Using inline-block instead of floating - html

Question

I'm trying to right-align the nav without using float. I read somewhere online that I could set the parent element to text-align: right, but that didn't work when I tried it. I appreciate any help for what I know is an easy problem but one that has confounded me most of the day.
header {
background-color: #AEB7CC;
padding: 0 10px;
}
nav {
display: inline-block;
}
nav li {
display: inline;
}
<header>
hi
<nav>
<ul>
<li>Home
</li>
<li>bop</li>
<li>bop</li>
<li>bop</li>
</ul>
</nav>
</header>
https://jsfiddle.net/a6a367vp/

Answer 1

The solution is that you have to add text-align: right; to the parent element which is the header.
header {
text-align: right;
...
}
Then add display: inline-block; to the children (nav) and the children will be aligned right.
Another solution would be to set a width to nav and a:
header nav {
with: 80%;
}
header a {
width: 20%;
}
header nav ul {
text-align: right;
}
header nav ul li {
display: inline-block;
}

Answer 2

if you want the nav to move to the right, simple method is float:right but since you don't want to use this then text-align:right would place it on right if nav has 100% width for that row.
Therefore, you can do either of these two things.
right now using CSS you can make
nav{width:98%; text-align:right};
or for better results, use JS
var anchorTopWidth = $("a").width() / $('a').parent().width() * 100;
requiredWidth = 100-anchorTopWidth;
$('nav').css({'width': requiredWidth+'%', 'text-align':'right'});
Fiddle: https://jsfiddle.net/a6a367vp/3/

Answer 3

One possible and recommended solution is as follows:
Put the <nav> in a <div> element and then use the text-align property for the specified div. like this:
Html:
<div class="nav_menu">
<nav>
<ul>
<li>Home</li>
<li>bop</li>
<li>bop</li>
<li>bop</li>
</ul>
</nav>
</div>
CSS:
.nav_menu{
text-align: right;
}
Update:
Put the <a> tag in another div and then specify the width for the selected divs. Your final code should be like this:
HTML:
<header>
<div class="atag_div">
hi
</div>
<div class="nav_menu">
<nav>
<ul>
<li>Home</li>
<li>bop</li>
<li>bop</li>
<li>bop</li>
</ul>
</nav>
</div>
</header>
CSS:
header {
background-color: #AEB7CC;
padding: 0 10px;
}
nav li {
display: inline;
}
.atag_div{
width: 20%;
display: inline-block;
}
.nav_menu{
width: 78%;
display: inline-block;
text-align: right;
}
jsfiddle:
https://jsfiddle.net/pokies/7Lnfq7es/