Stretching tag to fill entire

Question

Here\'s a simple menu structure:

  
Home
  


        

Answer 1

The "a" tag is an inline level element. No inline level element may have its width set. Why? Because inline level elements are meant to represent flowing text which could in theory wrap from one line to the next. In those sorts of cases, it doesn't make sense to supply the width of the element, because you don't necessarily know if it's going to wrap or not. In order to set its width, you must change its display property to block, or inline-block:

a.wide {
    display:block;
}

...

<ul id="menu">
  <li><a class="wide" href="javascript:;">Home</a></li>
  <li><a class="wide" href="javascript:;">Test</a></li>
</ul>

If memory serves, you can set the width on certain inline level elements in IE6, though. But that's because IE6 implements CSS incorrectly and wants to confuse you.

Answer 2

Just changing the display property to block didn't work for me. I removed the padding of li and set the same padding for a.

  li a {
        display:block;  
        padding: 4px 8px;  

  }

Answer 3

If your <li>s had to have a specific height then your <a>s would only stretch to the <li>'s width and not the height anymore. One way I solve this is to use CSS display:block and add paddings to my <a>s OR wrap the <a>s around the <li>s

<ul id="menu">
      <a href="javascript:;"><li>Home</li></a>
      <a href="javascript:;"><li>Test</li></a>
    </ul>   

Answer 4

display:flex

is the HTML5 way.

See Fiddle

Useful to hack frameworks buttons, or any other element, but you may need to remove their padding first, and set them to the desired height.

In this case, angular-material tabs, which are kind of tricky to make them work as a "standard" website nav.

Notice that the pointer changes as soon as you enter the tab : the < a > are now stretched to fit their parent dimensions.

Out of topic, notice how flawless angular-material displays the ripple effect, even on a "large surface".

.md-header{
/* THIS IS A CUSTOM HEIGHT */
    height: 50vh !important; /* '!important' IS JSFIDDLE SPECIFIC */
}

md-tab{    
    padding: 0 !important; /* '!important' IS JSFIDDLE SPECIFIC */
}

a{
    display: flex;
    align-items: center;
    justify-content: center; 
    height: 100%; 
}

UPDATE 2018

AngularJS Material throws a (gentle) warning when using flex on button elements, so don't assume all HTML elements/tags can handle display:flex properly, or have a homogeneous behaviour across browsers.

Remember to consult flexbugs in case of unexpected behaviour in a particular browser.