Getting Rid of White Spaces Between Items (Using Table Layout)

by Konstantin Rouda

HTML

<nav class="navbar">
  <ul class="navbar__menu">
    <li class="navbar__menu__item"><a href="#" title="Home">Home</a></li>
    <li class="navbar__menu__item"><a href="#" title="Chips">Chips</a></li>
    <li class="navbar__menu__item"><a href="#" title="Spaghetti">Spaghetti</a></li>
    <li class="navbar__menu__item"><a href="#" title="Meat">Meat</a></li>
  </ul>
</nav>

CSS

HTML {
  line-height: 1.5;
  box-sizing: border-box;
}

*, *:before, *:after {
  box-sizing: inherit;
}

BODY {
  font-family: 'Source Sans Pro', sans-serif;
  padding: 0; margin: 0;
}

.navbar__menu {
  list-style: none;
  display: table;
  width: 100%; /*we set it,because default table's behavior is shrink to fit*/
  table-layout: fixed; /*make sure table behaving as expected in relation to width of the each row and cells*/
  padding: 0;
  margin-top: 0;
  background-color: #486a8e;
}

.navbar__menu__item {
  display: table-cell;
  width: 25%;
  background-color: #12459e;
  outline: 1px solid #fff;
  text-align: center;
  text-transform: uppercase;
  transition: background-color .5s linear;
}

.navbar__menu__item:hover {
  background-color: #306dd8;
}

.navbar__menu__item A {
  display: block;
  padding: 1em;
  color: #fff;
  white-space: pre; /*eliminates overflow by cutting text and adding ellipsis at the end of the word*/
  overflow: hidden; /*eliminates overflow by cutting text and adding ellipsis at the end of the word*/
  text-overflow: ellipsis; /*eliminates overflow by cutting text and adding ellipsis at the end of the word*/
  text-decoration: none;
}

JavaScript

/*
	Using CSS table-layout for getting rid of white spaces between children elements.
  Note that we've added tably-layout: fixed and width: 100% to the element which we've set as display: table, this is crucial for further work with element without any strange behavior, like different size of each row/cell, overlapping etc..
*/