Bug 213259

Summary: mail icons in evolution lack clarity
Product: [Fedora] Fedora Reporter: Thomas J. Baker <tjb>
Component: echo-icon-themeAssignee: Jonathan Blandford <jrb>
Status: CLOSED CURRENTRELEASE QA Contact:
Severity: medium Docs Contact:
Priority: medium    
Version: rawhideCC: davidz, ddumas
Target Milestone: ---   
Target Release: ---   
Hardware: All   
OS: Linux   
Whiteboard:
Fixed In Version: Doc Type: Bug Fix
Doc Text:
Story Points: ---
Clone Of: Environment:
Last Closed: 2007-04-18 02:15:38 UTC Type: ---
Regression: --- Mount Type: ---
Documentation: --- CRM:
Verified Versions: Category: ---
oVirt Team: --- RHEL 7.3 requirements from Atomic Host:
Cloudforms Team: --- Target Upstream Version:
Embargoed:
Attachments:
Description Flags
screenshot with original mail icons
none
with modified mail icons none

Description Thomas J. Baker 2006-10-31 15:00:21 UTC
First, let me say I know icons/art work are very subjective. I'm not criticizing
the style, etc. 

That being said, the icons in evolution are hard for me to distinguish. The
general envelope icon that is the basis for the other icons being white in the
middle and dark along the edges makes it difficult to distinguish the arrows,
etc that are put on top of it. At the small sizes that evolution uses, it's hard
to see the details of each icon. Maybe if those arrows were a little bigger, it
would help. For example, in Tango, the envelope base icon is whiter and the
details are larger. Perhaps making the detail parts of the icons a bit larger
would help with the clarity.

I'm running on a Dell 2000FP 1600x1200 LCD monitor.

Comment 1 David Zeuthen 2006-10-31 15:15:32 UTC
 -> dfong

Comment 2 Dawid Zamirski 2007-02-06 21:31:19 UTC
Just to confirm - I was about to file a BZ report for this before I found out
that Thomas already did it :) I'm not an artist, therfore, my only suggestion is
to make the icons for read/unread messages more distinguishable - currently when
quickly skimming through large amount of e-mails it's hard to spot those that
were unread just by looking at the icon. I also agree that the envelope's edges
should be sharper because right now (remote desktop via FreeNX which uses image
compression) they look more like shaded gray boxes rather than envelopes. 

Comment 3 diana fong 2007-02-07 17:26:35 UTC
Thank you both for the extremely constructive feedbacks.  I will be making these modifications next week.

Comment 4 Matthias Clasen 2007-02-23 14:44:01 UTC
Can I additionally propose to change the "read" icon to have an open flap that
makes the icons distingishable by their outline already ?

Comment 5 diana fong 2007-03-12 16:26:23 UTC
Created attachment 149835 [details]
screenshot with original mail icons

Providing a screenshot with original mail icons to compare.

Comment 6 diana fong 2007-03-12 16:30:46 UTC
Created attachment 149836 [details]
with modified mail icons

Take a look and let me know if additional modifications are needed.  I can also
attach the individual icons for you to test, let me know.

Comment 7 Thomas J. Baker 2007-03-12 17:55:50 UTC
I find the new style much more clear. The base envelop icon and the enlarged
emblems on top of it are much easier to distinguish. I'm curious if the expanded
color pallet is going to be used throughout echo? (The purple arrows and yellow
star are what I notice immediately.) I'm not sure you need to change the color
of the arrows to provide enough clarity for my initial problem. That being said,
the purple and yellow do make the representative icons stand out more. If the
expanded pallet is going to be incorporated into the rest of echo then I'd keep
the purple and yellow but if not, they seem to me to maybe stand out a little
too much. Once again I remind you that I'm not criticizing nor am I a graphic
artist so don't put too much in my single opinion.

Comment 8 diana fong 2007-03-12 18:25:11 UTC
Thanks for the quick response.  The purple arrows have not been used elsewhere, however, I believe the  
different color arrow for reply adds another level of clarity, especially for the smaller icons when the shape 
might not be easily distinguishable.  As for the star, there has been some discussion about it, being a 
more visible color and whatnot...so it's been adopted and will be modified for existing icons later.

Comment 9 Thomas J. Baker 2007-03-15 00:20:32 UTC
Just noticed the added color for the compose icons in evolution. Looks good and
goes well with the purple and yellow. So how soon do these hit rawhide?

Comment 10 Red Hat Bugzilla 2007-03-27 04:51:38 UTC
User dfong's account has been closed

Comment 11 Matthias Clasen 2007-04-18 02:15:38 UTC
The new icons are in rawhide for a while now.