curved corners on Horizontally Centered Drop-Down Menus

Question

I think Matthew James Taylor is a hero for this beautiful bit of code:

http://matthewjamestaylor.com/blog/centered-dropdown-menus

However, no matter how I chop away at it – and I have, FOR YEARS – I can not make the menu work with curved corners.

So I am posting this here, because I don't see a solution on SO, and I think the community could prosper from this.

Details:

When hovered, the left-most and right-most menu items both revert to squared corners. I have tried adding a css class to correct this, but they still revert to squares when the user scrolls into the sub-menu area.

Here is my menu, in situ: http://hrmpowerwash.pro

Here is my css:

/* horizontal navigation bar */

/* Main menu settings */
#centeredmenu {
    position:relative;
    clear:both;
    float:left;
    z-index:1000; /* This makes the dropdown menus appear above the page content below — superceded only by alerts (z=99999) */
    margin:1em 0 0 0;
    padding:0;
    width:100%;
    font-size:90%; /* Menu text size */
    text-transform:uppercase;
}

/* Top menu items */
#centeredmenu ul {
    margin:0;
    padding:0;
    list-style:none;
    float:right;
    position:relative;
    right:50%;
}
#centeredmenu ul li {
    padding:0;
    float:left;
    position:relative;
    left:50%;
    top:1px;
}
#centeredmenu ul li a {
    display:block;
    margin:0;
    padding:.6em .5em .4em;
    font-size:1em;
    line-height:1em;
    text-decoration:none;
    color:#FFF;
    font-weight:bold;
}

/* These three classes add the white border to the top menu items. */
.leftmost {
    border:#FFF 2px solid;
    border-radius: 8px 0 0 8px;
    background:#e68f1a;
}
.middle {
    border:#FFF solid;
    border-width:2px 2px 2px 0;
    background:#e68f1a;
}
.rightmost {
    border:#FFF solid;
    border-width:2px 2px 2px 0;
    border-radius:0 8px 8px 0;
    background:#e68f1a;
}

#centeredmenu ul li.active a {
    color:#fff;
    background:#000;
}
#centeredmenu ul li a:hover { /* This is to change if we want a brand colour for menu hover instead of blue */
    background:#36f; /* Top menu items background colour */
    color:#fff;
    border-bottom:1px solid #03f;
}
#centeredmenu ul li:hover a,
#centeredmenu ul li.hover a { /* This line is required for IE 6 and below */
    background:#36f; /* Top menu items background colour */
    color:#fff;
    border-bottom:1px solid #03f;
}

/* Submenu items */
#centeredmenu ul ul {
    display:none; /* Sub menus are hidden by default */
    position:absolute;
    top:2em;
    left:0;
    float:left;
    right:auto; /*resets the right:50% on the parent ul */
    width:10em; /* width of the drop-down menus */
}
#centeredmenu ul ul li {
    left:auto;  /*resets the left:50% on the parent li */
    margin:0; /* Reset the 1px margin from the top menu */
clear:left;
float:left;
width:100%;
}
#centeredmenu ul ul li a,
#centeredmenu ul li.active li a,
#centeredmenu ul li:hover ul li a,
#centeredmenu ul li.hover ul li a { /* This line is required for IE 6 and below */
    font-size:.8em;
    font-weight:normal; /* resets the bold set for the top level menu items */
    background:#eee;
    color:#444;
    line-height:1.4em; /* overwrite line-height value from top menu */
    border-bottom:1px solid #ddd; /* sub menu item horizontal lines */
    float:left;
    width:100%;
}
#centeredmenu ul ul li a:hover,
#centeredmenu ul li.active ul li a:hover,
#centeredmenu ul li:hover ul li a:hover,
#centeredmenu ul li.hover ul li a:hover { /* This line is required for IE 6 and below */
    background:#36f; /* Sub menu items background colour */
    color:#fff;
    float:left;
}

/* Flip the last submenu so it stays within the page */
#centeredmenu ul ul.last {
    left:auto; /* reset left:0; value */
    right:0; /* Set right value instead */
}
#centeredmenu ul ul.last li {
    float:right;
    position:relative;
    right:.8em;
}

/* Make the sub menus appear on hover */
#centeredmenu ul li:hover ul,
#centeredmenu ul li.hover ul { /* This line is required for IE 6 and below */
    display:block; /* Show the sub menus */
}

As you can, see I have rounded the left- and right-most options of the main menu (by applying a class to the first and last #div ul li) but they disappear upon hovering.

In another version, I have added the following code to fix the hover of the top menu items, but it still reverts to square corners when the user descends into the sub-menu items:

/* These classes add rounded corners to the menu headers when they are hovered over */
.rightmost > a:hover {
    border-radius:0 8px 8px 0;
}
.leftmost > a:hover {
    border-radius:8px 0 0 8px;
}

Please advise, if this is even possible; and how it may be achieved. What am I overlooking?

Thanking all of you in advance.

Answer 1

You were very close, you just needed these 2 additional calls on your CSS:

.rightmost > a:hover, .rightmost:hover > a {
    border-radius:0 8px 8px 0;
}
.leftmost > a:hover, .leftmost:hover > a {
    border-radius:8px 0 0 8px;
}

Notice the .rightmost:hover > a and the .leftmost:hover > a that were added.

This now will keep the a rounded, even when the dropdown is hovered.

I also suggest adding -webkit-border-radius CSS to each for more browser compatibility.