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

[Martin Sourada]

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
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.
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?

> >         * the mail-(not)junk proved pretty hard to create, especially in
> >         the 256x256 size - drawing crumpled paper with inkscape isn't
> >         easy, but somehow I managed to draw something that looks like it
> >         (though it probably might look better) [2]. If anyone feels
> >         (s)he could improve it, feel free to do so :)
> 
> How about using the trash can? To not confuse with "delete mail", maybe 
> envelope + trash can?
> 
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?

> 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

Thanks,
Martin
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