Positioning absolute element by offset

Question

I have a drop down menu on a page and want the menu to drop down from the main item to the left. It presently drops down to the right.

I have a jsfiddle for it here.

As you can see it presently drops down to the right and resizes the page to fit. I want the menu to drop to the left and keep all the dimensions in tact. Is there an easy way. I know the jQuery menu widget can do it, but I had other issues with that.

The button is somewhere in the middle of the page, so ideally I want the drop down to be to drop down relative to the parent, not just as the jsfiddle shows which is fixed against the right hand side. Hope this clarifies.

CODE:

IN DOC READY

    $(document).ready(function () {
    // Menus
    $('ul.menu').hide();

    $('ul#viewMenu li').hover(function () {
        $(this).children('ul.menu').animate({ opacity: 'show' }, 'slow');
    }, function () {
        $(this).children('ul.menu').animate({ opacity: 'hide' }, 'fast');
    });
    });

CSS

    ul#viewMenu   { overflow: hidden; }

    ul#viewMenu li { float:left; display: block; text-align: left; line-height: 40px; }
    ul#viewMenu li a { line-height: 40px; }

    ul#viewMenu ul.menu { position: absolute; }
    ul#viewMenu ul.menu li { float: none; }

HTML

    <div style="display: inline-block; float: right;">
<ul id="viewMenu" style="list-style: none; margin: 0; padding: 0;">
    <li style="display: block; float: left;"> <a class="nav-button view-type-button" style="text-align: center;" href="#"
        title="Change the things.">
                <span>
                    <img src="~/Content/themes/base/images/empty.png" style="height: 48px; width: 49px;" alt="Things" />
                </span>
            </a>

        <ul class="view-menu-item view-menu-bottom-right menu"
        style="width: 170px !important">
            <li> <a class="nav-button" href="#" title="View data.">
                        <span class="thing1-calendar-button"></span>
                        <span>This 1</span>
                    </a>

            </li>
            <li> <a class="nav-button" href="#" title="View data.">
                        <span class="thing2-calendar-button"></span>
                        <span>This 2</span>
                    </a>

            </li>
            <li> <a class="nav-button" href="#" title="View data.">
                        <span class="thing3-calendar-button"></span>
                        <span>This 3</span>
                    </a>

            </li>
        </ul>
    </li>
</ul>

Answer 1

Turns out all I needed to do was get hold of the current drawn position from the jQuery offset value. Then set the CSS position for the absolute element. Simples... when you know how!

var position = $('ul#viewMenu ul.menu').offset();

$('ul#viewMenu ul.menu').css({ top: (position.top) + 'px', left: (position.left - 160) + 'px' });

$('ul.menu').hide();

$('ul#viewMenu li').hover(function () {
    $(this).children('ul.menu').animate({ opacity: 'show' }, 'slow');
}, function () {
    $(this).children('ul.menu').animate({ opacity: 'hide' }, 'fast');
});

Answer 2

Simple. Just give this:

ul#viewMenu ul.menu {
    position: absolute;
    right: 0;
}

Fiddle: http://jsfiddle.net/praveenscience/T8hFW/1/