Question

I have a new problem with my menu.

I want to keep the parent hover effect active when mouse is over child.

I know I could maybe use jQuery? but I really wanna keep it in CSS if possible.

And without having to give all elements unique id’s…

http://forevertan.dk/_temp/eventfest/3/test3.htm

Answer 1

If you want to use a CSS only way, what I highly recommend to you, you would have to change your markup a little bit.
When you check for :hover on a‘s parent (the li) a will still be on :hover when you go down the submenu.
Basically we’re doing this:

ul#nav li > a {
    /* all the normal state styling here */
}
ul#nav li:hover > a {
    /* hover state styling here */
}

We will expand the a to the dimensions of the li. So the li seems to behave like the a. The only difference is, that the li is the parent of the a and the submenu ul.

JSFiddle here.

HTML stays the same:

<ul id="nav">
    <li>
        <a href="#test">Test</a>
        <ul>
            <li>
                <a href="#test/sub">Sub</a>
            </li>
        </ul>
    </li>
    <li>
        <a href="#test">Test</a>
        <ul>
            <li>
                <a href="#test/sub">Sub</a>
            </li>
        </ul>
    </li>
</ul>

CSS changes:

ul#nav > li {
    padding: 0;
    margin: 0;

    float: left;
    position: relative;
}
ul#nav li > a {
    height: 30px;
    min-width: 80px;
    padding: 0;
    margin: 0;
    border-right: 1px solid #CCC;
    border-left: 1px solid #CCC;

    display: block;

    background: #000;

    color: #FFF;
    text-align: center;
    line-height: 30px;
    white-space: nowrap;
}
ul#nav li:hover > a {
    background: #FFF;

    color: #000;
}
ul#nav > li ul {
    display: none;
    position: absolute;
}
ul#nav > li:hover ul {
    display: block;
}
ul#nav > li ul li {
    display: block;
}.