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Google Tests Curvy Chrome Tabs With Material Design Overhaul (cnet.com)

Google is trying out a new Chrome interface that for the first time in a decade presents a very different look for the tabs and address bar at the top of the widely used web browser, CNET reports. It adds: Since its public debut in 2008, Chrome has featured a trapezoidal tab for each website you have open. But tabs now look very different on Chrome Canary -- a very rough-around-the-edges version used to test changes before they reach a broader audience. The active tab has a slope-shouldered look with curved corners. The grayed-out inactive tabs merge with the the browser itself and are separated only by thin vertical lines. In addition, the address bar's text box is a gray oval against a white backdrop, instead of a round-cornered white rectangle with a hairline border.

5 of 109 comments (clear)

  1. You know by ArchieBunker · · Score: 4, Insightful

    the next build of Firefox is going to make this exact same change.

    --
    Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
  2. material design is an abomination by zr · · Score: 5, Insightful

    this is probably off topic, forgive me for that if you can but why on god's green earth would we want to give up on the dimension of texture and gradient in UI? also sharp corners make UI feel very unfriendly and unnuanced.

    full on skeuomorphism was too much, but this is just as too much albeit in the opposite direction.

    go on, get off my lawn..

  3. Re:In the year 2000.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    The web browser is a solved problem. Worrying about trivial bullshit like the shape of tabs is ridiculous. This is what happens when a company has too much money and too many employees. You spend your time on trivial bullshit, constantly trying to come up with something "new".

  4. Re:Professional assessment by jez9999 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    5) I don't want to know whether the browser has the active focus. There should be no distracting changes in titlebar colour, shadow, or cursors. That way it's a nice surprise where my text turns up when I type.

  5. Material and modern design, DIE. by AbRASiON · · Score: 4, Insightful

    My girl watches some awful youtube, I recently saw her watch this a week ago and I screamed YES at the television.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

    That teenage girl says what half of us have been saying for about 5 or 6 years now, since they started making UIs WORSE instead of better.

    Less lines dividing / defining where you can click and what a button is.
    Less colours used (red stop / green go) - screw that, let's make it 'flat' colours
    No labelling on icons, it's ok there MIGHT be a tooltip if you hover (but try hovering a finger?)
    Bad animations slowing things down or not being smart (a great animation could be informative)

    The list goes on. My computer is now covered with unlabelled icons. If you were to wipe my memory and put me in front of a modern PC I suspect it'd be much much harder to learn than it was 10 to 20 years ago.

    Everything gotta be flat, one colour, LOTS AND LOTS of god damned white. Use shadows / shading / colour to define things. Who cares if it's gaudy? There's ways of doing it nicely.

    Modern UI is a shambles. Utter shambles.