Bootstrap 3: Input group in navbar form takes up entire width

Question

So this is what bootstrap's navbar form looks like.

The default HTML is:

<form class="navbar-form navbar-left" role="search">
  <div class="form-group">
    <input type="text" class="form-control" placeholder="Search for awesome stuff">
  </div>
  <button type="submit" class="btn btn-default">Search</button>
</form>

But I want to join the input and button together like an input-group. However, when I try to wrap the input and button around an input-group, it ends up occupying the entire width:

HTML:

<form class="navbar-form navbar-left" role="search">
  <div class="input-group">
    <input type="text" class="form-control" placeholder="Search for awesome stuff">
    <span class="input-group-btn"><button type="submit" class="btn btn-default">Search</button></span>
  </div>
</form>

I've read some solutions for this, but I want to avoid using hacks like style: "width: 200px;"

Any solutions? Thanks so much in advance.

Answer 1

I thought of a minimal way to fix this without modifying the default structure of the navbar form used in the Bootstrap documentation.

Add class navbar-input-group to the form

<form class="navbar-form navbar-left navbar-input-group" role="search">
  <div class="form-group">
    <input type="text" class="form-control" placeholder="Search for awesome stuff">
  </div>
  <button type="submit" class="btn btn-default">Search</button>
</form>

CSS (place in media query if necessary):

.navbar-input-group {
  font-size: 0px; /*removes whitespace between button and input*/
}

.navbar-input-group input {
  border-top-right-radius: 0px;
  border-bottom-right-radius: 0px;
}
.navbar-input-group .btn {
  border-top-left-radius: 0px;
  border-bottom-left-radius: 0px;
  border-left: 0px;
}

or SCSS (keeps responsiveness intact):

@import "bootstrap-variables";

.navbar-input-group {
  @media (min-width: $screen-sm) {
    font-size: 0px; /*removes whitespace between button and input*/

    input {
      border-top-right-radius: 0px;
      border-bottom-right-radius: 0px;
    }
    .btn {
      border-top-left-radius: 0px;
      border-bottom-left-radius: 0px;
      border-left: 0px;
    }
  }
  @media (max-width: $screen-xs-max) {
    margin-top:0px;
    margin-bottom:0px;

    .btn {
      width:100%;
    }
  }
}

Result:

For purposes of clarity, I am targeting descendant elements in the CSS. This is not the most efficient way to target CSS elements. If you like this answer, consider giving the input and button unique class names and targeting them without any descendant selectors in your CSS (read: http://csswizardry.com/2011/09/writing-efficient-css-selectors/)