In one of my clients I needed the functionality provided by forward module, an excellent module I must say. Everythink worked just right apart from one thing: the mail-icon used by the module is hardcoded! I could easily change it with a custom image just by overwriting the specified file in the file-system, but this is not a good idea because updating the module would make me loose the changes.
I've decided that it would be better if the module provided an option for the user to select the image he wants to use and tried to make the needed modifications. This was my first attempt to change something in a module and after succeding I wanted to give it back to the community by making my first patch.
The changes in the module were all ok, the patch wasn't followed by the same success however. It wasn't compliant with drupals standards so I made a second one, and this time everything was fine.
I hope that my modifications will become part of the forward module in the near future, untill then the patch needs to be tested and reviewed by the community, so give it a try!