hiding <select> in IE/Win: iframe or CSS?

[Raffles]

In IE 5.5+ (not sure about IE7), when an absolutely positioned element intersects with a <select>, the <select> shows through it regardless of the element's superior z-index.

Apparently a solution seems to be to use an iframe as outlined here. This seems like a rather unpleasant solution, but the other solution is no nicer: simply hide (using display/visibility) the <select>s with javascript when the element is going to intersect over the <select>. One major drawback is that by hiding the selects you can make the user think your page is 'buggy'.

Which would you use? What do you think the drawbacks for each method are (particularly the iframe one)?

[kyberfabrikken]

IE7 doesn't do that.

[raimund]

In Firefox, when you position an input field or textarea over an iframe, the blinking | (caret) is hidden

[felgall]

Opera 8.5 and earlier have the same problem with iframes as IE6 and earlier have with selects so if you replace the select with an iframe you just swap the browser that has the problem without fixing the problem.

[Raffles]

Thanks for the replies. That's good about IE7 I suppose, bummer about Opera 8.5. Funny though, I find Opera 9 to be much buggier in general.

I think I'll just go with hiding the selects.

[mrhoo]

The standard solution for the select is to set its visibility (or the form or element that contains it) to "hidden" when you don't want it to be visible.

[Raffles]

Cheers, that's what I'm doing.