css list item width/height does not work.

Question

Hi there,

I tried to make a navigation inline list. You can find it here: http://www.luukratief-design.nl/dump/parallax/para.html

For some reason it does not display the width and height of the LI, here is the snippet. Can you guys tell me what is wrong with this?

.navcontainer-top li {
 font-family: "Verdana", sans-serif;
 margin: 0;
 padding: 0;
 font-size: 1em;
 text-align: center;
 display: inline;
 list-style-type: none;<br>
 width: 117px;
 height: 26px;
}


.navcontainer-top li a {
 background: url("../images/nav-button.png") no-repeat;
 color: #FFFFFF;
 text-decoration: none;
 width: 117px;
 height: 26px;
 margin-left: 2px;
 margin-right: 2px;
}
.navcontainer-top li a:hover {
 background: url("../images/nav-button-hover.png") no-repeat;
 color: #dedede;
}

Answer 1

Declare the a element as display: inline-block and drop the width and height from the li element.

Alternatively, apply a float: left to the li element and use display: block on the a element. This is a bit more cross browser compatible, as display: inline-block is not supported in Firefox <= 2 for example.

The first method allows you to have a dynamically centered list if you give the ul element a width of 100% (so that it spans from left to right edge) and then apply text-align: center.

Use line-height to control the text's Y-position inside the element.

Answer 2

I think the problem is, that you're trying to set width to an inline element which I'm not sure is possible. In general Li is block and this would work.

Answer 3

Using width/height on inline elements is not always a good idea. You can use display: inline-block instead

Answer 4

Inline items cannot have a width. You have to use display: block or display:inline-block, but the latter is not supported everywhere.

Answer 5

Remove the <br> from the .navcontainer-top li styles.