Link inside an <li>, need to change its color on hover

I have this code
<li class="mainMenuLi" onmouseover="showSub(1, 'block', this)" onmouseout="showSub(1, 'none', this)"><a href="/221Print"><span>221 Printing</span></a></li>

I need it so when i hover over the li the LI's background colour changes and the links text colour changes. The background colour changes fine.

#mainMenu li
{
padding:2px;
border:1px solid #de0088;
border-right:none;
width:195px;
background-color:#ffe306;
}

#mainMenu li:hover
{
background-color:#de0088;
color:#FFFF00;
border:1px solid #FFFF00;
border-right:none;
}

Its for a drop down menu and when i try #mainMenu li:hover, #mainMenu a:hover it doesnt work, because when im hovering over a sub menu the mainmenus background color stays changed but the text colour reverts to normal. Does anyone know a way i can get the text colour to stay and the desired hover colour? If i remove the <a>...</a> and just have the text the property 'color:' works, can i make the link colour use the 'color:' preoperty?

You need to create a class .active assign it to menu which is clicked.

:)

The drop down menus work on mouseover not mouseclick, would active still work for that?

You want keep its color changed even after mouse out?

If this is so.. then use jquery

Well when the sub menus' are display the main menu's background colour stays on the :hover colour and i need the links to stay the :hover colour too but they change back, i didnt wanna use JS but it seems im gonna have to :P

The drop down menus work on mouseover not mouseclick, would active still work for that?

You have to use jquery only... and its not difficult to use.

share your navigation HTML and CSS code, I ll try to write jquery for you


:)

.active
{
color:#FFFF00;
background-color:#999999;
font-size:3em;
}

function showSub(num, what, Link)
{
var Elem = document.getElementById("sub"+num);
Elem.style.display = what;
var linK = document.getElementById(Link);
linK.setAttribute("class", "active");
}

<li class="mainMenuLi" onmouseover="showSub(1, 'block', 'main1')" onmouseout="showSub(1, 'none', 'main1')"><a id="main1" href="/221Print"><span>221 Printing</span></a></li>

For some reason when i try that code the links background colour and text size change but the colour doesnt, anyone see why?