[Echo] New mail-* icons (total of eleven icons)

[Nicu Buculei]

Martin Sourada wrote:
> On Mon, 2008-09-15 at 11:35 +0300, Nicu Buculei wrote:
>> You have two icons, one pointing left (reply) and another pointing right 
>> (forward). Not sure the likeness to the forward operation is wise.
>> Here is how this icon looks in the default Thunderbird theme: the same 
>> back arrow as for "reply" but *two* envelopes (you reply by using more 
>> than one mail) - but this may not work at 16x16, here you do not display 
>> the envelope.
>>
> I use Evolution so I am quite used to the current Echo icons which use
> (the 24x24 variants are displayed there) the same metaphor I used here.
> It's the same with Gnome icon theme, though they do not use straight
> arrows. It's further distinguished by colour (same colours like in gnome
> to keep consistent with them). Also the mail-forward bears now some
> likeness to forward, which is IMHO good. I also checked oxygen icons and
> they also use same metaphot.
> 
> I personally would think a little bit at loss at the meaning of the
> Thunderbird icon, as you describe it. Basically when you forward a mail

Screenshot attached.

> the point is that you take the original mail and send it over to someone
> else, i.e. forward it, you need not to add another explanatory mail to
> that - thus the combination of forward arrow and one mail envelope.

I have to disagree. "Reply all" will send the reply to all people listed 
in TO: or CC: (is kind of a primitive mailing list substitute), all the 
people receiving your reply already have the original email. You don't 
send the message to any new address (thus it does not involve anything 
like forward).

These days, the most common usage for "reply all" is when a mailing list 
does not se the Reply-to header and when using a plain "reply" button 
your message is sent only to the original sender, not also to the list. 
So you have to use "Reply all" to send it both to the original sender 
and to the list.

> However having two envelopes and one "reply" arrow seem to me more like
> replying to more than one e-mail at once (sometimes might be an useful
> feature :-D)... But come to think of it, it might be useful to have both
> ltr and rtl variants (sadly enough nothing supports it for these icons)
> since the directions of arrows have opposite symbolic meaning in rtl...
> 
> But thanks for the suggestion :)
> 
>> Note: I think it is a mistake that the 16x16 icon has both of the arrows 
>> pointing left (back), unlike the other sizes. The set should be 
>> consistent internally.
>>
> I just followed the example set by gnome icon theme - they use arrows
> pointing in both directions in bigger sizes and arrows pointing only
> left in 16x16. Oxygen uses doubled arrow pointing left in all sizes. Do
> you think I should try to rework the bigger sizes, the 16x16 or leave it
> as is now?

I think now is a bug (and also a bug in the gnome icon theme), so the 
arrows in all the variant of the icon should point the same directions.
I leave up to decide if the direction is only left or both left and 
right based or may take above of "reply all" not being related to "forward".

> I am personally against the trash can for junk mail metaphor (it's too
> much easy to confuse with edit-delete, and in Evo these two icons are
> next to each other so it would be really confusing, IMHO)... Even if it
> were with envelope. Note that oxygen uses throwing envelope into trash
> can for mail-junk and totally different metaphor for mail-notjunk which
> is confusing. So I again reused the gnome metaphor. Maybe I could add an
> envelope to the 256x256 so that I could make the crumpled paper smaller
> (and looking subjectively more detailed)... What do you think?

I think the 256x256 version of this particular icon will not be used in 
the foreseeable future so it is important how it look at the toolbar 
size (24x24/22x22).

>> That is a nice touch (the cursive writing and all) and the "lorem ipsum" 
>> is the safest choice.
>> As the text is normally unreadable, you can use it as an "Easter egg", 
>> putting in there anything you want: the description of Fedora mission, 
>> your favorite cook book recipe, an essay about beer (ups! I forgot you 
>> don't drink beer :D), some advanced physics, a love letter for someone 
>> special, etc (tip: open Firefox and type "about:mozilla" in the location 
>> bar).
>>
>> I think I would be tempted to go with a funny "Easter egg" myself.
>>
> If I had good idea what to write there, I'd do it :-D

That is I pointed to a few examples. The idea is that you put something 
funny in there and if/when we discover it later have a good laugh.

-- 
nicu :: http://nicubunu.ro :: http://nicubunu.blogspot.com
Cool Fedora wallpapers: http://fedora.nicubunu.ro/wallpapers/
Open Clip Art Library: http://www.openclipart.org
my Fedora stuff: http://fedora.nicubunu.ro
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