Remove random padding from my UL LI? - html

Question

I have some sort of space in between my li tags I don't where it's coming from? How can i remove this?
Also, I'd like to change the color of the font to white on hover of the li
JSFIDDLE http://jsfiddle.net/omarel/tfyxL66c/
CSS
.nav_container {
text-align: center;
width:100%;
}
.nav_container ul {
/* margin-top:15px; */
margin-left:30px;
}
.nav_container ul li {
display: inline-block;
text-align: center;
padding-left:40px;
padding-right:40px;
margin:0px;
height:80px;
cursor:pointer;
}
.nav_container ul li:hover {
background-color:#08298A;
}
.nav_container a:hover {
color:#fff;
}
header {
width:100%;
margin: auto;
box-shadow:0 0 8px rgba(0,0,0,0.1);
min-width:410px;
}
.navlogo {
z-index:99;
}
.navlogo img {
width:100px;
margin:10px 10px 10px 10px;
}
.floatleft {
float:left;
}
.floatright {
float:right;
}
.centerdiv {
margin:0 auto;
}
#media only screen and (min-width:700px) {
header {
max-width:1250px;
}
.container {
max-width:1250px;
}
.box2 {
width:32%;
height:300px;
float:left;
}
.box2left {
width:65%;
height:600px;
float:left;
}
}
div {
border:solid 1px #E6E6E6;
position:relative;
}
ul li {
border:solid 1px #E6E6E6;
}
HTML
<div class="navlogo floatleft">
<img src="images/logo.png" />
</div>
<div class="floatleft">
<div class="nav_container">
<ul>
<li>Link 1</li>
<li>Link 2</li>
</ul>
</div>
</div>
<div class="floatright">
<div class="nav_container">
<ul>
<li>Profile</li>
<li>Sign out</li>
</ul>
</div>
</div>
</header>
<div style="clear:both;"></div>

Answer 1

Answering your second question first as the answer is shorter: use the :hover pseudo class.
EXAMPLE
li:hover a{color:#fff;}
More information on pseudo classes
To answer your first question, then; setting an element's display property to inline or inline-block will cause the white space surrounding it to be treated just like the space surrounding any other inline element.
You can workaround it in a number of ways
Remove all line breaks from within your list:
<ul><li>Item 1</li><li>Item 2</li><li>Item 3</li></ul>
Use comments to hide the line breaks from the browser:
<ul><!--
--><li>Item 1</li><!--
--><li>Item 2</li><!--
--><li>Item 3</li><!--
--></ul>
Use CSS to set the font-size of the parent element to 0 and then "reset" it for the child elements:
html{font-size:20px;}
ul{font-size:0;}
li{font-size:1rem;}
Alternatively, if you're not 100% set on using display:inline-block, you can use floats or flexbox instead.

Answer 2

To change the color of the links to white, use this css:
.nav_container ul li:hover a {
color:white;
}
However, only the text will be clickable, the li element won't be clickable. Another way to do the same thing is to apply all width/height/background styling to the link, instead of the li.

Answer 3

As Shaggy mentioned, to eliminate extra spacing when using inline-block you should remove all spaces in your html between your menu li items.
As for changing the link color on hover you should add the following to your css code:
.nav_container li:hover a {
color:#FFF;
}