Help with this few lines of CSS

HTML & CSS
1

Hi,

I’m struggling with the CSS below, the “nav li a” text state is not properly aligned with the “nav li hover”. I was hoping someone here can help me proplerly arrange the code below.


#nav li a
{
	-moz-border-radius-topleft:6px;
	-moz-border-radius-topright:6px;
	-webkit-border-top-left-radius:6px;
	-webkit-border-top-right-radius:6px;
	-moz-border-radius-bottomleft:6px;
	-moz-border-radius-bottomright:6px;
	-webkit-border-bottom-left-radius:6px;
	-webkit-border-bottom-right-radius:6px;

	color:#FFF;
	display:block;
	float:left;

	font-size:14px;
	font-weight:700;
	letter-spacing:1px;
	line-height:100%;
        margin: 14px 20px 0 0;
	margin-top:6px;
	margin-left:20px;
	padding:5px 15px;
	text-decoration:none;
	text-shadow:1px 1px 1px #233a20;
	text-transform:uppercase;
}

#nav li a:hover
{
	-moz-border-radius-topleft:6px;
	-moz-border-radius-topright:6px;
	-webkit-border-top-left-radius:6px;
	-webkit-border-top-right-radius:6px;
	-moz-border-radius-bottomleft:6px;
	-moz-border-radius-bottomright:6px;
	-webkit-border-bottom-left-radius:6px;
	-webkit-border-bottom-right-radius:6px;

	border:1px solid #8ab713;
	background-color:#a73246;
	color:#FFF;
	margin-top:6px;
	padding:5px 15px;
}

#nav li.active a
{
	-moz-border-radius-topleft:6px;
	-moz-border-radius-topright:6px;
	-webkit-border-top-left-radius:6px;
	-webkit-border-top-right-radius:6px;
	-moz-border-radius-bottomleft:6px;
	-moz-border-radius-bottomright:6px;
	-webkit-border-bottom-left-radius:6px;
	-webkit-border-bottom-right-radius:6px;

	border:1px solid #8ab713;
	background-color:#a73246;
	color:#FFF;
	margin-top:6px;
	padding:5px 15px;
}
2

A simple way to fix this is to reduce the padding on hover by the same value as the border i.e. 1px all round. So give #nav li a:hover and #nav li.active a padding:4px 14px;

There’s no need to declare margins again on hover and .active.

#nav li a needn’t have display:block; because floated elements are automatically set to block.

As #nav li a:hover and #nav li.active a are identical they can be combined into one rule.

#nav li a
{
    -moz-border-radius-topleft:6px;
    -moz-border-radius-topright:6px;
    -webkit-border-top-left-radius:6px;
    -webkit-border-top-right-radius:6px;
    -moz-border-radius-bottomleft:6px;
    -moz-border-radius-bottomright:6px;
    -webkit-border-bottom-left-radius:6px;
    -webkit-border-bottom-right-radius:6px;
    color:#FFF;
    float:left;
    font-size:14px;
    font-weight:700;
    letter-spacing:1px;
    line-height:100%;
    margin: 6px 20px 0 20px;
    padding:5px 15px;
    text-decoration:none;
    text-shadow:1px 1px 1px #233a20;
    text-transform:uppercase;
}

#nav li a:hover, #nav li.active a
{
    -moz-border-radius-topleft:6px;
    -moz-border-radius-topright:6px;
    -webkit-border-top-left-radius:6px;
    -webkit-border-top-right-radius:6px;
    -moz-border-radius-bottomleft:6px;
    -moz-border-radius-bottomright:6px;
    -webkit-border-bottom-left-radius:6px;
    -webkit-border-bottom-right-radius:6px;
    border:1px solid #8ab713;
    background-color:#a73246;
    color:#FFF;
    padding:4px 14px;
}
3

Awesome, that solve it - I really appreciate the help.

4

Remember you only need to declare things that you want to change on hover, I would just set a border even it’s not visible so that you don’t have to adjust padding. All you’re wanting to do is change colours on hover.


#nav li a
{
	-moz-border-radius: 6px;
	-webkit-border-radius: 6px;
	color: #fff;
	float: left;
	font-size: 14px;
	font-weight: 700;
	letter-spacing: 1px;
	line-height: 100%;
	margin: 6px 20px 0 20px;
	padding: 5px 15px;
	text-decoration: none;
	text-shadow: 1px 1px 1px #233a20;
	text-transform: uppercase;
	border: 1px solid transparent; /* or whatever color the backgroud is */
}
 
#nav li a:hover, #nav li.active a
{
	border-color: #8ab713;
	background-color: #a73246;
}
5

You could, with the caveat that IE6 does not support a border value of transparent

6

yes, that’s why I added “or whatever your background color is”.

A lot of people are dropping support for ie6 anyways these days.