Spry Menu Bar Widget 2.0 (1.0) -- IE 6 Rendering Snag

Question

Hi:
Once again I need to call on the aid of others with more detailed knowledge of the spry frameworks, particularly the Spry Menu Widget 2.0 (vers. 1.0) developed by Adobe labs.
I have posted the site to http://www.aclco.org/testing/index.html.  You will see that it works beautifully, thanks to the help of many contributors, except in IE 6.0, where, when the sub menus become visible and drop down, it causes all page elements (divs) to be pushed down to create the necessary room to accommodate the drop down.  The natural overlap of the sub-menu over pre-existing content doesn't seem to overlay properly.
It does this on all pages, and not just those which present flash sideshows.  And as I say it is peculiar to IE 6.
I have followed the tutorial provided by David Powers in deploying the widget and have not altered the spry skin css or the basic css.  Any changes (affecting padding, etc. and adding of background images where created using the widget browser and supplemented in the css added to the template page.  The "add-on" css was then added to the general style sheet governing the whole site layout.
I was wondering if anyone else has experienced this problem, if there are any work arounds or hacks that anyone is aware of, or any other suggestions that might help.
I haven't been able to preview this on a free standing PC using IE6, but was able to reproduce the problem on 2 cross browser testing services employing a "live mode".  I renders properly until the sub-menus are called upon to become visible, and then the problem manifests.
Your assistance will be greatly appreciated.
Sincerely,
Steve Webster
Attach.
Please note:  Attached are the relevant excerpts from the customized style sheet as amended from the spry widget browser:
/*  -- Begins Spry Menu Widget 2.0 (1.0) Horizontal menu bar Custom styles --  */
/* BeginOAWidget_Instance_2141544: #MenuBar */
/* Settable values for skinning a Basic menu via presets. If presets are not sufficient, most skinning should be done in
these rules, with the exception of the images used for down or right pointing arrows, which are in the file SpryMenuBasic.css
These assume the following widget classes for menu layout (set in a preset)
.MenuBar - Applies to all menubars - default is horizontal bar, all submenus are vertical - 2nd level subs and beyond are pull-right.
.MenuBarVertical - vertical main bar; all submenus are pull-right.
You can also pass in extra classnames to set your desired top level menu bar layout. Normally, these are set by using a preset.
They only apply to horizontal menu bars:
MenuBarLeftShrink - The menu bar will be horizontally 'shrinkwrapped' to be just large enough to hold its items, and left aligned
MenuBarRightShrink - Just like MenuBarLeftShrink, but right aligned
MenuBarFixedLeft - Fixed at a specified width set in the rule '.MenuBarFixedLeft', and left aligned. 
MenuBarFixedCentered -  - Fixed at a specified width set in the rule '.MenuBarFixedCentered',
and centered in its parent container.
MenuBarFullwidth - Grows to fill its parent container width.
In general, all rules specified in this file are prefixed by #MenuBar so they only apply to instances of the widget inserted along
with the rules. This permits use of multiple MenuBarBasic widgets on the same page with different layouts. Because of IE6 limitations,
there are a few rules where this was not possible. Those rules are so noted in comments.
#MenuBar  {
background-color:transparent;
font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; /* Specify fonts on on MenuBar and subMenu MenuItemContainer, so MenuItemContainer,
MenuItem, and MenuItemLabel
at a given level all use same definition for ems.
Note that this means the size is also inherited to child submenus,
so use caution in using relative sizes other than
100% on submenu fonts. */
font-weight: normal;
font-size: 17px;
font-style: normal;
padding:0;
/* Caution: because ID+class selectors do not work properly in IE6, but we want to restrict these rules to just this
widget instance, we have used string-concatenated classnames for our selectors for the layout type of the menubar
in this section. These have very low specificity, so be careful not to accidentally override them. */
.MenuBar br { /* using just a class so it has same specificity as the ".MenuBarFixedCentered br" rule bleow */
display:none;
.MenuBarLeftShrink {
float: left; /* shrink to content, as well as float the MenuBar */
width: auto;
.MenuBarRightShrink {
float: right; /* shrink to content, as well as float the MenuBar */
width: auto;
.MenuBarFixedLeft {
float: left;
width: 80em;
.MenuBarFixedCentered {
float: none;
width: 80em;
margin-left:auto;
margin-right:auto;
.MenuBarFixedCentered br {
clear:both;
display:block;
.MenuBarFixedCentered .SubMenu br {
display:none;
.MenuBarFullwidth {
float: left;
width: 100%;
/* Top level menubar items - these actually apply to all items, and get overridden for 1st or successive level submenus */
#MenuBar  .MenuItemContainer {
padding: 0px 0px 0px 0px;
margin: 0; /* Zero out margin  on the item containers. The MenuItem is the active hover area.
For most items, we have to do top or bottom padding or borders only on the MenuItem
or a child so we keep the entire submenu tiled with items.
Setting this to 0 avoids "dead spots" for hovering. */
#MenuBar  .MenuItem {
padding: 10px 10px 10px 4px;
background-color:#000088;
background-image:url(../ACLCO%20Graphics%20-%20Web%20site%20Parts/Navigation%20Bar%20Segme nt-Dark.png);
background-repeat:repeat-x;
#MenuBar  .MenuItemFirst {
border-style: none none none none;
#MenuBar .MenuItemLast {
border-style: none none none none;
#MenuBar  .MenuItem  .MenuItemLabel{
text-align:center;
line-height:1.4em;
color:#ffffff;
background-color:transparent;
padding: 0px 18px 0px 5px;
width: 10em;
width:auto;
.SpryIsIE6 #MenuBar  .MenuItem  .MenuItemLabel{
width:1em; /* Equivalent to min-width in modern browsers */
/* First level submenu items */
#MenuBar .SubMenu  .MenuItem {
font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;
font-weight: bold;
font-size: 15px;
font-style: normal;
background-color:#000088;
padding:0px 2px 0px 0px;
border-width:0px;
border-color: #cccccc #cccccc #cccccc #cccccc;
/* Border styles are overriden by first and last items */
border-style: solid solid none solid;
#MenuBar  .SubMenu .MenuItemFirst {
border-style: none;
padding: 0px;
#MenuBar  .SubMenu .MenuItemFirst .MenuItemLabel{
padding-top: 0px;
#MenuBar .SubMenu .MenuItemLast {
border-style: solid solid solid solid;
#MenuBar .SubMenu .MenuItemLast .MenuItemLabel{
padding-bottom: 10px;
#MenuBar .SubMenu .MenuItem .MenuItemLabel{
text-align:left;
line-height:1em;
background-color:transparent;
color:#ffffff;
padding: 10px 10px 10px 10px;
width: 240px;
/* Hover states for containers, items and labels */
#MenuBar .MenuItemHover {
background-color: #2E35A3;
background-image:url(../ACLCO%20Graphics%20-%20Web%20site%20Parts/Navigation%20Bar%20Segme nt%20Light2.png);
background-repeat:repeat-x;
border-color: #cccccc #cccccc #cccccc #cccccc;
#MenuBar .MenuItemWithSubMenu.MenuItemHover .MenuItemLabel{
background-color: transparent; /* consider exposing this prop separately*/
color: #ffffff;
#MenuBar .MenuItemHover .MenuItemLabel{
background-color: transparent;
color: #ffffff;
#MenuBar .SubMenu .MenuItemHover {
background-color:2E35A3;
border-color: #cccccc #cccccc #cccccc #cccccc;
#MenuBar .SubMenu .MenuItemHover .MenuItemLabel{
background-color: transparent;
color: #ffffff;
/* Submenu properties -- First level of submenus */
#MenuBar .SubMenuVisible {
background-color: transparent;
min-width:0%;  /* This keeps the menu from being skinnier than the parent MenuItemContainer - nice to have but not available on ie6 */
border-color: #ffffff #ffffff #ffffff #ffffff;
border-width:0px;
border-style: none none none none;
#MenuBar.MenuBar .SubMenuVisible {/* For Horizontal menubar only */
top: 100%; /* 100% is at the bottom of parent menuItemContainer */
left:0px; /* 'left' may need tuning depending upon borders or padding applied to menubar MenuItemContainer or MenuItem,
and your personal taste.
0px will left align the dropdown with the content area of the MenuItemContainer. Assuming you keep the margins 0
on MenuItemContainer and MenuItem on the parent
menubar, making this equal the sum of the MenuItemContainer & MenuItem padding-left will align
the dropdown with the left of the menu item label.*/
z-index:10;
#MenuBar.MenuBarVertical .SubMenuVisible {
top: 0px;
left:100%;
min-width:0px; /* Do not neeed to match width to parent MenuItemContainer - items will prevent total collapse */
/* Submenu properties -- Second level submenu and beyond - these are visible descendents of .MenuLevel1 */
#MenuBar .MenuLevel1 .SubMenuVisible {
background-color: transparent;
min-width:0px; /* Do not neeed to match width to parent MenuItemContainer - items will prevent total collapse*/
top: 0px; /* If desired, you can move this down a smidge to separate top item''s submenu from menubar -
that is really only needed for submenu on first item of MenuLevel1, or you can make it negative to make submenu more
vertically 'centered' on its invoking item */
left:100%; /* If you want to shift the submenu left to partially cover its invoking item, you can add a margin-left with a
negative value to this rule. Alternatively, if you use fixed-width items, you can change this left value
to use px or ems to get the offset you want. */
/* IE6 rules - you can delete these if you do not want to support IE6 */
/* A note about multiple classes in IE6.
* Some of the rules above use multiple class names on an element for selection, such as "hover" (MenuItemHover) and "has a subMenu" (MenuItemWithSubMenu),
* giving the selector '.MenuItemWithSubMenu.MenuItemHover'.
* Unfortunately IE6 does not support using mutiple classnames in a selector for an element. For a selector such as '.foo.bar.baz', IE6 ignores
* all but the final classname (here, '.baz'), and sets the specificity accordingly, counting just one of those classs as significant. To get around this
* problem, we use the plugin in SpryMenuBarIEWorkaroundsPlugin.js to generate compound classnames for IE6, such as 'MenuItemWithSubMenuHover'.
* Since there are a lot of these needed, the plugin does not generate the extra classes for modern browsers, and we use the CSS2 style mutltiple class
* syntax for that. Since IE6 both applies rules where
* it should not, and gets the specificity wrong too, we have to order rules carefully, so the rule misapplied in IE6 can be overridden.
* So, we put the multiple class rule first. IE6 will mistakenly apply this rule.  We follow this with the single-class rule that it would
* mistakenly override, making sure the  misinterpreted IE6 specificity is the same as the single-class selector, so the latter wins.
* We then create a copy of the multiple class rule, adding a '.SpryIsIE6' class as context, and making sure the specificity for
* the selector is high enough to beat the single-class rule in the "both classes match" case. We place the IE6 rule at the end of the
* css style block to make it easy to delete if you want to drop IE6 support.
* If you decide you do not need IE6 support, you can get rid of these, as well as the inclusion of the SpryMenuBarIEWorkaroundsPlugin.js script.
* The 'SpryIsIE6' class is placed on the HTML element by  the script in SpryMenuBarIEWorkaroundsPlugin.js if the browser is Internet Explorer 6. This avoids the necessity of IE conditional comments for these rules.
.SpryIsIE6 #MenuBar .MenuBarView .MenuItemWithSubMenuHover .MenuItemLabel /* IE6 selector  */{
background-color: transparent; /* consider exposing this prop separately*/
color: #ffffff;
.SpryIsIE6 #MenuBar .MenuBarView .SubMenu .MenuItemWithSubMenuHover .MenuItemLabel/* IE6 selector  */{
background-color: transparent; /* consider exposing this prop separately*/
color: #ffffff;
.SpryIsIE6 #MenuBar .SubMenu .SubMenu  /* IE6 selector  */{
margin-left: -0px; /* Compensates for at least part of an IE6 "double padding" version of the "double margin" bug */
/* EndOAWidget_Instance_2141544 */
/* Ends Spry Menu Bar Widget 2.0 (1.0) Horizontal Menu Custom styles */

Answer 1

I have systematically reviewed the tutorial of David Powers on the Spry Menu bar 2.0, and recreated the process in a methodical process - making one change at a time, and then checking each step on a cross browser testing server, and have found, quite to my amazement that what seems to be causing the problem of the "gap" in IE 6 is by removing the customized styles from the head of the individual pages, and placing them in CSS stylesheet that governs the entire site.
I find this quite inexplicable.  When the customized CSS rules governing the menu bar are situated in a separate stylesheet, the page renders well enough for any of the "modern" browsers, but won't render in IE 6.  All that I get is a horizontal menu with drop downs, but none of the styling (specifically background colours, background images, etc.) that are called for in the stylesheet and that otherwise appear when rendered by other browsers.
I realize that this sounds strange, but I was wondering if anyone had experienced this phenomenon, or could offer any explanation.
Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
Steve Webster