The microphone and webcam icons displayed in the buddy list need improvement

[David Siegel]

Problems with current icons:

(1) The styles are mismatched; microphone icon is very realistic, webcam is more Tango.
(2) They are too detailed for such small icons; the webcam icon is especially hard to understand.
(3) They are too bold, drawing attention away from the buddy and status icons.
(4) Both icons depict real world objects, neither of which resemble the microphone or webcam that the user is actually using. More abstract icons representing "audio capability" and "video capability" would be more appropriate.

To address these problems, new icons should:

(1) Use the same style.
(2) Use very simple shapes and limited colors to remain simple to recognize at small sizes.
(3) Be discernible but understated enough to take a "back seat" to the buddy and status icons.
(4) Depict abstract concepts, not concrete objects.

I think monochrome volume (speaker) and video (video camera or almond-shaped eye) icons would work well.

[Guillaume Desmottes (cassidy)]

We are looking upstream for a better icon for the contact list: https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=606235
Any suggestion is more than welcome. :)

[Vish (vish)]

@ David Siegel :
Checking the upstream bug report , it seems that they want to make the icons more prominent and to seem as "buttons" and clickable.
Making them monochrome doesnt make it clearer. And doesnt seem like something upstream wants.

Are we sure we want the icon monochrome?

[David Siegel (djsiegel-deactivatedaccount)]

Mockup of chat/cal//video buttons that display only for selected contact.

[Vish (vish)]

We are really not sure how to fix this bug yet.

[Paul White (paulw2u)]

Upstream issue was moved to:
https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/empathy/issues/166
without any activity for over 12 years

empathy is no longer included in recent Ubuntu releases
so it is unlikely that this issue will ever receive any
attention. I'm therefore removing the Papercuts task.