Question

I am creating a center, nested navigation menu, and am trying to use pure CSS. See a working demo HERE: http://jsfiddle.net/jenstechs/MKtTN/2/

HTML:

<nav>
  <ul id="primary">
    <li><a href="#">Link One</a></li>
    <li><a href="#">Link Two</a></li>
    <li><a href="#">Link Threee</a>
        <ul class="secondary">
            <li><a href="#">Services One</a></li>
            <li><a href="#">Services Two</a></li>
        </ul>
    </li>
    <li><a href="#">Link Four</a></li>
    <li><a href="#">Link Fiiiiive</a></li>
  </ul>
</nav>

CSS:

nav {
  margin:15px auto 10px auto;
  width:100%;
}

nav ul#primary {
  width: 100%;
  padding: 10px 0;
  margin: 0;
  background-color: #FFF;
  text-align: center;
}

nav ul#primary>li {
  display: inline;
  padding:5px 0;
  margin-left:0;
}

nav ul#primary>li>a {
  padding: 0px 30px;
  margin-right:-6px;
  color: #000;
  text-decoration: none;
  border-right:2px solid #999;
}

nav ul#primary>li>a:hover,
nav ul#primary>li.active>a {
  background-color: #900;
  color:#FFF;
  padding-top:10px;
  padding-bottom:25px;
}

nav ul#primary>li:first-child a {
    border-left:2px solid #999;
}

ul.secondary { 
    padding-top:0;
    position:absolute;
    display:none;
}
ul.secondary li {
}

nav ul#primary li:hover ul.secondary {
    display:block;
}
nav ul#primary li:hover ul.secondary li {
}

ul.secondary li a {
    display:block;
    width:7em;
    color:#FFF;
    background-color:#900;
    font-size:0.8em;
    text-decoration:none;
    text-align:left;
    line-height:1.4em;
    border-bottom:1px solid #FFF;
}

ul.secondary li:last-child a {
    border-bottom:0;
}

ul.secondary li a:hover {
    color:#DDD;
}
​

I also have a minimal reset, the only styles it has on lists is a few default margins.

Since this is a centered navigation bar, the CSS I’m using is inline, not floated. So I have no idea what to put in the CSS to position the sub-menu actually underneath its parent element. Most examples I’ve seen have position:absolute but that seems to keep it at the left. I’ve tried various methods of hiding and showing (display:, left:) but can’t seem to find that magic combination.

Here I only have the one sub-list, actually, but what if I had sublists for all of them?

Thanks for any tips or links to examples…

Answer 1

To make position: absolute elements position relative to their parent, make the parent position: relative.

In your case:

nav ul#primary>li {
  display: inline;
  padding:5px 0;
  margin-left:0;

  position: relative;
}

Demo: http://jsfiddle.net/MKtTN/3/