margin issue on IE7 with jQuery hover effect on absolute position

Question

Having the absolute position on .nav li p creates extra margin when hovering an image only on IE7, but without the absolute position, images flicker.

Is there another option than the absolute positioning?

This is what I have:

$('ul.nav li').hover(function() {
  $(this).prepend('<p></p>')
         .find('p')
         .fadeIn('fast');
}, function() {
  $(this).find('p')
         .fadeOut('fast', function() {
            $(this).remove()
         });
});

CSS:

.nav li{
    width:360px;
}
.nav li p {
    width:360px;
    margin: 0;
    padding:0;
    position: absolute;
    display:none;
}
li#stylea {height:138px;background: url(images/1.jpg) 0 -474px no-repeat}
li#stylea p {height:138px;background: url(images/1.jpg) 0 bottom no-repeat;}
li#styleb { height:149px; background: url(images/1.jpg) 0 -176px no-repeat}
li#styleb p {height:149px;background: url(images/1.jpg) 0 -325px no-repeat;}

HTML:

<div>
   <ul class="nav">
      <li id="stylec"></li>
      <li id="styleb"></li>   
      <li id="stylea"></li>   
   </ul>
   <ul class="nav">
      <li id="styled"></li>   
      <li id="stylee"></li>   
      <li id="stylef"></li>                       
   </ul>
</div>

Answer 1

my first thing to try is always adding zoom:1 to the element(s) in question. sometimes the parent.. sometimes the child. zoom: 1 happens to put IE7 in line alot.

you'd be surprised how many times that works.