[Kolab-devel] Next generation web client UI

[Thomas Brüderli]

Hello out there

I'd like to point you to one specific paragraph in Georg's recent blog 
post [1] about drafts for the new web client UI of Kolab 3. It can 
easily be overlooked in the blast of overwhelming news about the 
upcoming Kolab 3.0.

We've been working together with the professional designer who is also 
responsible for the current and future Roundcube skins, and he has 
created drafts for the next generation web client of Kolab. They are 
derived from the new Roundcube skin [2] and aim to visually align with 
the desktop client (Kontact) by also using the Oxygen icon set.

Please download the drafts from [3] and have a close look at them. 
Although the contents on the screens are in German, I guess everybody 
will get the idea of the new look. We appreciate more comments on these 
drafts in order to report back to the designer.

In order to avoid too many duplicate responses, here's a summary of the 
feedbacks we already collected:

"The light blue of the side pane and the colorful Oxygen icons as well 
as the dark red of the highlighted message don't go well together. That 
blue should be replaced with something whitish or grayish."

"The quota icon below the folders list is somewhat not clear. Should be 
some kind of a bar or pie shape."

"I like the solution with the drop-down menu for the main tasks but one 
reason for that was actually to gain some more vertical space which is 
now taken by the main task buttons. I'd suggest to at least remove the 
topmost black bar by placing the logout link also into that drop-down 
menu and moving the user name left of the drop-down since we now have 
plenty of horizontal space. The About link and the version information 
aren't that important to occupy space on every screen. And maybe he can 
still squeeze the header by some pixels to get even more vertical space."

"The (Roundcube-style) icons to switch list mode below the message list 
don't fit the style of the other Oxygen icons. But Micha already 
mentioned that he missed some icons in the Oxygen set."

"I like the style of the contacts list with the online-status icon. It's 
clearly visible who's online although I don't yet understand the meaning 
of the bubble icons. And I assume that some toolbar at the bottom of 
that contacts list will be necessary to adjust which contacts should be 
displayed and such."

But the overall impression is very positive and I'm confident that this 
will become an UI which people love to look at the entire day.

Thanks!
Thomas

[1] http://blogs.fsfe.org/greve/?p=529
[2] http://www.flickr.com/photos/roundcube/sets/72157627599045023/
[3] https://bueroflint.box.com/s/1de9a6d4cb4f8d73c708/1/295052884