floating but in document flow

Hi all,

I have a problem with absolute positioning a div in a div which is
positioned with the 'float' attribute.
Maybe a very trivial one, but I can't find the solution anymore.

The thing is:
* design 'required' a semi-opaque background for a div
* to not let the contents of the div go semi-opaque too, i added a
absolute positioned div in the container with position at 0,0 and
width,height at 100%

like:
<div id="floatedleft">
<div id="trans"></div>
... content ...
</div>

Some of the containing div's however are floated left to create columns.
This means that the div providing the alpha positions itself at 0, 0 of
the parent of the container instead of it's own parent.

In msie it does size to it's parent's size.
in netscape it sizes to it's parent's parent size.

Basically I need to create columns (the number of which is defined by
the width of a wrapper) of a generated amout of div's. but can't seem to
figure out how to get it done with the absolute-positioned child of the
column item.

Anyone any bright ideas?

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