Gap between <li>s

Question

To avoid long lists I've got my li set to float: left so that they alternate rows. However, on occasion this causes an unintentional gap between elements when the content in a li takes up two lines. My HTML is:

<ul class="gmc-ingredient-list">                                   
<li>500g Tagliatelle</li>                                                                   
<li>50g wortel</li>                                 
<li>50g ui</li>                                  
<li>50g bleekselderij</li>                                  
<li>100g pancetta</li>                                  
<li>200g half-om-half-gehakt</li>                                  
<li>200g rundergehakt</li>                                  
<li>200 ml Primitivo (rode wijn)</li>                                  
<li>200ml runderbouillon</li>                                  
<li>5 eetlepels tomatenpuree</li>                                  
<li>Olijfolie</li>                                  
<li>Zeezout</li>                                  
<li>Verse peper</li>                                             
</ul>

My CSS is:

ul.gmc-ingredient-list { 
margin: 0; 
padding: 0;
list-style: none; 
width: 300px; 
}

ul.gmc-ingredient-list li { 
background: url(http://allesoveritaliaanseten.nl/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/aoie-list.png) no-repeat scroll left top transparent; 
list-style: none outside none;
padding: 0px 0 0 20px; 
width: 130px; 
float: left;
}

And the output looks like http://allesoveritaliaanseten.nl/ragu-alla-bolognese/

But there are also some cases in which a li takes up two lines and the output is just fine like http://allesoveritaliaanseten.nl/italiaanse-tomatensoep/

How can I stop the list showing those gaps?

Answer 1

With css3 you can add columns to your lists

ul.gmc-ingredient-list {
    margin: 0;
    padding:0;
    -moz-column-count: 2;
    -moz-column-gap: 0;
    -webkit-column-count: 2;
    -webkit-column-gap: 0;
    column-count: 2;
    column-gap: 0;
    width:300px;
}
ul.gmc-ingredient-list li {
    background: url(http://allesoveritaliaanseten.nl/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/aoie-list.png) no-repeat scroll left top transparent;
    list-style: none outside none;
    padding: 0px 0 0 20px;
    width:130px;
}

don't forget to remove the float from the li

Example: http://jsfiddle.net/LWBdp/3/

IE Problems CSS columns don't seem to work for IE, if you leave the float:left in there it will look like you had in IE but will look better in the other browsers!

For more information about css-columns take a look at this article at w3schools

Answer 2

I would recommend you using http://www.csscripting.com/css-multi-column/

I use this script for a long time now and it's really efficient compared to other possibilities available. If your site is done with AJAX, you will have to modify this line: ut.XBrowserAddEventHandler(window,'load',function() { documentReady = true; processElements(); } );

EDIT: This solution is working on any browser since IE6...