css - Breaking to a new line with inline-block

Question

I've run into some layout overlap issues with a css float container recently, and had started looking at using display: inline-block instead. So far, so good... except I need to be able to add line-breaks, as clear does for floats. Some sample text...

.ib {
  border: 1px solid #333;
  display: inline-block;
  padding: 3px;
}
.block-start {
  border: 1px solid #0cc;
  display: inline-block;
  padding: 3px;
}

<div class="container">
      <div class="block-start">block-start</div>
      <div class="ib">inline-block</div>
      <div class="ib">inline-block</div>
      <div class="ib">inline-block</div>
      <div class="ib">inline-block</div>
      <div class="block-start">block-start</div>
      <div class="ib">inline-block</div>
      <div class="ib">inline-block</div>
      <div class="ib">inline-block</div>
      <div class="ib">inline-block</div>
</div>

Answer 1

One hacky idea is to add a new line using pseudo element and make the element inline so that the line-break will affect the inline-block elements. The drawback is that you will not be able to style an inline element like you do with an inline-block one

.ib {
  border: 1px solid #333;
  display: inline-block;
  padding: 3px;
}

.block-start {
  display: inline;
  padding: 3px;
  white-space: pre-wrap;
}
/* Create the break line */
.block-start:not(:first-child):before {
  content: "A";
}

/* to rectify the position of the first one*/
.block-start:first-child {
  padding-left: 0;
}

<div class="container">
  <div class="block-start">block-start</div>
  <div class="ib">inline-block</div>
  <div class="ib">inline-block</div>
  <div class="ib">inline-block</div>
  <div class="ib">inline-block</div>
  <div class="block-start">block-start</div>
  <div class="ib">inline-block</div>
  <div class="ib">inline-block</div>
  <div class="ib">inline-block</div>
  <div class="ib">inline-block</div>
  <div class="ib">inline-block</div>
  <div class="block-start">block-start</div>
  <div class="ib">inline-block</div>
  <div class="ib">inline-block</div>
</div>