528558 - Some message list UI column elements too small and unidentifiable (read, attachment)

Status: RESOLVED WORKSFORME

(Thunderbird :: Theme, defect)

Description

[Doug Hockin]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9.1.5) Gecko/20091102 Firefox/3.5.5 (.NET CLR 3.5.30729)
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9.1.4pre) Gecko/20090915 Thunderbird/3.0b4

Several of the UI elements are too small. The icons on several of them are unidentifiable. I'm using 3 pane, with folders on left and on right message list above message content.

In the Folder pane the two tiny arrows that control which view is selected are much too small, almost like periods at the end of a sentence.

In the message list display the icons at the head of columns are too small and unidentifiable. The paper clip I can identify, though it's shape is weird, probably distorted to fit in the space. I recognize the star, but don't know
why there's a star on a column head and also smaller stars of the same color after several of the message header elements, after From: and after email addresses in the To: area. The rest of the icons that head up the columns are unintelligible to me.

I also find some of the forms of icon on the Inbox to have differences between one another that are very tiny.


Reproducible: Always

Comment 1

[[:Aureliano Buendía]]

Doug could attach a screenshot please?

Comment 2

[Kent James (:rkent)]

Attachment: Folder view selection arrows on XP

I've never reported this, but for me I can confirm this on my development system which runs Windows Server 2003. But things are better on XP.

This first shot shows the folder arrows on XP.

Comment 3

[Kent James (:rkent)]

Attachment: Folder arrows on Windows Server 2003

Here the folder arrows on Windows 2003 are much too small. I would be complaining if this was my main system for interacting with TB.

Comment 4

[Kent James (:rkent)]

Might as well confirm since I am seeing it too - though I am only seeing this on the folder pane arrows, not on the thread pane column icons.

Comment 5

[[:Aureliano Buendía]]

I agree and in Windows XP with classic theme is worse.

Comment 6

[[:Aureliano Buendía]]

Attachment: Folder view selection arrows on XP with classic theme

Comment 7

[[:Aureliano Buendía]]

...but at this moment I see only "folder view selection" icon as too small and not others. Probably title is too "large" :-D

Comment 8

[Doug Hockin]

Attachment: Folder Panel, showing small status tags

Comment 9

[Doug Hockin]

Attachment: Message list and content, showing small, unintelligible icons and stars

Comment 10

[Doug Hockin]

I've added a couple of attachments.

I want to point out that not everyone is young, with excellent vision. Perhaps
that explains why some are snickering at my size complaints.

In the FolderPanel I find the status details tagged onto the icons too small, and they're wallowing in a big empty background, plenty of room to make them bigger. Perhaps all it needs is an option to make the icons larger, for those of us with  poorer eyesight?

In the MessageListAndContent, I haven't a clue what the icons on
the 1st, 4th, and 6th columns are. The 1st looks like maybe a piece of
bent metal, the 4th maybe a pair of eye glasses or binoculars,
and the 6th, I haven't a clue, maybe a wrinkled piece of paper?

I don't think anyone commented about my "star" question. The 8th
column has a yellow star. Below in the message header the From:
has a yellow star and the To: has a white star. What do all
the stars mean? Is there a relation between the star in the column
header and the ones in message header? Should they really
all be the same icon?

Comment 11

[Andreas Nilsson (:andreasn)]

The junk icon is now a flame and should have a better, hopefully more easily recognized shape.

Regarding the use of small icons in general, it's because of bug 523803 that reported that it looked bad with too big images. Walking on the thin line between looking good and being accessible is always hard and I don't have any straight answers here.

Comment 12

[Bryan Clark (DevTools PM) [:clarkbw]]

(In reply to comment #3)
> Created an attachment (id=412271) [details]
> Folder arrows on Windows Server 2003
> 
> Here the folder arrows on Windows 2003 are much too small. I would be
> complaining if this was my main system for interacting with TB.

This looks really similar to bug 490329

We filed bug 484409 long ago about stars beside peoples names but have consistently gotten good feedback about the starred people concept.

Comment 13

[Doug Hockin]

I'm not complaining about the presence of some sort of indicator after the email addresses in the message pane, they appear to be an indication of whether the email address is in the address book. Rather my complaint is that the star matches the star up in the message list pane, yet has a very different meaning. They should not share the same icon, unless they mean the same thing.

Comment 14

[[:Aureliano Buendía]]

>In the Folder pane the two tiny arrows that control which view is selected 
>are much too small, almost like periods at the end of a sentence.

fixes by bug #535021

Comment 15

[Jim Porter (:squib)]

This is really a theme issue, although I think most of the issues in this bug have already been resolved.

Comment 16

[Doug Hockin]

I'd like to see the icons in the QuickFilter match those on the columns whenever possible, and the coloring should match the column icons as well. Why the little gray dot rather than the eyeglasses on the column header? Why the gray star rather than the yellow one on the column heading?

Comment 17

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

making this bug about message list only. (folder arrows fixed per bug #535021)

(In reply to Jim Porter (:squib) from comment #15)
> This is really a theme issue, although I think most of the issues in this
> bug have already been resolved.

And fixed in current theme on windows - star in column header is black, and stars on each message is not oversized
- junk resolved as noted earlier

identifying these is easy by mouseover of the column header.

Comment 18

[Doug Hockin]

I just tried on Mac using the current beta, version 24. Looks ok there now. I'm not using TB on Windows anymore (forced to use Outlook at work), so can't comment.

The popups on the mouseover help. I still find the junk icon strange, is it supposed to be flames? But I've gotten used to them. The default theme on the Mac doesn't have any special colors, all those icons are black so my earlier color comments don't apply.

Comment 19

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

Flames, yes.