86897 - downloaded message icon is black & white

Status: RESOLVED INVALID

(SeaMonkey :: MailNews: Backend, defect)

Description

[Alec Flett]

the icon for downloaded messages is black and white, which is simply ugly.. this
means the whole threadpane looks ugly if you're an avid offline user like myself

Comment 1

[grylchan]

Original download icon bug is bug 67359
Also explanation of the icon is in that bug

Comment 2

[David :Bienvenu]

Not sure who should get this, but I'm pretty sure it's not me. Joe, could you
reassign as appropriate?

Comment 3

[Joe Hewitt (gone)]

We need a new icon, then.  Over to marlon.

Comment 4

[marlon bishop]

targeting for destruction

Comment 5

[marlon bishop]

offline news and messages now get a darker icon.

Comment 6

[grylchan]

Attachment: screen capture of dwnlded icons in todays build & w/previous icons

Comment 7

[grylchan]

Verified in commercial branch builds
2001090605 nt 4.0, linux 2.2
2001090610 mac 9.1

that icons have been changed for both mail and newsgroups.
[See previous post for a screen capture of what they now look like]

Now for mail: messages that have been downloaded have a darker gray
              envelope icon (previously they were white)
And for news: brand new icons (see bug 88970), news messages
              that have been downloaded, now have a darker gray icon.

This only applies to Modern theme.

I have to create a need downloaded newsgroup icon in classic theme bug.
The downloaded messages in classic theme bug is bug 67359.

Verified on all 3 platforms.

Marking as verified.

Comment 8

[Michael Hearn]

Sorry to cause problems but I'm afraid the new offline message icon is unusable
for me. My colour blindness means the icons are too similar to be easily told
apart. Marlon - would it be possible to change the icon slightly so the
difference is more obvious? Outlook Express does it quite well, not only
torn/not torn, but different colours and flat/3d. 

thanks -mike

Comment 9

[grylchan]

*** Bug 123257 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 10

[marlon bishop]

Michael - the differences are intended to be subtle so as to not draw too much
attention to themselves, for fear that it would confuse some users.  the reason
this bug was filed in the beginning was that the old icons were "ugly" - well
sorry, the old icons were flat/3d and darker/lighter to provide the distinction.
 what'll it be then?  ugly or legible?  

i am reluctant to believe that color blindness is a factor here, since
technically one is a shade darker than the other, not a different color. perhaps
 contrast blindness? 

Comment 11

[sai allavarpu]

Marlon,

I was directed to this bug as a duplicate. The issue is with the "subtle" 
difference. I ran a quick usability study with several other people. Some 
messages were downloaded for offline use and some weren't. People were asked to 
tell the difference. Here are the results of such a study:

Classic theme: The visual difference is "slightly" noticeable. But if the person
is using a laptop in an airport or on a flight (or other glare conditions),
he/she has to strain the eyes to figure out the difference.

Modern Theme; The visual difference is "worse" than in the classic theme. Even
in the best of lighting conditions, most people couldn't tell the light
gray/dark gray difference.

Suggestion: Like Outlook Express or Eudora, rely on a different icon shape
rather  than slight/subtle color shades (especially for the color-challenged or 
as you say contrast-challenged!).

If you can't use different icon shapes, then at least use different
high-contrast colors instead of low-contrast colors or shades of the same color.
People actually liked the "old bug" in classic theme where the icon disappears
when the message is downloaded for offline use; they don't need the mail icon
otherwise just to indicate that it is a message!

People don't want to be caught on a long travel/flight with the mistaken
assumption that the messages were downloaded while there weren't; then they 
will be forced to watch those inflight movies;-)

Comment 12

[sai allavarpu]

See 123257 for related information on this bug.

Comment 13

[grylchan]

Reporter please don't reassign bugs.
David doesn't handle the UI part anyways..

reassigning back to Marlon

Comment 14

[grylchan]

adding kw: nsbeta1 based on user's feedback.

Comment 15

[Lori Kaplan]

Approving. part of icon work.

Comment 16

[Lori Kaplan]

final, distinct icons needed for RTM. 

Comment 17

[Jaime Rodriguez, Jr.]

Lowering impact to [ADT3 RTM], per ADT triage. If icon work is truly needed for
1.0.1, pls change milestone accordingly. thanks!

Comment 18

[marlon bishop]

after speaking with Jglick, Mscott, we feel a better solution to this bug might
be with a new column in the msg thread pane to indicate which items are flagged
for offline use.

this solves the extra obstacle for the user to distinguish between Offline
variation for each of 20 icons possible in mail and news.  In addition, a column
with indicators would allow user to sort.   this column would be hidden until a
mailbox had been marked for offline use, or until user intiates any sort of
offline mail news feature. 

Comment 19

[Scott MacGregor]

I agree with Marlon and Jennifer. The way to solve this problem isn't with icons
but with a new optional column in the thread pane. I don't believe such an
engineering effort is appropriate this late in the current shipping cycle. Let's
send this bug to the mailnews FE team for adding a new column to the thread pane
for the next release. We'll probably also need a small UE spec for the name of
the column and how the data should be represented in that column (as text, an
icon, etc).

Comment 20

[sai allavarpu]

Agree with Marlon/Jennifer's proposal, with one MAJOR suggestion. The new 
column should flag the offline status of each message EVEN WHEN THE 
MAIL/BROWSER is NOT OFFLINE. Their proposal says "In this column would be 
hidden until a mailbox had been marked for offline use, or until user intiates 
any sort of offline mail news feature.

Does this mean user CANNOT see the offline status of the message BEFORE going 
OFFLINE? If so, there is little value in this great proposal;-) ALL users that 
I have come across simply "close the browser" without bothering to "click the 
offline icon in status bar of the browser/mail. And before "exiting" the 
browser, they would like to get a visual indication if they really need to 
download any messages by just looking at this new column. If needed, they will 
explicitly initiate the download; otherwise they won't. This is the predominant 
use case and becomes even more important when somebody is checking emails on a 
slow link.

So to make their proposal actually useful, please make sure the 'offline status 
flag for each message' is available EVEN when the browser/mail is online.

Comment 21

[Lori Kaplan]

minusing for buffy. we don't have the resources to add the column. We agree that
this is a better solution. renominate for the future. 

Comment 22

[Samir Gehani]

Spun off non-icon keyworded bug 202197 per comment 18 and comment 19.