEFINE" the image height/width. "auto" height/width won't work!

        // This is it. apply the filter :)
        ti.style.filter = "progid:DXImageTransform.Microsoft.AlphaImageLoader(src='" + timg_src + "', sizingMethod='scale')";
        ti.setAttribute('src', 'blank.gif'); // don't forget this part. the image src is replaced with a blank gif image.
    }
}

Here is another version of the code which is not for dynamic images. It’s alternative of iepngfix.htc. In some cases you may not like using iepngfix.htc, rather want to control it yourself. For example if your page has hundreds of png images which are not transparent and only a few images that are transparent, in this case using iepngfix.htc will make the whole process too slow. I applied a pseudo class “png” to all png images & divs with png background image with fixed height & width and applied this simple jQuery code:

$(window).load(function(){ // after all the images are loaded
    if ($.browser.msie && parseInt($.browser.version.substr(0, 1)) < 7) { // ie6 or 5
        $("img.png").each(function(){
            $(this).css("filter", "progid:DXImageTransform.Microsoft.AlphaImageLoader(src='" + $(this).attr('src') + "', sizingMethod='scale')").attr("src", "images/blank.gif");
        });
        $("div.png").each(function(){
            var bg = $(this).css("backgroundImage");
            bg.match(/^url[("']+(.*\.png)[)"']+$/i);
            bg = RegExp.$1;
            $(this).css("filter", "progid:DXImageTransform.Microsoft.AlphaImageLoader(src='" + bg + "', sizingMethod='crop')").css("backgroundImage", "none");
        });
    }
});

Hope you’ll find it helpful. Please let me know if you have any better idea.