trying to reposition elements

I can work with an element's position and sizes in ie with document.all[elementID].style.<p-attribute>. I can use this to set the left, height, width, top, etc. The problem I'm having is getting those positions prior to positioning.

I have a stable element. I want to position another element to it. But when I try to get document.all[stable].style.left I get no value unless I've positioned the stable element with javascript. But I don't want to. I want to use its inherent and automatic position.

Basicly, I'm writing a simple drop down menu system. I found some pluggable solutions, but I don't like having to use their conventions, and they do a lot more than I need in most cases. And I'll be storing the menus in xml format. I'd rather transform them to a nice html format rather than javascript arrays or some other nonsense.

Thanks,
Matt