missing columns attribute in select element

Hi all

(Please CC me, I'm not on the list)

I have the problem that I have to specify the size of a dropdown field. I know 
that I can use the size attribute to set the number of rows. But I can't find 
a way to set the width of the input field.
I'm currently using a style attribute containing 'with=XXem', but that gives 
not exactly the result I'm aiming for.

Well, first of all, does anyone know how to achieve my goal? Using a div...?

Second, I'd realy like to see two things:
- HTML should allow a textarea like column attribute to dropdown fields.
- CSS should have not only a character hight unit (em), but also a character 
width one.

Well, I just did a small search on the list for this and didn't came up with 
something. So I don't know wether this was already a topic...

Thanx
Simon Huerlimann