Now that the first-run configuration has finished, you’re ready to begin using Evolution. Here’s a quick explanation of what’s happening in your main Evolution window.
The menu bar gives you access to nearly all of Evolution features.
The folder list gives you a list of the available folders for each account. To see the contents of a folder, click the folder name. The contents are displayed in the email list.
The toolbar gives you fast and easy access to the frequently used features in each component.
The search tool lets you search for emails either in the current account or in all accounts. You can filter emails, contacts, calendar entries and tasks using different criteria. The Search tool can also save frequently used searches to a search folder.
The message list displays a list of emails that you have received. The radio button above the list lets you view mesasages according to predifened and custom labels. To view an email in the preview pane, click the email in the email list.
The shortcut bar lets you switch between folders. At the bottom of the shortcut bar there are tool buttons that let you switch tools, and above that is a list of all the available folders for the current tool. If you have the Evolution Connector for Microsoft Exchange installed, you have an Exchange button in addition to buttons for the other tools.
The status bar periodically displays a message, or tells you the progress of a task. This most often happens when you’re checking or sending email. These progress queues are shown in the previous figure. The Online/Offline indicator is here, too, in the lower left of the window.
The preview pane displays the contents of the emails that are selected in the email list.
The menu bar’s contents always provide all the possible actions for any given view of your data. If you’re looking at your Inbox, most of the menu items relate to email. Some content relates to other components of Evolution and some, especially those in the File menu, relates to the application as a whole.
File: Anything related to a file or to the operations of the application usually falls under this menu, such as creating things, saving them to disk, printing them, and quitting the program itself.
Edit: Contains useful tools that help you edit text and move it around. Lets you access the settings and configuration options in the Edit menu.
View: Lets you decide how Evolution should look. Some of the features control the appearance of Evolution as a whole, and others the way a particular kind of information appears.
Folder: Contains actions that can be performed on folders. You can find things like copy, rename, delete, and so on.
Message: Contains actions that can be applied to a message. If there is only one target for the action (such as replying to a message), you can normally find it in the Message menu.
Search: Lets you search for messages, or phrases within a message. You can also see previous searches you have made. In addition to the Search menu, there is a text entry box in the toolbar that you can use to search for messages. You can also create a search folder from a search.
Help: Opens the Evolution Help files.
Evolution’s most important job is to give you access to your information and help you use it quickly. One way it does that is through the shortcut bar, which is the column on the left side of the main window. The buttons, such as Mail and Contacts, are the shortcuts. Above them is a list of folders for the selected Evolution tool.
The folder list organizes your email, calendars, contact lists, and task lists in a tree, similar to a file tree. Most people find one to four folders at the base of the tree, depending on the tool and their system configuration. Each Evolution tool has at least one, called On This Computer, for local information. For example, the folder list for the email tool shows any remote email storage you have set up, plus local folders and search folders.
If you get large amounts of email, you might want to create more folders than just your Inbox. You can create multiple email folders, address books, calendars, task lists, or memo lists.
To create a new folder:
Click
+ .Type the name of the folder in the
field.Select the location of the new folder.
Click
.Right-click a folder or subfolder to display a menu with the following options:
New Folder: Creates a new folder or subfolder in the same location.
Copy: Copies the folder to a different location. When you select this item, Evolution offers a choice of locations to copy the folder to.
Move: Moves the folder to another location.
Delete: Deletes the folder and all contents.
Mark Messages As Read: Marks all the messages in the folder as read.
Rename: Lets you change the name of the folder.
Refresh: Refreshes the folder.
Disable: Disables the account.
Properties: Checks the number of total and unread messages in a folder and, for remote folders, lets you select whether to copy the folder to your local system for offline operation.
You can also rearrange folders and messages by dragging and dropping them.
Any time new email arrives in a email folder, that folder label is displayed in bold text, along with the number of new messages in that folder.
Evolution email is like other email programs in several ways:
It can send and receive email in HTML or as plain text, and makes it easy to send and receive multiple file attachments.
It supports multiple email sources, including IMAP, POP3, and local mbox or mh spools and files created by other email programs.
It can sort and organize your email in a wide variety of ways with folders, searches, and filters.
It lets you guard your privacy with encryption.
However, Evolution differs from other email programs in some very essential ways. First, it’s built to handle very large amounts of email. The junk email, message filtering and searching functions were built for speed and efficiency. There’s also the search folder, an advanced organizational feature not found in some email clients. If you get a lot of email, or if you keep every message you get in case you need to refer to it later, you’ll find this feature especially useful. Here’s a quick explanation of what’s happening in your main Evolution email window. You can also run Evolution now in Windows.
The message list displays all the emails that you have. This includes all your read and unread messages and email that is flagged to be deleted. With the Show radio button above the message you can filter the message list view using several predifned and custom labels.
This is where your email is displayed.
If you find the preview pane too small, you can resize the pane, enlarge the whole window, or double-click the message in the message list to have it open in a new window. To change the size of a pane, drag the divider between the two panes.
As with folders, you can right-click messages in the message list and get a menu of possible actions, including moving or deleting them, creating filters or search folders based on them, and marking them as junk mail.
Email-related actions, like Reply and Forward, appear as buttons in the toolbar and are also located in the right-click menu and as keyboard shortcuts.
Evolution allows you to create and edit message templates that you can use at any time to send mail with the same pattern.
To begin using the calendar, click Calendar in the shortcut bar. By default, the calendar shows today’s schedule on a ruled background. At the upper right, there’s a Tasks list, where you can keep a list of tasks separate from your calendar appointments. Below that, there’s a list for memos.
The appointment list displays all your scheduled appointments.
The month pane is a small view of a calendar month. You can also select a range of days in the month pane to display a custom range of days in the appointment list.
Tasks are distinct from appointments because they generally don’t have times associated with them. You can see a larger view of your task list by clicking Tasks in the shortcut bar.
Memos, like Tasks, don’t have times associated with them. You can see a larger view of your Memo list by clicking Memos in the shortcut bar.
The Evolution contacts tool can handle all of the functions of an address book or phone book. However, it’s easier to update Evolution than it is to change an actual paper book, in part because Evolution can synchronize with Palm OS* devices and use LDAP directories on a network.
Another advantage of the Evolution contacts tool is its integration with the rest of the application. For example, you can right-click on an email address in Evolution mail to instantly create a contact entry.
To use the contacts tool, click
in the shortcut bar. By default, the display shows all your contacts in alphabetical order, in a minicard view. You can select other views from the menu, and adjust the width of the columns by clicking and dragging the gray column dividers.The largest section of the contacts display shows a list of individual contacts. You can also search the contacts in the same way that you search email folders, using the search tool on the right side of the toolbar.