I'm a computer programmer who works on websites. I've been asked to help out with the navigation bar on this page:

http://www.cyberbitten.com/index_lid.php

The drop down menu (which is pure CSS, save for a Javascript fix for IE) appears behind the Flash module. I believe the pure-CSS-except-for-IE nav bar is being drawn from some much quoted article on A List Apart.

The problem we are having is that when you mouseover the drop down menu bar, the ULs that drop down appear behind the Flash media player that is on that page.

I went researching for solutions and from Google I found a link to this article on CSS Beauty:

http://cssbeauty.com/skillshare/discussion/2185/css-dropdown-menu-and-flash/

I followed the advice from that discussion and set wmode=transparent.

Sadly, that doesn't seem to have had any effect.

As near as I can figure, this is a problem to solve with Javascript. However, we have the natural desire to avoid using Javascript except when circumstances force us to use it. So I'm wondering, is there a pure CSS way to fix this problem? How do other web designers usually handle the problem of navbars appearing behind Flash objects?

Well, I decided to go ahead and use Javascript. But I'm still curious if there is a pure CSS way to do this. I mean, does everyone use Javascript in this situation? Is a Javascript solution considered normal? We'd tear out the Javascript and go with a pure solution if we could figure one out.

Nope, I don't use javascript when I have css dropdown menus over my flash. Well other than the js to embed the flash and js to make the drop downs work in IE. Make sure your wmode is set to transparent for you flash movie... that should work.