CSS: Horizontal UL where LI contains a TABLE. Possible?
I am trying to fix a horrid nested table layout for a site. The page will have a variable number of elements that leverage Google charts. Instead of complex spaghetti code that tries to lay things out inside of table cells I want to use a horizontal UL so the content blocks will lay out cleanly regardless of the charts involved. The problem I am having is the Google charts components leverage tables. When a table element exists anywhere inside a LI the LI gets moved to the next line (assuming because table elements by default have a newline before and after).
I have tried the various display modes for the table with no luck. Is this a lost cause?
Example HTML code to illustrate the issue:
<html>
<body>
<style type='text/css'>
#navlist li{
display:inline;
list-style-type:none;
}
</style>
<ul id='navlist'>
<li>TEST</li>
<li>TEST2</li>
<li>
<table style='border:1px solid black'><tr><td>TEST</td></tr></table>
</li>
<li>TEST3</li>
<li>
<table style='border:1px solid blue'><tr><td>TEST</td></tr></table>
</li>
<li>
<table style='border:1px solid green'><tr><td>TEST</td></tr></table>
</li>
</ul>
</body>
</html>
Answer
Set display: inline-block; on your LI elements; that should do it nicely. It doesn't really work in Firefox 2, but nobody uses Firefox 2 anymore. You'll need to specify a doctype to get it to work in IE.
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<style type='text/css'>
#navlist li {
display: inline-block;
zoom: 1;
*display: inline;
list-style-type: none;
vertical-align: middle;
}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<ul id='navlist'>
<li>TEST</li>
<li>TEST2</li>
<li>
<table style='border:1px solid black'><tr><td>TEST</td></tr></table>
</li>
<li>TEST3</li>
<li>
<table style='border:1px solid blue'><tr><td>TEST</td></tr></table>
</li>
<li>
<table style='border:1px solid green'><tr><td>TEST</td></tr></table>
</li>
</ul>
</body>
</html>