Problem with Spry Menu Bar 2.0 (1.0) re - CSS

Question

Hello:
I am having some difficulty with a Spry Menu Bar (horizontal) 2.0 (1.0)  that I have created.  Initially I thought the problem was with regard to rendering issues on IE 6.0, however the problem seems to be more general than that and I have come to believe that it has to do with the CSS created by the Widget Browser and modified once imported into the webpage.  Hence I have elected to post my issue here rather than on the spry page.
I have relied on the tutorial provided by David Powers (Bayside.css) and in addition other documentation regarding the Spry menu bar UI.  The problem appeared to be one of IE 6 rendering the page with a gap that is created when the drop down menus appear, thus pushing down any divs that appear below the page.
However, through a painstaking process of trial and error my problem now seems to be that when I export the CSS generated by the widget browser to an external style sheet (the general style sheet governing the whole site), it conflicts with other CSS styles regarding links etc.  The end result is that all the padding, background colours, background images, and text colours are lost.  So long as the CSS remains within the head this doesn't happen.
My thinking is that this must have to do with issues of specificity, inheritence, etc.
The site can be viewed at the following URL: http://www.aclco.org/testing/index.html.  In its current form all CSS related to the menu bar is found in the head of each page.  (see CSS below).
My question is can I establish a separate style sheet for the horizontal menu bar and have those styles applied specifically (and only) to the menu bar.  My only other alternative is to work through the remainder of the general style sheet and work through any issues of specificity/inheritance -- which may be the "best" practice, but it risks causing other "cascading" [sic] problems elsewhere.
Any advice or suggestions or directed reading (that would point to a solution) that could be offered would be greatly appreciated.
Steve Webster
The CSS governing the horizontal menu bar is as follows:  (currently the following CSS is embedded in the head of the web page)
<style type="text/css">
/*  -- 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%20Segm ent-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: none none none none;
#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%20Segm ent%20Light2.png);
    background-repeat:repeat-x;
#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;
#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-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 */
</style>
The CSS governing the site generally is reproduced below:  (my belief is that it is the a:link, a:visited,  a:hover, a:active styles that may be in conflict).
@charset "utf-8";
body  {
    font: 100% Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;
    min-height: 0; /* This is necessary to overcome the "haslayout" bug that is found in Windows 7 in conjuction with IE8.  For More information see: URL -- http://reference.sitepoint.com/css/haslayout.html */
    margin: 0; /* it's good practice to zero the margin and padding of the body element to account for differing browser defaults */
    padding: 0;
    text-align:center; /* This allows for the centering of the container and overcomes a bug inherent in IE 5 */
    color: #000000;
    list-style-image: none;
    background-color: #FCFCFC;
h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6 {
color:#000066;
a:link {
    color: #151A96;
    text-decoration: underline;
a:visited {
    text-decoration: underline;
    color: #1B8DCD;
a:hover {
    text-decoration: none;
    color: #F30A0A;
a:active {
    text-decoration: underline;
    color: #151A96;
#container {
    width: 960px;   
    margin: 0 auto; /* the auto margins (in conjunction with a width) center the page */
    text-align: left; /* this overrides the text-align: center on the body element. */
    background-image:
    url(../ACLCO%20Graphics%20-%20Web%20site%20Parts/Website%20Midsection%20_960.png);
    background-repeat: repeat-y;
#header {
        padding: 0;  /* this padding matches the left alignment of the elements in the divs that appear beneath it. If an image is used in the #header instead of text, you may want to remove the padding. */
        width:960px;
        height:332px;
        background-image:
        url(../ACLCO%20Graphics%20-%20Web%20site%20Parts/Website%20Header_960.png);
        background-repeat:no-repeat;
#header h1 {
    margin-right: 0px; /* zeroing the margin of the last element in the #header div will avoid margin collapse - an unexplainable space between divs. If the div has a border around it, this is not necessary as that also avoids the margin collapse */
    padding: 0; /* using padding instead of margin will allow you to keep the element away from the edges of the div */
    display:none;
#header img {
    display: none;
#Main_nav_contents {
    padding: 0;
    margin-top: 0px;
    height: 39px;
    width: 950px;       
    padding-top: 275px; 
    padding-left: 39px;
    z-index: 3; 
#MenuBarVertical {
    margin-bottom: 50px;
    padding-top: 50px;
    padding-bottom:200px;
    padding-left: 15px;
    padding-right: 15px;
.mainContent_left {
    margin: 0;/* the right margin on this div element creates the column down the right side of the page - no matter how much content the sidebar1 div contains, the column space will remain. You can remove this margin if you want the #mainContent div's text to fill the #sidebar1 space when the content in #sidebar1 ends. */
    padding-left:30px;
    padding-right:20px; /* remember that padding is the space inside the div box and margin is the space outside the div box */
    width: 600px;
    float: left;
.sidebar_right {
    float: right; /* since this element is floated, a width must be given */
    width: 270px; /* the actual width of this div, in standards-compliant browsers, or standards mode in Internet Explorer will include the padding and border in addition to the width */
    margin-top: 30px;
    margin-left:0;
    margin-right:10px;
    font-size:90%;
.mainContent_right {
    margin-left: 10px;
    padding-left:30px;
    padding-right:20px;
    width: 600px;
    float: right;
.sidebar_left {
    float: left; /* since this element is floated, a width must be given */
    width: 270px; /* the actual width of this div, in standards-compliant browsers, or standards mode in Internet Explorer will include the padding and border in addition to the width */
    margin-top: 30px;
    margin-left:30px;
    margin-right:0;
    overflow: hidden;
    font-size:90%;
.main_content_centered {
    width: 650px;
    margin-left: 155px;
.main_content_centered_header {
    margin-left: 75px;
.sidebar_textbox {
    margin: 0px;   
    width: 260px;
    padding: 2px;
.sidebar_textbox_header {
    width:255px;
    height:58px;
    background-image:url(../ACLCO%20Graphics%20-%20Web%20site%20Parts/Portrait%20Textbox%20He ader.png);
.sidebar_textbox_background_middle {
     width: 255px;   
    padding-top: 12px;   
    padding-bottom: 10px;
    background-image:url(../ACLCO%20Graphics%20-%20Web%20site%20Parts/Portrait%20Textbox%20Mi ddle.png);
    background-repeat: repeat-y;
.sidebar_textbox_content {
    /* The width and padding are set as follows to accomodate quirks in browser rendering and to ensure that text is contained within the background of the text box */
    width: 230px;
    padding-left: 20px;
    padding-right: 40px;
.sidebar_textbox_footer {
    width:255px;
    height:64px;
background-image:url(../ACLCO%20Graphics%20-%20Web%20site%20Parts/Portrait%20Textbox%20Foo ter.png);
#issues_menu a:link {
    color: #151A96;
    text-decoration: none;
    font-weight:bold;
#issues_menu a:visited {
    color: #151A96;
    font-weight:bold;
    text-decoration: none;
#issues_menu a:hover {   
    color: #F30A0A;
    font-weight:bold;
    font-style: oblique;
    text-decoration: none;
#issues_menu a:active {
    color: #151A96;
    font-weight:bold;
    text-decoration: none;
#archives {
    padding-top: 15px;
    padding-right: 15px;
    padding-bottom: 20px;
    padding-left: 0px;
.landscape_textbox {
    width: 500px;
    margin-right: 0px;
    margin-left: 30px;
    padding-top:35px;
    padding-bottom: 25px;
    font-style: normal;
    font-weight: normal;
.landscape_textbox_hdr {
    width:500px;
    height:38px;
    margin:auto;
    padding:0;
    background-image:
url(../ACLCO%20Graphics%20-%20Web%20site%20Parts/Landscape%20Textbox%20Header.png);
.landscape_textbox_middle {
    width:auto;
    margin:auto;
    padding-top: 12px;
    padding-bottom: 12px;
    background-image:url(../ACLCO%20Graphics%20-%20Web%20site%20Parts/landscapte%20Textbox%20 Middle.png);
    background-repeat:repeat-y;
.landscape_textbox_content {
    width:450px;
    padding:25px;
.landscape_textbox_ftr {
    width:500px;
    height:44px;
    margin:auto;
    padding:0;
    background-image:url(../ACLCO%20Graphics%20-%20Web%20site%20Parts/Landscape%20Textbox%20F ooter.png);
#footer {
    padding: 0; /* this padding matches the left alignment of the elements in the divs that appear above it. */
    width: 960px;
    height: 222px;
    background-image:
    url(../ACLCO%20Graphics%20-%20Web%20site%20Parts/Website%20Footer%20_960.png);
    background-repeat:no-repeat;
#footer p {
    margin: 0px; /* zeroing the margins of the first element in the footer will avoid the possibility of margin collapse - a space between divs */
    padding:0px; /* padding on this element will create space, just as the the margin would have, without the margin collapse issue */
    text-align:center;
    margin-left: 50px;
    margin-right: 50px;
    padding: 10px;
    font-size: small;
#footer h5 {
text-align:center;
.fltrt { /* this class can be used to float an element right in your page. The floated element must precede the element it should be next to on the page. */
    float: right;
    margin-left: 8px;
.fltlft { /* this class can be used to float an element left in your page */
    float: left;
    margin-right: 8px;
.clearfloat { /* this class should be placed on a div or break element and should be the final element before the close of a container that should fully contain a float */
    clear:both;
    height:0;
    font-size: 1px;
    line-height: 0px;
.dropcap {
    display: block;
    float: left;
    line-height: 80%;
    font-size: 250%;
    font-weight: bolder;
    color: #000066;   
    padding: .03em .1em 0 0;
.red_arrows {
    list-style-position: outside;
    list-style-image: url(../ACLCO%20Graphics%20-%20Web%20site%20Parts/Arrow%20Large.png);   
.blue_bullets {
    list-style-position: outside;
    list-style-image: url(../ACLCO%20Graphics%20-%20Web%20site%20Parts/Bullet%20Medium%20Full.png);   
.attention {
    color: #F30A0A;
    font-size:x-large;
    font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", Times, serif;
    font-style: italic;
    font-weight:900;
.attention_small {
    color: #F30A0A;
    font-size:large;
    font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", Times, serif;
    font-style: italic;
    font-weight:900;
.table {
    table-layout:fixed;
.blue {
    color: #00F;
#container .mainContent_left p .blue {
    color: #0303A0;

Answer 1

Hello Martin:
Thanks for your input.  However I am not certain we have resolved this issue adequately, or understand the principles governing the css as regards this spry menu framework 2.0 (1.0).
For example, the menu only works in IE 6.0 if the css remains in the head.  I agree with your original post that it shouldn't make any difference whether the css is posted in the head or in a separate style sheet (so long as specificity issues are addressed).  Both should work -- and yet it doesn't.
If the CSS is placed in the separate style sheet governing the total site, it doesn't work for 6.0.  If placed at the top of the style sheet, conflicts of specificity prevent the menu from rendering properly in any of the browsers causing the rules for general links to govern the menu.   This has been verified using a cross browser testing.  If the styles are placed at the bottom of the style sheet to help them take precedence, they work in all the browsers except for IE 6.
The website I am building needs to support IE 6 for a variety of reasons, and because it is catering to the non-profit community and to low income persons, I am mindful of even small differences in page weight.
So for me, at least, the issue remains baffling.
I appreciate your input, but also would appreciate the input from others, and especially Adobe Community Professionals and employees.  The spry framework in this regard is not well documented.  I am not certain if this is exclusively a CSS problem, if it might also be complicated by the architecture of the spry framework, or if indeed other variables are at play.
I would be my hope that in resolving the problem, other users of the this particular spry framework might also benefit.
Thanks,
Steve.