Dropdown menu boxes behavior in IE7/Firefox 2 vs. IE6/Firefox 1.5x

[ajm786]

Perhaps some of you more versed in this stuff can shed some light on this for me.

In Firefox 1.5x and IE6, you can click on a dropdown menu box within a website, scroll with your mousewheel within the menu box to whatever you want to choose, or click on it once and type the beginning letter of any entry within the menu, and the box would correspond.

With Firefox 2 and IE7, this is no longer the case. IE7 is more flexible when it comes to this, and, as long as the mouse pointer is hovering over the menu box, you can scroll up and down the menu freely, while in Firefox, you can't. In neither browser can you do what was mentioned earlier (typing in the first letter of the entry [once again, IE7 is more flexible with this, but the box doesn't correspond to the option you choose]).

Is this behavior due to the browsers, or is it due to the coding of the dropdown boxes that is causing the majority of the dropdown menu boxes on website I visit to be broken?

I wish I had an example for you, but my mind is fried right now (Friday). If I can think of one, I'll post it for sure.

[CaptNKILL]

The one at the bottom of this page (forum jump) works fine for me in FF 2.0. I just click it and scroll the wheel and it works.

If I move the mouse over the window area (not the drop down box) the box will close and the main window will scroll automatically.

I think this is how its always been, but I'm not sure. I haven't noticed any problems with drop downs since I started using FF2 a week ago.

[ajm786]

You're right, but it's still limited.

I noticed that the scrolling works only. On top of that, you have to have the mouse pointer on TOP of the menu dialog in order for it to work. In the old browsers, regardless of where your mouse pointer was on the screen, if you selected the menu, then scrolled, it would work.

I think it's one of two things:

1. The dropdown has to be coded to allow for this in the new browsers.
2. The new browsers are limited when it comes to this type of "functionality".

[Rakeesh]

With Firefox 2 and IE7, this is no longer the case. IE7 is more flexible when it comes to this, and, as long as the mouse pointer is hovering over the menu box, you can scroll up and down the menu freely, while in Firefox, you can't. In neither browser can you do what was mentioned earlier (typing in the first letter of the entry [once again, IE7 is more flexible with this, but the box doesn't correspond to the option you choose]).

Is this behavior due to the browsers, or is it due to the coding of the dropdown boxes that is causing the majority of the dropdown menu boxes on website I visit to be broken?

Worksforme. Try the drop down menu on http://world.altavista.com as that one works for me.

[ajm786]

Worksforme. Try the drop down menu on http://world.altavista.com as that one works for me.

Ok, I see that now. In some sites it doesn't work, and I've already contacted the webmasters about that.

But it's still limited, as described in my previous post. Still can't scroll the menu with your mouse pointed anywhere except right on the dialog.

[Rakeesh]

My guess would be that it probably doesn't work on AJAX based dropdown menus, as I think they would have to specifically intercept the mouse scroll action in order for it to happen. Which websites in particular are you looking at?

[ajm786]

Well, most of them are internal admin sites that I use for work. There's quite a few dropdown based menus on the pages, and they've said they were going to issue an update for their website/s soon.