i have a fixed width drop-down, the width is fixed in the elements style attribute.
what i want is to have the width of the list area (which appears onclick) to be big enough to show the entire value of the labels in the <option>'s when they are longer than the width of the drop-down when in it's initial state, that is to say not dropped-down.

Not sure on this one myself but try using CSS and width: auto;

putting

width:auto

in the style attribute of the select elemt seems to have had no effect at all. been trawling the net for an answer for this with no luck for a few days now.

##----[ HEADER ELEMENT ]----##
<style type="text/css">
.selectWidth {
width: auto;
}
</style>

##----[ BODY ELEMENT ]----##
<select class="selectWidth"> ... </select>

Is that how you did it ?

it wasn't, i just had <select style="width:30px"> or 'auto' in place of '30px'.
i have just tried your css exactly and in IE it does nowt.

what's most annoying is that i have seen done what i need but can't remember where i saw it. grr

IE is balls, the CSS is use on my site works fine in ever browser BUT IE.