Why my element needs to be clicked on in order for CSS to work? - html

Question

My element has to be clicked on for CSS to work.
I tried using bootstrap for a nav bar. With 1 logout link on the top right.
I used navbar-nav ml-auto for it.
After that, I tried to override spacing of bootstrap by adding margin-right: 50% !important;
When I refresh the page, it is not applied immediately. If I clicked on the link, it will "jump" to the left as I expected.
Here is what I've tried:
<nav class="navbar navbar-expand-sm bg-light">
<!-- Links -->
<ul class="navbar-nav">
<li class="nav-item">
<a class="nav-link" href="#">Home</a>
</li>
<li class="nav-item">
<a class="nav-link" href="#">Category</a>
</li>
<li class="nav-item">
<a class="nav-link" href="#">Blog posts</a>
</li>
<li class="nav-item">
<a class="nav-link" href="#">Role Management</a>
</li>
<li class="nav-item">
<a class="nav-link" href="#">User Management</a>
</li>
<li class="nav-item">
<a class="nav-link" href="#">File and Folder Management</a>
</li>
</ul>
<ul class="navbar-nav ml-auto">
<li>
<a class="nav-item" id="logout-btn" href="#"> Logout </a>
</li>
</ul>
</nav>
CSS:
* {
/*display: none;*/
box-sizing: border-box;
}
#logout-btn.nav-item {
margin-right: 50% !important;
}
Can you help me explain why, or is it my browser's fault?
I find it quite weird, already cleared cached.

Answer 1

Remove css style for logout-btn.nav-item which you override. this get applied to the anchor tag. we need to add margin to the ul tag not to a tag. so we have bootstrap 4 in-built margin classes, so we can make use of it. so remove overrided styles and add mr-4 class to the second ul which contains the logout link.The modified code is given below.
<nav class="navbar navbar-expand-sm bg-light">
<!-- Links -->
<ul class="navbar-nav">
<li class="nav-item">
<a class="nav-link" href="#">Home</a>
</li>
<li class="nav-item">
<a class="nav-link" href="#">Category</a>
</li>
<li class="nav-item">
<a class="nav-link" href="#">Blog posts</a>
</li>
<li class="nav-item">
<a class="nav-link" href="#">Role Management</a>
</li>
<li class="nav-item">
<a class="nav-link" href="#">User Management</a>
</li>
<li class="nav-item">
<a class="nav-link" href="#">File and Folder Management</a>
</li>
</ul>
<ul class="navbar-nav ml-auto mr-4">
<li>
<a class="nav-item" id="logout-btn" href="#"> Logout </a>
</li>
</ul>
</nav>