So why would you ever use just 'inline' then and not 'inline-block'?

There are situations when you want to use inline value.

Example is , if you have some text and want to color the particular word. For colored word you will wrap him in span element (which is by default inline element). Doing that you will not disrupt text style, by changing span element to inline block.

            <p>Some text needs to be <span>colored</span> inside this paragraph</p>
            ```

HI, im not 100% sure of inline, so i expect to be wrong but what i can take from inline-block and take the logic of it into my words and opinion , i think i might come up with accurate answer.

For example:

We have a Navigation bar. It look like this :

Home
About Us
Our Products
Contact Us

When you put inline it goes in line . So like this :

Home | About Us | Pur Products | Contact Us

If you display it on inline-block, it will to exactly the same. But it will take like no room.

Basicaly when you put a block, it takes like a invisibile square about it. If you hit a tab on a nav bar with text only, it will select a box , but if you put it inline. it will just put it inline and it will select box, but closer to the text i believe.

Its not much idfference i thikn. But i might be wrong. But thats why i think after my little experience with it.

It might be also that inline is older than inline-block : p

"Inline block" allows you to do a width, top & bottom margin, were as "Inline" wont allow you to do that. Some webpages may not require you to use a width, top &/or bottom margin so in that case you would use just "Inline" .Not the best at describes this answer but hope this helps. Aurelian you do have a good point!