Question

please take a look at JSFiddle example.

I want to make menu with closing ‘x’ on it’s right side. Menu pops-up after click on green div.

HTML

<div class="field">
<nav id="menu">
    <ul>
        <li>Menu item 1</li>
        <li>Menu item 2</li>
        <li>Item 3</li>
    </ul>
    <div class="close">X</div>
</nav>

CSS

.field {
    background: green;
    width: 350px;
    height: 200px;
    margin: 10px auto;
    position: relative;
    cursor: pointer;
}
#menu {
    position: absolute;
    display: none;
}
#menu ul {
    width: 80%;
    border: 1px solid #999;
    float: left;
}
#menu li {
    background: #fff;
    padding: 5% 15%;
    border-width: 0 0 1px 0;
    border-style: solid;
    border-color: #999;
    white-space: nowrap;
}
#menu .close {
    background: #ccc;
    width: 20%;
    padding: 5%;
    float: right;
}

JS

(JS is messy, I wrote it on quickly)

$('.field').on('click', function (e) {

 var $pointer = $('#pointer'),
        $menu = $('#menu'),
        parentOffset = $(this).offset(),
        relX = e.pageX - parentOffset.left,
        relY = e.pageY - parentOffset.top,
        circleX = relX - ($pointer.outerWidth() / 2) + 1,
        circleY = relY - ($pointer.outerHeight() / 2) + 1;

    $pointer.css('left', circleX);
    $pointer.css('top', circleY);
    $pointer.show();

    $menu.css('left', circleX + $pointer.outerWidth());
    $menu.css('top', circleY);
    $menu.show();

    $menu.one('click', '.close', function (e) {
        $menu.hide();
        $pointer.hide();
        e.stopPropagation();
    });
});

There are 2 issues:

• li items doesn’t overflow properly text inside them;

• [x] element is under menu and not on its right side;

I tried different combinations suggested in other, similar questions but nothing works or I’m to tired and I missed something.

Important thing is that there should not be any hard coded values. Properly values are only %. That’s because it should look good on different borwser sizes.

Any ideas how to fix those issues?

Answer 1

You should take a look at the CSS Box model. Padding, border and margin are always added to the width/height of the element and are not included in the width you define. Your floating X is jumping down, because there are no more 20% space left on the right side of the ul.

Better place the X outside of your div. You can also leave out all the floats. Set position: absolute on div.close and move it outside the boundary of the container using left: 100%.

#menu {
    position: absolute;
    display: none;
}
#menu ul {
    border: 1px solid #999;
}
#menu li {
    background: #fff;
    padding: 5% 15%;
    border-width: 0 0 1px 0;
    border-style: solid;
    border-color: #999;
}
#menu .close {
    background: #ccc;
    width: 20%;
    padding: 5%;
    position: absolute;
    top: 0;
    left: 100%;
}

By the way, white-space: nowrap leads to your menu elements’ texts being out of the boundary of the li, which is not very flexible.