Menu and submenus falling 'behind' some Google ads

Poster: michiguide
Dated: Friday January 26 2007 - 15:23:34 GMT

Bear with me as this is a bit complex to describe.

I've recently added google ads to my web site, specifically image ads. As these ads are served by google, I cannot control what type of ad they serve. Sometimes they are text only, sometimes they are an image, and other times they are some type of animated image - either a video or some other type of enhanced graphic display.

The issue is with only the video and some "enhanced" (motion) graphics ads. The behavior is different in the different browsers:

I am using followscroll with the menu.

Firefox 2.0: When the main menu is not obstructed by the google ad, all submenus function as they should, writing on top of the ad. If the menu scrolls down to where it would lie on top of the ad, the overlapping portion of the menu goes behind the ad and is not functional/accessible.

IE 6.0: Essentially does the same as Firefox 2.0.

IE 7.0: Submenus will not display on top of the ad at any time; they open behind the ad. As with the other browsers, the main menu falls behind the ad and isn't functional in the overlapping area.


I'm using the latest release, 5.769

A sample URL: http://www.michiguide.com/archives/2007 ... n_2_6.html

If a text ad is served, you won't see the problem - in that case, just click through the previous entries (see the left column "The previous post in this blog was") until one of the enhanced ads is displayed.


I've tried the quick/dirty flash fix, but it didn't make any difference.

Thanks for any pointers!

Poster: Ruth
Dated: Saturday January 27 2007 - 1:45:17 GMT

Hi,

Having clicked that right side 'previous post' etc back to Jan 17 and not got a single video type ad, I'm unable to see what's going on. So, you will have to find one of those and post the url for that.

I would make a guess based on your 'video' statement that this has to do with a player of some kind like Windows Media Player, or Quicktime or something. Those things are actually created by the operating system and embedded in the browser window, rather than being created by the browser. Since they are not created by the browser, they exist outside of the layering structure generated by the browser and so are not affected by z-indexes. This is not a Milonic problem, but a problem found with all layered dhtml content

One solution would be to place the problem items into a div with an id and then hide the div when the menu drops over it. However, I don't think that will work with players such as Quicktime or Windows Media Player. The best solution is to set up the menu so that the submenus do not open over these elements.

Ruth

other tricks?

Poster: Littleviews
Dated: Tuesday January 30 2007 - 16:05:41 GMT

Hi - I agree with Ruth.

I just looked at your site when a video appeared and your menus worked perfectly. I'm on PC IE.

You might want to craft some type of tricky workaround just in case of failures. I can see you have a lot of linked content ... but on the offending areas of your menu, you might want to make the very top link go to a relatively clean page that shows the full menu list. The only people who'd click it are those who'd do it in frustration, but at least you give them an option.

OR, maybe you have an option called "Full Menu Page" or something like that, that would not get trapped. Good luck!

Poster: Ruth
Dated: Tuesday January 30 2007 - 18:38:26 GMT

Hi,

My site is not a good judge, I have been 're-designing' it for a couple of years and have never got around to actually updating the site itself, that menu is way out of date I don't have a video on the site as far as I know. What exactly are you seeing?


However, for the media players, there is really nothing that can be done since it is the OS that is creating those and putting them in the browser.