asp:dropdownlist width: How to make the control narrower than the dropdown list

Question

I have a web form with a dropdown list <asp:dropdownlist> , but for the sake of formatting I want the actual control (before you open the dropdown list) to be relatively narrow. When the user opens the contents of the dropdown, I want the actual list to appear wider than the control.

Something like this:

How can you achieve this functionality with ASP.NET webforms?

Answer 1

Basically, either the browser will expand the list width when dropped or it won't. And you guessed it IE won't.

Your only bet with IE is to set the title attribute of the option element to the value text. Then you will get a tooltip.

Answer 2

Surely this is just a css issue? On the dropdownlist control you could either say width="50" or put the style tag on there style="width: 50px".
I think you may possibly always run into issues with IE 6/7 though no matter which way you do it