Awkward gap between menu items. How to fix? - php

Question

I am having trouble with the layout of a website I'm making.
I'm not very good with CSS.
So the trouble I'm having is that I want to have a horizontal menu bar that I want to center in my website. This menu can have dropdown children.
The implementation is in jQuery.
So this is the HTML code of my menu bar :
<ul class='dropdown'>
<li><a href='index.php'>Home</a></li>
<li><a href='#'>Incident</a>
<ul class='sub_menu'>
<li><a href='index.php?action=new'>New</a></li>
<li><a href='index.php?action=edit'>Edit</a></li>
<li><a href='index.php?action=manage'>Manage</a></li>
</ul>
</li>
<li><a href='action_logout.php'>Log out</a></li>
</ul>
and this is the CSS that is being implemented :
* { margin: 0; padding: 0; }
body { font: 14px Helvetica, Sans-Serif; margin: 15px; }
a { text-decoration: none; }
ul { width: 800px; list-style: none; text-align: center; margin: auto; padding: 2px 2px;}
p { margin: 15px 0; }
/*
LEVEL ONE
*/
ul.dropdown { position: relative; }
ul.dropdown li { display: inline; font-weight: bold; background: #ccc; padding: 2px 2px; border-bottom: 1px solid #777; }
ul.dropdown a:hover { color: #000; }
ul.dropdown a:active { color: #ffa500; }
ul.dropdown li a { display: inline; padding: 2px 8px; border-right: 1px solid #777; border-bottom: 1px solid #777;
color: #222; }
ul.dropdown li:last-child a { border-right: none; } /* Doesn't work in IE */
ul.dropdown li.hover,
ul.dropdown li:hover { background: #F3D673; color: black; position: relative; }
ul.dropdown li.hover a { color: black; }
/*
LEVEL TWO
*/
ul.dropdown ul { width: 175px; visibility: hidden; position: absolute; top: 100%; left: 0; text-align: left; }
ul.dropdown ul li { font-weight: normal; background: #f6f6f6; color: #000;
border-bottom: 1px solid #ccc; float: none; }
/* IE 6 & 7 Needs Inline Block */
ul.dropdown ul li a { border-right: none; width: 100%; display: inline-block; }
An Example can be seen here.
I did manage to center my menu bar after all. However there seems to be a little gap between Home and Incident menus and I've no idea how to get rid of it.
Any ideas?
Thank you in advance.

Answer 1

Somehow you managed to put whitespace outside <li> element, here is absolutely same code with whitespace removed:
http://jsfiddle.net/fPAFs/1/

Answer 2

How about this: http://dabblet.com/gist/2520870
Your code was a mess.
<style>
* {
padding: 0;
margin: 0;
}
body {
font-family: helvetica, serif;
font-size: 14px;
}
ul {
list-style-type: none;
}
.dropdown {
text-align: center;
font-size: 0;
margin: 15px;
}
ul.dropdown ul {
width: 220px;
visibility: hidden;
position: absolute;
top: 1.8em;
left: 0;
}
ul.dropdown ul li a {
font-weight: normal;
background: #f6f6f6;
color: #000;
border-bottom: 1px solid #ccc;
float: none;
}
.dropdown > li {
display: inline-block;
height: 1.2em;
font-size: 14px;
position: relative;
}
.dropdown li a {
display: block;
background: rgb(204, 204, 204);
border-bottom: rgb(119, 119, 119) 1px solid;
border-right: rgb(119, 119, 119) 1px solid;
padding: 0.3em;
color: rgb(0, 0, 0);
text-decoration: none;
font-weight: bold;
}
.dropdown li a:hover {
background: rgb(243, 214, 115);
}
</style>
<ul class='dropdown'>
<li><a href='index.php'>Home</a></li>
<li><a href='#'>Incident</a>
<ul class='sub_menu'>
<li><a href='index.php?action=new'>New</a></li>
<li><a href='index.php?action=edit'>Edit</a></li>
<li><a href='index.php?action=manage'>Manage</a></li>
</ul>
</li>
<li><a href='action_logout.php'>Log out</a></li>
</ul>
Try this new code. Though I urge you to not try and implement someone else's code without understanding it first!