“Perhaps you'd like to select a different tab?”

Question

The question Why did clicking on a tag take me to a nonexistent tab? reported this behavior as a bug; a moderator suggested posting it as a feature request, but the questioner never did that. I'm doing so now. (I didn't see a post where someone else did so.)

To summarize:

• I clicked on the "c" tag, then selected the "featured" tab.
• Then I went back to the front page and clicked on the "bash" tag. Since that tag currently has no featured questions, I got:

You are on the Featured tab.

There are no questions with an active bounty at the moment.

Perhaps you'd like to select a different tab?

Well, yes, I certainly would, but I can't easily do so. From that state, the only way (edit: or so I thought) to get back to the "bash" tag is to:

1. Go back to the front page
2. Go to a tag that does have a "featured" tab (like "c")
3. Select the "newest" tab
4. Go back to the front page
5. Go back to the "bash" tag

I understand that tabs are sticky, and that not showing tabs for a tag that doesn't have multiple tabs is a deliberate feature, and both features make sense. Perhaps the tabs should be shown if you manage to end up on a tab that doesn't exist.

When the "Perhaps you'd like to select a different tab?" message is shown, it should provide a simple way to select a different tab.

EDIT: Ok, the feature I originally requested already exists. I think there's still a problem, though; the message suggests selecting a different tab, and the tabs are there, but they don't look like tabs.

I'm sure I'm not the only person who's been confused by this.

So my suggestion is this: If the currently selected tab doesn't exist, do something to make the other tabs look more like tabs. My thought is to add a light dotted rectangle around each fo the tab names, but maybe there's a better way. (I see someone removed the feature-request tag on this question; I'm not sure whether it should be re-added.)

Answer 1

The other tabs are still shown even though the featured tab isn't (since it isn't applicable):

All you need to do is click on newest directly on this page instead of a jog back to the home page and another tag.

Answer 2

I just stumbled upon this myself, take a look at the screenshot here:

Notice that it also has the 'info' there. Until I found this question I just didn't think of those as being tabs, but of being the standard buttons you see in a tag interface, and since I never clicked on anything but 'info', I just glossed over the other words. Seems like it would be a small thing to make those words look like words on a tab (which they individually do if you press one).