Rounded tabs? It'd be easy...

August 2, 2007 1:57 PM

Just a look-and-feel suggestion: if the (wonderful!) new tabs are squared-off only because you didn't want to add any more images to the page, you could easily round them off (in Firefox and Safari now, and IE eventually) with just a little CSS...
posted by nicwolff to Feature Requests at 1:57 PM (31 comments total)

border-top-left-radius: 5px;
border-top-right-radius: 5px;
-moz-border-radius-topleft: 5px;
-moz-border-radius-topright: 5px;
-webkit-border-top-left-radius: 10px 5px;
-webkit-border-top-right-radius: 10px 5px;

posted by nicwolff at 1:57 PM on August 2, 2007

Rounded tabs and a white background will make MetaFilter more professional-looking.

Damnit man, don't you know we are saving energy here!
posted by chrisroberts at 2:12 PM on August 2, 2007 [1 favorite]

I like the square shoulders, myself. But that's just me.

Rounded tabs and a white background will make MetaFilter more professional-looking like Yahoo!.
posted by davejay at 2:15 PM on August 2, 2007

I usually like the swooshiness (I am a Mac user, after all), but personally I think the little squared off tabs we have now complement MeFi's style better.
posted by John Kenneth Fisher at 2:39 PM on August 2, 2007

As Huey Lewis said, it's hip to be square.
posted by djgh at 2:47 PM on August 2, 2007

. .. ... .... rounded.things.frighten.me .... ... .. .
posted by blue_beetle at 2:48 PM on August 2, 2007

You could also just put your roundy-corners css in a user css thing, and then not bother rest of us with it. I don't need my corners round, personally.
posted by !Jim at 3:06 PM on August 2, 2007

NOOOOOOOOOO!
posted by klangklangston at 3:33 PM on August 2, 2007

I just added the classes to metatalk. It's a very subtle thing and looks a little nicer. It's not the typical over-the-top web 2.0 crap look usually associated with gradient backgrounds -- it's a minor improvement that makes them look "tabbier".

Thanks for the code.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 3:34 PM on August 2, 2007

NO? (No Big tag, I guess... Consider yourselves spared my wrath.)
posted by klangklangston at 3:34 PM on August 2, 2007

If only that could have been bigger, it would have stopped Matt. Too late now, I guess.
posted by klangklangston at 3:35 PM on August 2, 2007

It doesn't seem to work for Safari for me, nicwolff
posted by mathowie (staff) at 3:39 PM on August 2, 2007

Rounded edges? Are we children who need things made safe so we don't hurt ourselves on the corners?

Fuck that! I say. We are adults! Let's have more sharp edges. Admins, I hereby request that MeTa has it's floor covered in broken glass!

And.. let's get a drunk guy to sit in the corner and occasionally pick fights with a broken off pool cue.

Oh, and cortex needs both a baseball bat and a sawed off shotgun under the bar, just in case. One for warning, one for stopping.

And did I mention, we are going to need to get a bar as well.

And a jukebox, but none of this shitty, 'your favorite band sucks' nonsense. It's going to play AC/DC.

And the one thing that will pervade this entire place? Nice, sharp squared off edges.

And booze. That too.
posted by quin at 3:56 PM on August 2, 2007 [2 favorites]

Admins, I hereby request that MeTa has it's floor covered in broken glass!

And for the next podcast, we'll have Bruce Willis walk across it barefoot and then shoot some terrorists.
posted by cortex (staff) at 4:00 PM on August 2, 2007

Hmm, when I said "in Safari now" I guess I meant "in Safari 3 beta now"... (And they look even "tabbier" there, because Safari does elliptical corners.) So, Firefox now, Safari when Leopard ships, and IE some fine day.
posted by nicwolff at 4:07 PM on August 2, 2007

I just added the classes to metatalk.

Really? I'm not seeing it at all.
posted by quin at 4:11 PM on August 2, 2007

quin, force a refresh to kill your old cached CSS file. Shift-reload usually does it.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 4:19 PM on August 2, 2007

I'm seeing it in FF, but not in IE6. I don't really care much either way, though.
posted by cortex (staff) at 4:19 PM on August 2, 2007

Ahh, ok. Now I see it.

Well, I guess it's not too unbelievably horrible.

Though I still maintain that cortex should get a bat, and that MeTa needs a jukebox that plays AC/DC.
posted by quin at 4:26 PM on August 2, 2007

I likey. They look more aerodynamic. Pages will serve faster, spend less time in tubes.
posted by steef at 4:30 PM on August 2, 2007

Either someone's been nibbling on my MeTa tabs or I've been nibbling on tabs of another sort.

Rounded corners in MeTa throws off the acoustics, anyway. EVERYTHING SOUNDS MORE SHRILL NOW!
posted by carsonb at 4:31 PM on August 2, 2007

Dude. That is totally tabular.

(Sorry for the lame, Deej-style discourse.)

posted by The Deej at 4:36 PM on August 2, 2007

EVERYTHING SOUNDS MORE SHRILL NOW!

It's Metatalk. What did you expect?
posted by quin at 4:43 PM on August 2, 2007

y'all wanna round it well fuck that
fuck that
fuck that
posted by quonsar at 6:23 PM on August 2, 2007

I don't like the rounded-ness....I'd rather deal with the constant papercuts from the old version...
posted by DMan at 6:45 PM on August 2, 2007

Stylish
posted by Dave Faris at 7:03 PM on August 2, 2007 [1 favorite]

Great initiative. I did not know you could do that without images.
I think it's nice.

But it's funny to see that the social force of resisting change is so strong at mefi. It's only a few pixels. Which proves that it is a community (to us here at least).
posted by jouke at 7:04 PM on August 2, 2007

"if the (wonderful!) new tabs are squared-off only because you didn't want to add any more images to the page"

There is no good reason for anything to be rounded off, ever. Your post is flawed by presumption. You need to demonstrate to us the need for rounded tabs.
posted by Eideteker at 4:26 AM on August 3, 2007

The first rule of web design: Just because you can do something doesn't mean you should do that thing.
posted by Plutor at 5:15 AM on August 3, 2007

"Everyone gets everything he wants."
- Captain Willard, Apocalypse Now
posted by The Deej at 6:41 AM on August 3, 2007

I love it. It looks more like the tabs on actual tabbed folders (cool) whereas the squared tabs just look like boxes that are the way they are because it's the internet and you can't do any better (lame).

nicwolff, thanks for the code. I may use it on my personal sites even if Matt doesn't make the change permanent here. Score one for nice things.
posted by kyleg at 12:24 PM on August 5, 2007