What is the best way to ensure a span takes up 100% of its parent li's width

Looking to create a span that spans 100% of its parent li element

<ul>
    <li><a href="#">Home</a></li>
    <li><a href="#">About</a>
        <span>
              <a href="#">One</a>
              <a href="#">Three</a>
              <a href="#">Four</a>
        </span>
    </li>
    <li><a href="#">Services</a>
        <span>
              <a href="#">One</a>
              <a href="#">Two</a>
              <a href="#">Three</a>
        </span>
    </li>
    <li><a href="#">Responsibility</a>
        <span>
              <a href="#">One</a>
              <a href="#">Two</a>
        </span> </li>
    <li><a href="#">Contact</a></li>
  </ul>

My current navigation bar setup is as follows:

However, I want it to look like this:

Is there a way to accomplish this? I attempted to use width:100%; for the span, but it extended outside the li element and affected all the spans to the width of the ul.

htmlcss

Answer №1

To address the issue mentioned by others, a simple solution is to adjust the styling of the span and anchor tag by setting display: block.

li:hover span, li:hover span a {
  display: block;
}

* {
  margin: 0;
  padding: 0;
  box-sizing: border-box;
}

body {
  background: blue;
}

ul {
  list-style: none;
  background-color: black;
  height: 40px;
  display: flex;
}

ul li {
  position: relative;
  line-height: 40px;
  width: 20%;
  text-align: center;
}

a {
  color: white;
  text-decoration: none;
}

span, span a {
  display: none;
}

span {
  position: absolute;
  width: 100%;
}

span a {
  border-bottom: 1px solid black;
  text-align: center;
}

li:hover, span {
  background: red;
}
<ul>
  <li><a href="#">Home</a></li>
  <li><a href="#">About</a>
    <span>
              <a href="#">One</a>
              <a href="#">Three</a>
              <a href="#">Four</a>
        </span>
  </li>
  <li><a href="#">Services</a>
    <span>
              <a href="#">One</a>
              <a href="#">Two</a>
              <a href="#">Three</a>
        </span>
  </li>
  <li><a href="#">Responsibility</a>
    <span>
              <a href="#">One</a>
              <a href="#">Two</a>
        </span> </li>
  <li><a href="#">Contact</a></li>
</ul>

The reason for this is that the span element is by default an inline element and does not occupy the full width of its parent. By changing it to display: block, you are instructing it to behave like a block element, thereby expanding to fill the width of its parent.

Answer №2

Explore the following style options:

li span {display:block; width: 100%; overflow: hidden;}
li span a{display: inline-block; float:left;}

Answer №4

To improve the structure, consider switching the span to display: block or replace it with a more suitable block element like div. It's not recommended to nest inline and block elements within an inline element. Try implementing it this way instead:

 <li><a href="#">About</a>
    <div>
          <a href="#">One</a>
          <a href="#">Three</a>
          <a href="#">Four</a>
    </div>
 </li>

Here is the CSS:

 li div a { 
       width: 100%;
       display: block;
       box-sizing: border-box;
       padding: 20px;
 }

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