Select menus and style

We have been talking about accessible techniques for JavaScript and I have
a good one to discuss.  I have come across the use of JavaScript and Style
sheets to create what is in effect a select menu, but with very different
and useful visual look.  It has been referred to as Dynamic HTML among
other things.  It is simply a technique that uses the STYLE visibility:
hidden on a DIV (or some other) element,  then when a user clicks on the
link with a onclick showit() JavaScript function call changes the
visibility from hidden to visible and uses absolute positioning to place
the image map or table of text links right under or near the original link.
I think a public page that does this is the http://www.microsoft.com pages
viewed in IE 4.x or above.

My question: Is there a similar proven technique that could be used with
the SELECT menu and style attributes so that, for example, a long list of
choices shows up as a three column list of choices instead of a long single
column list of choices? Could the background, borders, and fonts be
changed?

Regards,
Phill Jenkins
IBM Accessibility Center - Special Needs Systems

Received on Tuesday, 22 August 2000 18:26:39 UTC