Wrong phone icon orientation in Font Awesome 5

[alexandergirod]

Why did you changed the orientation of the phone icon in FA5?

FA5: https://fontawesome.com/icons/phone?style=solid FA4: http://fontawesome.io/icon/phone/

Whats has been the necessity? The old FA4 icon has been exactly the opposite of the new one, but most of all prominent phone icons used in the iOs or Android apps as well as WhatsApp are using the icon facing to the right.

There has been an issue already about it, but some beody closed it because he didn't understood the issue was about FA5 and not FA4: https://github.com/FortAwesome/Font-Awesome/issues/11437

Could you please revert this or explain why you did this?

[tagliala]

Hi!

Thanks for being part of the Font Awesome Community.

I'm quoting a message from Dave Gandy readable by FA5 backers at: https://github.com/FortAwesome/Font-Awesome-Pro/issues/626#issuecomment-335865224

The reasoning for the change is that we're trying to make all diagonal icons (which tend to be things that are held) go from the bottom left to the top right for consistency. This also means if you layer an fa-ban icon on top nothing else will need to be flipped.

Even if I personally agree with you, I should point out that you can flip the icon without any loss in quality (for all recent browsers, at least):

webfont: https://jsfiddle.net/tagliala/tgzouajm/43/ svg: https://jsfiddle.net/tagliala/f019sa7v/8/

I'm going to close here

Hope it helps

[leecollings-sb]

@tagliala, this should not have been closed, and this should not have been just glazed over.

This is a substantial change that has drastic effects on people using this icon, and should be reverted back to the original orientation, which is the correct, regardless of how other icons appear.

As the poster pointed out, it is a common trend to follow that phone symbols show the handset leaning to the left, with the receiver and mouthpiece on the right hand side. This is a global familiarity.

Not only that, but it looks clearly and obviously wrong being the other way round.

Can this please be reverted back to the original orientation?

[tagliala]

@lee-supportedbusiness I personally agree with you.

We have made this choice for now and we will keep this orientation. We could consider to revert to the original orientation in the future, as soon as high priority feature and bugs will be addressed.

Please note that if this change has drastic effects on your application, you can add a global css rule to automatically flip all phone icons (works on both css and SVG framework)

.fa-phone {
  -ms-filter: "progid:DXImageTransform.Microsoft.BasicImage(rotation=0, mirror=1)";
  -webkit-transform: scaleX(-1);
  transform: scaleX(-1);
}

[leecollings-sb]

Hi @tagliala Thanks for your suggestion, that will help us for now.

But yes, please do ensure this reverts. I would actually suggest making this a high priority feature, it seems absurd to have made this decision at all.

[60wattmax]

For anyone else that happens by this post looking for some explanation/solution to the bizarre backward phone icon ...

https://fontawesome.com/how-to-use/on-the-web/styling/rotating-icons

[ghost]

I need to comment on this again beacuse I can't believe this hasn't been addressed yet.

In plain and simple terms, the phone icon is the wrong way round! You cannot try and make it conform to your other diagonal icons, the phone icon doesn't work like that.

Stick to international standards, and even a simple google search will prove that the phone icon is currently the wrong way around.

[tagliala]

@leecollings thanks for the feedback and the heads-up on this issue

@sensibleworld what do you think about this? This issue was raised a lot of time ago and discussed at FortAwesome/Font-Awesome-Pro#626

[alexandergirod]

@leecollings thanks for the screenshot, it makes the issue pretty obvious, which I tried to reason with words. @tagliala the reasoning in #626 from @davegandy is pure Vulcan logic, but on Earth the phone icon is universal as shown in the above screenshot. This fact doesn't even change when used in RTL environments (e.g. Arabic).

[sensibleworld]

Thanks for pinging me on this @tagliala. This is likely one of our most-used icons, and we completely get that it isn't ideal for a lot of folks. That said, it's been this direction since 5 was first released, so flipping it at this point could be jarring to a lot of people, and we've been trying our best to avoid breaking changes like these. (Though we also recognize that it's jarring as-is for folks switching from v4 to v5).

As a meeting-halfway idea, would providing an alternate version of the icon be helpful? So, we'd have fa-phone and a fa-phone-flipped (or similar) as options?

[leecollings-sb]

That would be ideal... provided that fa-phone is the correct orientation (ie the opposite of what it currently is)

[sensibleworld]

@lee-supportedbusiness We don't want to introduce a breaking change, so my proposal is to keep the current fa-phone icon as-is, and introduce a new fa-phone-alt that would be in alternate orientation.

[leecollings-sb]

That’s not a compromise then because that’s no different than adding fa-flip-horizontal to it.

You already broke the mould when you flipped it in the first place, so why are you now worried about it being a breaking change?

You created the breaking change in the first place?

I can’t believe how stubborn you guys are being and not admitting that you’ve made a mistake, and are refusing to resolve it.

[sensibleworld]

That’s not a compromise then because that’s no different than adding fa-flip-horizontal to it.

It means that folks can decide which version of the icon they'd like to use, regardless of whether they have access to the css or not (some Wordpress themes, etc)

You already broke the mould when you flipped it in the first place, so why are you now worried about it being a breaking change?

Because changing it now would have an impact on all current installations of version 5.

I can’t believe how stubborn you guys are being and not admitting that you’ve made a mistake, and are refusing to resolve it.

I totally get that this is frustrating, and I'm sorry about that.

[leecollings-sb]

Al of your points except the last one have no relevance.

Folks can still decide what version they want. Just revert the standard class to the correct way round! It’s very simple. Follow the rules!

Changing it for v5 broke all the previous installations. Why is this different enough to not be bothered to fix it?

So it’s going to remain incorrect..? That’s terrible quality control.

On Fri, 24 May 2019 at 8:29 pm, Jory Raphael notifications@github.com wrote:

That’s not a compromise then because that’s no different than adding fa-flip-horizontal to it.

It means that folks can decide which version of the icon they'd like to use, regardless of whether they have access to the css or not (some Wordpress themes, etc)

You already broke the mould when you flipped it in the first place, so why are you now worried about it being a breaking change?

Because changing it now would have an impact on all current installations of version 5.

I can’t believe how stubborn you guys are being and not admitting that you’ve made a mistake, and are refusing to resolve it.

I totally get that this is frustrating, and I'm sorry about that.

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[tagliala]

@lee-supportedbusiness I completely understand your disappointment, but please remember that Font Awesome is a happy place and we have a Code of Conduct to respect

Breaking changes like this one (think to all people that is already using fa-flip-horizontal to workaround this issue and people that is not bothered at all by the orientation of the phone) should be avoided until a major version number bump

[leecollings-sb]

It should never have been changed. That’s where the problem started, and up till this point it hasn’t been resolved.

That’s all I’m saying.

On Fri, 24 May 2019 at 9:41 pm, Geremia Taglialatela < notifications@github.com> wrote:

@lee-supportedbusiness https://github.com/lee-supportedbusiness I completely understand your disappointment, but please remember that Font Awesome is a happy place and we have a Code of Conduct https://github.com/FortAwesome/Font-Awesome/blob/master/CODE_OF_CONDUCT.md#our-standards to respect

Breaking changes like this one (think to all people that is already using fa-flip-horizontal to workaround this issue and people that is not bothered at all by the orientation of the phone) should be avoided until a major version number bump

— You are receiving this because you were mentioned. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub https://github.com/FortAwesome/Font-Awesome/issues/11985?email_source=notifications&email_token=AC4TUAANUIITJALKH5SJEUDPXBHGRA5CNFSM4EJMIFBKYY3PNVWWK3TUL52HS4DFVREXG43VMVBW63LNMVXHJKTDN5WW2ZLOORPWSZGODWGQQCY#issuecomment-495781899, or mute the thread https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AC4TUADK4ARG42UUXQCZW4DPXBHGRANCNFSM4EJMIFBA .

-- Lee Collings Tel: +44 (0)203 011 1313 Web: www.supportedbusiness.com

The content of this email, including any files or documents attached, are confidential and may also be legally privileged, protected from disclosure and/or protected by other legal rules. It is written without prejudice and is intended for the individual specified in the message only. The views and opinions included in this email belong to their author and do not necessarily mirror the views and opinions of the company. Full security of this email cannot be ensured as, despite our best efforts, the data included in emails could be infected, intercepted, or corrupted. Do not share any part of this message with any third party, without a written consent of the sender. If you have received this message in error, please notify us and remove it from your system.

[alexandergirod]

Font Awesome 5.9 just added phone-alt with the old orientation.

So that's the new compromise besides the CSS transform method by @tagliala

[ghost]

It's still wrong... as I've been saying all along. This is ridiculous attempt to try and 'fix it', by actually providing a solution that already existed.

All they've done is doubled their work, when they didn't needed to in the first place.

the two icons 'fa-phone' and 'fa-phone-alt' should now be reversed, because the main phone icon orientation is still incorrect.

[alexandergirod]

I do agree. It should never happened in the first place. At the same time I can understand the argument about the issue for existing usage of the fa-phone icon and to postpone a rollback to the next major version. So I rather have this compromise now, than waiting till this happens.

[tagliala]

@alexandergirod thanks

[temaprint]

Another library can be used

[tagliala]

@temaprint actually this has been fixed in FA 5.10.2

https://fontawesome.com/icons/phone-alt?style=solid

[ghost]

No it hasn’t been ‘fixed’...

On 25 Nov 2020, at 3:45 pm, Geremia Taglialatela notifications@github.com wrote:

 @temaprint actually this has been fixed in FA 5.10.2

https://fontawesome.com/icons/phone-alt?style=solid

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[tagliala]

@leecollings apologies for the misuse of the verb fix

A new icon has been added to the set and it represents a horizontally flipped version of phone.

We opted to add a new icon to avoid intentional breaking changes, because other developers may have flipped the existing icon by using fa-flip-horizontal

In FA6, this has been fixed

The flipped version of phone icon will be available as phone-flip

Hope it clarifies

[ghost]

Hi there,

That sounds much better for version 6! Well done there.

However I notice in your screenshot the URL to the icon is within ‘pro’ directory... this icon will be available for free users too I assume?

On 25 Nov 2020, at 4:42 pm, Geremia Taglialatela notifications@github.com wrote:

 @leecollings apologies for the misuse of the verb fix

A new icon has been added to the set and it represents a horizontally flipped version of phone.

We opted to add a new icon to avoid intentional breaking changes, because other developers may have flipped the existing icon by using fa-flip-horizontal

In FA6, this has been fixed

The flipped version of phone icon will be available as phone-flip

Hope it clarifies

— You are receiving this because you were mentioned. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub, or unsubscribe.

[tagliala]

However I notice in your screenshot the URL to the icon is within ‘pro’ directory... this icon will be available for free users too I assume?

In the alpha 1 documentation everything is in a directory called "pro" and I was confused too :)

I've checked the free set configuration and I can see both phone and phone-flip there. I doubt that free icons will become pro. If you will find one in FA6, let us know

[ghost]

Nice to know this issue has finally been (or will finally be) resolved!

Thanks for clarifying and sorry for hijacking the thread (can’t remember if I’m the author or not...!)

On 25 Nov 2020, at 5:07 pm, Geremia Taglialatela notifications@github.com wrote:

 However I notice in your screenshot the URL to the icon is within ‘pro’ directory... this icon will be available for free users too I assume?

In the alpha 1 documentation everything is in a directory called "pro" and I was confused too :)

I've checked the free set configuration and I can see both phone and phone-flip there. I doubt that free icons will become pro. If you will find one in FA6, let us know

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[kashifo]

Font Awesome 5.9 just added phone-alt with the old orientation.

So that's the new compromise besides the CSS transform method by @tagliala

For anybody still facing this issue, you need to add fa-phone-alt.