Giddy with the illusion of choice!

September 3, 2009 8:12 AM

Just curious... why are the "Meta" and "Filter," "Meta" and "Talk," and etc. identifiers at the top left of each page discrete clickable elements instead of one clickable element comprising the entire compound word?
posted by Shepherd to MetaFilter-Related at 8:12 AM (32 comments total)

I don't get it either. Maybe he meant 'discreet'?
posted by iamkimiam at 8:24 AM on September 3, 2009

I've totally noticed this and wondered about it.
posted by prefpara at 8:26 AM on September 3, 2009

Maybe I'm seeing HTML than you, but on this page, for example, the markup I get is

<a href="http://metatalk.metafilter.com/" target="_self"><img src="http://mefi.us/images/metatalk/metatalk-trans.png" alt="MetaTalk" width="196" height="80" border="0" /></a>

So it's a single image with a single a tag... Where are you seeing this? (Hoping I escaped the markup properly...)
posted by skynxnex at 8:27 AM on September 3, 2009

If you click and drag the "Meta" part of the MetaTalk at the top of this page, you'll drag only "Meta." Likewise if you click on "Talk." It's two different links (to the same place) instead of one long one.
posted by nushustu at 8:27 AM on September 3, 2009

skynxnex: this is the line in question:

MetaTalk
posted by nushustu at 8:29 AM on September 3, 2009

Ah, crap. Never mind, it won't let me post it w/out showing the thing.

OTOH, you can do cool stuff like this:

MetaConverse
posted by nushustu at 8:30 AM on September 3, 2009

Oh I see that. Funny. I have no idea what that's like that.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 8:30 AM on September 3, 2009

never mind. Live preview looks different from what actually comes up.
posted by nushustu at 8:30 AM on September 3, 2009

Oh, this is a difference between the default and plain theme. It appears it does that because it uses inline styles to set the color of the word--it's not an image. And the markup generation/how it was written, has a tags around each of the different color segments, instead of wrapping all of it.
posted by skynxnex at 8:31 AM on September 3, 2009

There's way too much information to decode MetaFilter. You get used to it. I...I don't even see the code. All I see is blonde, brunette, red-head, banhammer.
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 8:32 AM on September 3, 2009 [4 favorites]

That is, the default theme has a single image (which is what I normally use), in the markup I pasted above, but the plain theme does it with only text with the color specified:

<a href="http://www.metafilter.com/" style="color:#069;" target="_self">Meta</a><a href="http://www.metafilter.com/" style="color:#cc0;" target="_self">Filter</a>
posted by skynxnex at 8:33 AM on September 3, 2009

Oh, this is a difference between the default and plain theme.

So this happens only in the plain theme, and the poster didn't think that was relevant to mention? Wacky.
posted by smackfu at 8:34 AM on September 3, 2009 [2 favorites]

I ain't crazy, or at least I don't think so... if I click on "Meta" in "MetaTalk" above and to the left, I see a box form around the word "Meta" before the link activates and the page loads. If I click on "Talk," the same thing happens. Both seem to be separate clickable elements leading to metatalk.metafilter.com. This happens on every page of the site; on "Ask MetaFilter" the Ask, Meta and Filter all seem to be individually clickable.

On preview, yeah, I'm set on the vanilla theme.
posted by Shepherd at 8:42 AM on September 3, 2009

So this happens only in the plain theme, and the poster didn't think that was relevant to mention? Wacky.

I've pretty much forgotten there was ever any other theme.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 9:16 AM on September 3, 2009 [2 favorites]

That's just wrong that a mod doesn't use the site in the proper colors!
posted by smackfu at 9:22 AM on September 3, 2009 [3 favorites]

I think she's afraid her boss might catch her reading MetaFilter at work.
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 9:36 AM on September 3, 2009 [5 favorites]

In the plain text mode, about seven years ago, I had to make a pure-text version of the logo, which was two colors. I tried just inserting an inline span=color:#cc0 on the yellowish part of the logo but at the time, browser support was such that the color wouldn't "take" because the link element's style was overriding that color declaration.

In the end, I ended up doing two links and spans, one for each colored word, so that it would display correctly in all browsers. It's not that big of a deal (you are the first person in ten years to notice) so I doubt I'll be revisiting the whole recoding and checking in eight bagillion browsers to make sure a one-word link works. But that's the reason why it is two distinctly linked words next to each other leading to the same place.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 9:38 AM on September 3, 2009 [4 favorites]

I didn't even know there was a plain option. It's like being told all your life you can have water, and the entire time, there's an option for dirt water, too.

This changes nothing.
posted by Atreides at 9:39 AM on September 3, 2009 [3 favorites]

Thanks for this. I've always wondered this myself but never bothered to ask. I am now no smarter or dumber but still somehow satisfied.
posted by like_neon at 9:43 AM on September 3, 2009

Atreides:
I didn't even know there was a plain option. It's like being told all your life you can have water, and the entire time, there's an option for dirt water, too.

It's more like you've been told all your life you can have water, and the entire time, there's an option for professional white water.
posted by shakespeherian at 9:55 AM on September 3, 2009 [1 favorite]

So this happens only in the plain theme, and the poster didn't think that was relevant to mention? Wacky.

I actually noticed it, and thought I'd ask about it, but didn't test it in the other theme first. I also didn't test it on Opera, IE, Chrome or Safari. Nor did I call all my friends and have them try it on PCs, Linux boxes, and an archaic C64.

I'm crazy like that.
posted by Shepherd at 9:56 AM on September 3, 2009

That's just wrong that a mod doesn't use the site in the proper colors!

I keep the faith in the default theme. Balance to the force. But I used the plain theme at work when I still had a dayjob, and I gather a fair collection of folks use it.

I'd noticed the two-link thing before too, but I don't think I ever mentioned. Just more of an "ah, huh" situation.
posted by cortex (staff) at 10:04 AM on September 3, 2009

I used to be bothered by this. It still makes my eyebrow twitch just so.
posted by echo target at 10:58 AM on September 3, 2009

Wait, there's a version of MetaFilter that isn't white?
posted by blue_beetle at 11:14 AM on September 3, 2009

Yes, you racist.
posted by cashman at 11:29 AM on September 3, 2009 [1 favorite]

I actually love the P.W.B.
posted by ocherdraco at 11:38 AM on September 3, 2009

Separate but equal.
posted by blue_beetle at 12:19 PM on September 3, 2009

Oh god this white them is hideous. blech. yuck. HIDEOUS!
posted by Think_Long at 12:41 PM on September 3, 2009

We would tell you why it's set up like that, but then We'd have to kill you.
posted by the Cabal at 2:40 PM on September 3, 2009 [1 favorite]

(you are the first person in ten years to notice)

I noticed and wondered, too. I just didn't wonder with enough intensity to ask about it. I'm glad to have an answer, though.
posted by Karmakaze at 4:59 PM on September 3, 2009

Some questions are best left unasked. Now there's a tiny bit less wonder in the world.
posted by dg at 4:51 AM on September 4, 2009

Could we have different links for each letter? That would be cool.
posted by twoleftfeet at 4:14 PM on September 15, 2009