Alternative for <select> Dropdown List

[newseed]

Does anyone have a source or recall how to make an alternate dropdown list that will work within the <form> tag and that it behave as such?

 

Right now I have a right column that is about 300px wide and the default dropdown list (using <select>) is pushing it out too wide because one of the <option> has a very long value. Of course I can set the <select> to be smaller than the containing right column's width but then it chops off the <option> long value in IE. Naturally, it's fine for Firefox and Chrome.

 

I have tried a few scripts in which one worked for IE8 but fails miserably in IE7. The script seems to be outdated.

 

I thought that using a definition list or unordered list would work but I wanted to know if jquery is requiry to make it work with the <form> tag plus the dropdown has to behave just the same visually and passes the values as though it was coded using the <select> and <option> tags. This will be integrated into asp and right now I'm just not ready to rewrite the code unless I can find a solution that will make the major coding changes beneficial.

 

Seriously, I googled it but maybe I am not using the right term.

 

Thanks.

[falkencreative]

Have you taken a look at this: http://v2.easy-designs.net/articles/replaceSelect/ ? Or check out the code behind http://uniformjs.com/ -- I believe it does a similar thing to replace select boxes.

 

If I understand things correctly, you still keep the <select>, but it's hidden from the user. Instead, you use some sort of CSS/Javascript based replacement, and javascript is used to update the real, hidden <select> based on whatever the user chooses.

[newseed]

I've used uniform in the past. I was hoping for something that doesn't require such code replacements.

 

Thanks.