css dropdown not displaying properly in IE

[ospazzo]

hi all --

i'm styling a dropdown menu in CSS and everything looks great, except for the fact that the submenu (part of #topnav) drops behind the rest of the site's content (such as div.moduleMid). This problem only happens in Internet Explorer. (So you can only see it for a few lines until it drops behind another div)

somebody told me this may have to do with z-indexing, but i'm not very familiar with using the z-index property. i did some research into z-index and tried applying it in several ways, but to no avail.

here's is what the code looks like:

@charset "UTF-8";

@font-face {
font-family: "TNC";
src: url("http://www.lukeelmers.com/tnc/RNS-B__2.TTF");
}

body {
	margin: 0;
	background-image:url(http://lukeelmers.com/images/bg.gif);
	background-color:#ffffff;
	background-attachment: scroll;
	background-position:top center;
	background-repeat:no-repeat;
	margin-top: -40px;
	font-family:arial;
	font-size:12px;
	font-weight:normal;
	text-transform:lowercase;
	text-decoration:none;
	}
div.wrap {
	width:960px;
	background-color:transparent;
	}
div#searchbar {
	background-color: transparent;
	visibility: hidden;
	}
div#topnav {
	background-image: url(http://i28.photobucket.com/albums/c219/ospazzo/header_bg960.png);
	background-color: transparent;
	background-repeat: no-repeat;
	background-attachment: scroll;
	height:90px;
	}
div#header {
	position: relative;
	background-color: transparent;
	}
div#header div div {
	background-color: transparent;
	margin-top: -90px;
	}
#topnav {
	background-color:#444444;
	}
#topnav ul {
	border-right:0;
	}
#topnav ul li {
	border-left:0;
	}
#topnav ul li a {
	color:#ffffff;
	font-size: 13px;
	font-weight: bold;
	}
#topnav ul li a:hover {
	background-color:#444444;
	color:#444444;
	text-decoration:none;
	}
#topnav ul.subMenu a:link {
	color: #444444;
	}
#topnav li.dropDown:hover ul.subMenu a:hover,#topnav li.hover ul.subMenu a:hover, #topnav ul.subMenu a {
	background: #ffffff;
	color: #444444;
	}
#topnav ul li.dropDown:hover a,#topnav ul li a:hover {
	background: #444444;
	color: #ffffff;
	}
#topnav ul.subMenu, #topnav ul li.hover a,#topnav ul li.hover a:hover {
	background-color: #444444;
	}
#topnav ul, #topnav ul li {
	border: none;
	}
#topnav ul li.dropDown:hover a,
#topnav ul li.hover a, #topnav ul a:hover, #topnav ul li.hover a:hover {
	color: #ffffff;
	}
#topnav ul.subMenu {
	border: 0;
	}
#topnav li.dropDown:hover ul.subMenu a:hover,
#topnav li.hover ul.subMenu a:hover {
	color: #444444;
	}
#topnav ul li a small, #topnav ul li a small {
	color: #ffffff;
	font-size: 10px;
	}
#topnav ul li a:hover small, #topnav ul li a.hover small {
	color: #ffffff;
	font-size: 10px;
	}
ul.contactLinks {
	float: right;
	padding-right: 5px;
	text-align: right;
	width: 42%;
	overflow-x: hidden;
	overflow-y: hidden;
	white-space: nowrap;
	position: absolute;
	left: 520px;
	top: 38px;
	}
div.moduleMid {
	background-color:#ffffff;
	outline: dashed;
	outline-color:#999999;
	padding: 10px;
	}
div[id~=footer] a {
	font-family:arial;
	font-size:10px;
	font-weight:normal;
	text-decoration:none;
	text-transform:lowercase;
	}
div[id~=footer] div {
	padding:10px 0;
	}
div.moduleBody a {
	font-size:12px;
	letter-spacing:0px;
	text-decoration:none;
	text-transform:lowercase;
	font-weight:bold;
	}
div.basicDetails h2 {
	font-family: "TNC", Arial Rounded MT Bold, Arial Black, Arial;
	color:#FF0000;
	font-size:42px;
	letter-spacing:-1px;
	text-transform: uppercase;
	font-weight:bold;
	}
h2 {
	font-family:arial;
	font-size:10px;
	background-color:transparent;
	text-transform:uppercase;
	font-weight:bold;
	}
h3.moduleHead {
	font-family: "TNC", Arial Rounded MT Bold, Arial Black, Arial;
	font-weight:bold;
	color:#444444;
	font-size:22px;
	text-transform:uppercase;
	background:#cccccc;
	}
h4 {
	font-family:arial;
	font-size:12px;
	text-transform:uppercase;
	font-weight:bold;
	padding-left:0px;
	}
strong {
	font-family:arial;
	font-size:10px;
	text-transform:uppercase;
	font-weight:bold;
	padding-left:0px;
	padding-right:0px;
	}
a:link, a:active, a:visited {
	color:#000000;
	font-size: 12px;
	font-weight: bold;
	}
a:hover, div[id~=footer] a:hover, div.moduleBody a:hover {
	color:#000000;
	}

i'm also trying to figure out how to use CSS to embed fonts (my current treatment only works in safari), but that's just a minor detail.

any help would be GREATLY appreciated.

take care,

luke

[ospazzo]

never mind -- i figured out the issue! i used z-index to modify the following items:

#topnav ul.subMenu {
	border: 0;
	position: absolute;
	z-index: 500;
	}
div.moduleMid {
	background-color:#ffffff;
	outline: dashed;
	outline-color:#999999;
	padding: 10px;
	position: relative;
	z-index: 100;
	}

this seemed to do the trick!