Need assistance with a menu drop down having multiple columns

[BWWebDesigns]

Hi and thanks for reading.

I am stuck with how to modify the code, not sure if its css or html or javascript/jquery stuff that needs the change, but I have a top navigation menu on the site Diamedical dot com

When you hover over products for example it shows a drop down list of other menu buttons, what I am needing is advice how to modify this so that for example if there are 40 items in that drop down list perhaps it creates 4 columns of 10 instead of one big long menu drop down of all 40.

Does that make sense?

Thanks in advance for anyone posting any advice.

[COBOLdinosaur]

I doubt it makes sense to have 40 items for a single element in a drop down. Either it needs to be broken down; or be a static sidebar menu or there should just be a link at the top level that goes to a page with a more detailed menu.

Before you proceed withalything, I would recommend you validate and fix the 24 errors in the code. A lot of them are minor, but you have a serious issue with duplicate ids; and if you are going to use HTML5, then you need to eliminate the obsolete tag attributes.

[BWWebDesigns]

Thanks for the advice, its not my site just helping someone out with a problem they need sorted.

Regardless of how many items in the menu, or errors in their code (which I am not getting paid to fix so will have to wait unless they wish them fixed etc), I just need to know how to modify the menu so it has multiple columns of links like it is currently when you hover over products there is a long menu drop down that appears, lets say I want to split that up and have it half as long but twice as wide with the items appearing side by side, maybe with a separating line between them perhaps, how would this be done based on the code they currently are using?

Thanks

[COBOLdinosaur]

You probably have to break up the list and use a couple of floated divs to hold the pieces probably with a figure tag as the container. It makes the CSS problematic. More work then I would ever be willing to do for a presentation that is never going to be very user friendly.
Anyway a rough structure:

<figure>
    <div>
        <ul>
            <li>...
        </ul>
    </div>
    <div>
         <ul>
             <li>...
         </ul>
    </div>
</figure>

but the CSS to make that structure work right is horrifying.

[BWWebDesigns]

I have seen other sites doing similar that looks good works great but they are using complex javascript/jquery coding it seems like something custom built so no help there.

[BWWebDesigns]

Thanks for all the help but I have found a solution, for anyone else wishing to also the solution can be found here http://net.tutsplus.com/tutorials/ht...rop-down-menu/ (hope its ok to post)