Question

I’d like to add a DIV above an input box (textbox) without changing the rendered position of the textbox. This DIV will be shown/hid when the textbox has focus or not… What is the proper CSS formatting for this DIV to show directly above the textbox without causing the textbox to shift down?

    <td>
        <div class="someclass">images</div>
        <input type="text" maxlength="2" class="timebox" />
    </td>

EDIT
I modified the CSS to follow the solution below (from Ben Blank) and the DIV is now rendering in the top left of the screen and not the table cell…

.inputbanner
{
    position: absolute;
    display: none;
    width: 30px;
    top: 0;
    left: 0;
}

Answer 1

You simply need to position your <div> absolutely:

div.someclass {
    position: absolute;
    top: 0;
    left: 0;
}

Absolutely positioned elements are entirely outside the “flow” of HTML and so do not affect the rendering of other elements. The example above places the <div> at the top-left corner of its parent; you can move it by changing the values of the top and left properties. Negative values are allowed, if you need them, and you can also use bottom or left if you prefer. Setting both top and bottom but not a height can be used to stretch your <div> vertically based on the height of its parent (and similarly for left, right, and width).

The <div>‘s parent needs to establish “context”, usually done by adding “position: relative“, but it isn’t safe to apply that style to table cells. Instead, you should wrap the contents of your cell with an outer <div>:

<td>
    <div class="outerclass">
        <div class="someclass">images</div>
        <input type="text" maxlength="2" class="timebox" />
    </div>
</td>

Then apply position to that new <div>:

div.outerclass {
    position: relative;
}