For the main nav of my site, there is a 980px wide div with a ul for the main nav links. I am trying to make the nav links stretch to fit the width of the div evenly.
<div style="width: 980px;">
<ul id="horizontal-style">
<li><a href="#">Nav Item</a></li>
<li><a href="#">Short Item</a></li>
<li><a href="#">Really Long Nav Item</a></li>
<li><a href="#">Nav Link</a></li>
<li><a href="#">Another Link</a></li>
</ul>
</div>
I am doing some typical css to make the ul list horizontally (float: left, display: block). I can tweak the padding of the li to get it very close, but what I really need is a way to make it stretch to fit automatically. Possible?
Edit
Difficulty 1: Can't use tables.
Difficulty 2: Each nav item will be a different width to accommodate longer and shorter link names.
This is the easiest way to do it: http://jsfiddle.net/thirtydot/jwJBd/
(or with table-layout: fixed
for even width distribution: http://jsfiddle.net/thirtydot/jwJBd/59/)
This won't work in IE7.
#horizontal-style {
display: table;
width: 100%;
/*table-layout: fixed;*/
}
#horizontal-style li {
display: table-cell;
}
#horizontal-style a {
display: block;
border: 1px solid red;
text-align: center;
margin: 0 5px;
background: #999;
}
Old answer before your edit: http://jsfiddle.net/thirtydot/DsqWr/
People hate on tables for non-tabular data, but what you're asking for is exactly what tables are good at. <table width="100%">
inelegant (but effective) way: use percentages
#horizontal-style {
width: 100%;
}
li {
width: 20%;
}
This only works with the 5 <li>
example. For more or less, modify your percentage accordingly. If you have other <li>
s on your page, you can always assign these particular ones a class of "menu-li" so that only they are affected.
#horizontal-style {
width: 100%;
}
li {
width: 20%;
}
This approach won't be responsive because it will be 20% at the smallest screen which would be too small or the other way to override would be media query at different breakpoints.