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Ximian

Evolution Reaches A New Milestone 426

Posted by CowboyNeal from the evolving-software dept.
dalutong writes "Ximian has recently released Evolution v1.2 to the masses. New features include (among other ones that don't affect me as much) optional Emacs and XEmacs bindings in the email composer and much faster mailbox indexing (and thus loading.) It's nice to know evolution hasn't stopped."
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Evolution Reaches A New Milestone More

Evolution Reaches A New Milestone

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  • mutated? (Score:5, Funny)

    by dirvish ( 574948 ) <(dirvish) (at) (foundnews.com)> on Monday November 11, 2002 @07:54PM (#4646724) Homepage Journal
    Evolution has reached a new milestone

    Does that mean there was a beneficial mutation?
    • Yeah, when I read it, I thought that someone had grown a 3rd eye or something :]

      Until I realized that they meant the *OTHER* evolution...

    • Evolution and DNA? (Score:5, Funny)

      by einhverfr ( 238914 ) <chris...travers@@@gmail...com> on Monday November 11, 2002 @09:22PM (#4647335) Homepage Journal
      Hmmm....

      "its nice to see that Evolution hasn't stopped"

      And when I clicked on the link, I got an ad for Helix DNA.....

  • I know I am a feat of nature (Score:3, Funny)

    by ealar dlanvuli ( 523604 ) <froggie6@mchsi.com> on Monday November 11, 2002 @07:54PM (#4646732) Homepage
    But I normally do try and keep it quiet. Please no more slashdot headlines about me, ok?
    • "I know I am a feat of nature...But I normally do try and keep it quiet. Please no more slashdot headlines about me, ok?"

      Parent poster wasn't being a troll, he was trying to be funny. It wasn't funny unless you're into comedians like Bob Saget, but it wasn't trolling.

  • Mandatory emacs joke (Score:3, Funny)

    by GreyWolf3000 ( 468618 ) on Monday November 11, 2002 @07:56PM (#4646745) Journal
    New features include (among other ones that don't affect me as much) optional Emacs and XEmacs bindings in the email composer and much faster mailbox indexing (and thus loading.)

    Does that mean the kitchen sink is also included, or will that come along with the next release?

    Har har. Hopefully, others trying to make this joke will see this post, and see that it is not funny, and think twice.

  • Why do Emacs and XEmacs have to be listed differently and separately? Is there a reason for their duplicity, or does xemacs run on X11? Someone fill me in.

  • The history of the world (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 11, 2002 @07:57PM (#4646754)

    2.5 million B.C.: OOG the Open Source Caveman develops the axe and releases it under the GPL. The axe quickly gains popularity as a means of crushing moderators' heads.

    100,000 B.C.: Man domesticates the AIBO.

    10,000 B.C.: Civilization begins when early farmers first learn to cultivate hot grits.

    3000 B.C.: Sumerians develop a primitive cuneiform perl script.

    2920 B.C.: A legendary flood sweeps Slashdot, filling up a Borland / Inprise story with hundreds of offtopic posts.

    1750 B.C.: Hammurabi, a Mesopotamian king, codifies the first EULA.

    490 B.C.: Greek city-states unite to defeat the Persians. ESR triumphantly proclaims that the Greeks "get it".

    399 B.C.: Socrates is convicted of impiety. Despite the efforts of freesocrates.com, he is forced to kill himself by drinking hemlock.

    336 B.C.: Fat-Time Charlie becomes King of Macedonia and conquers Persia.

    4 B.C.: Following the Star (as in hot young actress) of Bethelem, wise men travel from far away to troll for baby Jesus.

    A.D. 476: The Roman Empire BSODs.

    A.D. 610: The Glorious MEEPT!! founds Islam after receiving a revelation from God. Following his disappearance from Slashdot in 632, a succession dispute results in the emergence of two troll factions: the Pythonni and the Perliites.

    A.D. 800: Charlemagne conquers nearly all of Germany, only to be acquired by andover.net.

    A.D. 874: Linus the Red discovers Iceland.

    A.D. 1000: The epic of the Beowulf Cluster is written down. It is the first English epic poem.

    A.D. 1095: Pope Bruce II calls for a crusade against the Turks when it is revealed they are violating the GPL. Later investigation reveals that Pope Bruce II had not yet contacted the Turks before calling for the crusade.

    A.D. 1215: Bowing to pressure to open-source the British government, King John signs the Magna Carta, limiting the British monarchy's power. ESR triumphantly proclaims that the British monarchy "gets it".

    A.D. 1348: The ILOVEYOU virus kills over half the population of Europe. (The other half was not using Outlook.)

    A.D. 1420: Johann Gutenberg invents the printing press. He is immediately sued by monks claiming that the technology will promote the copying of hand-transcribed books, thus violating the church's intellectual property.

    A.D. 1429: Natalie Portman of Arc gathers an army of Slashdot trolls to do battle with the moderators. She is eventually tried as a heretic and stoned (as in petrified).

    A.D. 1478: The Catholic Church partners with doubleclick.net to launch the Spanish Inquisition.

    A.D. 1492: Christopher Columbus arrives in what he believes to be "India", but which RMS informs him is actually "GNU/India".

    A.D. 1508-12: Michaelengelo attempts to paint the Sistine Chapel ceiling with ASCII art, only to have his plan thwarted by the "Lameness Filter."

    A.D. 1517: Martin Luther nails his 95 Theses to the church door and is promptly moderated down to (-1, Flamebait).

    A.D. 1553: "Bloody" Mary ascends the throne of England and begins an infamous crusade against Protestants. ESR eats his words.

    A.D. 1588: The "IF I EVER MEET YOU, I WILL KICK YOUR ASS" guy meets the Spanish Armada.

    A.D. 1603: Tokugawa Ieyasu unites the feuding pancake-eating ninjas of Japan.

    A.D. 1611: Mattel adds Galileo Galilei to its CyberPatrol block list for proposing that the Earth revolves around the sun.

    A.D. 1688: In the so-called "Glorious Revolution", King James II is bloodlessly forced out of power and flees to France. ESR again triumphantly proclaims that the British monarchy "gets it".

    A.D. 1692: Anti-GIF hysteria in the New World comes to a head in the infamous "Salem GIF Trials", in which 20 alleged GIFs are burned at the stake. Later investigation reveals that many of the supposed GIFs were actually PNGs.

    A.D. 1769: James Watt patents the one-click steam engine.

    A.D. 1776: Trolls, angered by CmdrTaco's passage of the Moderation Act, rebel. After a several-year flame war, the trolls succeed in seceding from Slashdot and forming the United Coalition of Trolls.

    A.D. 1789: The French Revolution begins with a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack on the Bastille.

    A.D. 1799: Attempts at discovering Egyptian hieroglyphs receive a major boost when Napoleon's troops discover the Rosetta stone. Sadly, the stone is quickly outlawed under the DMCA as an illegal means of circumventing encryption.

    A.D. 1844: Samuel Morse invents Morse code. Cryptography export restrictions prevent the telegraph's use outside the U.S. and Canada.

    A.D. 1853: United States Commodore Matthew C. Perry arrives in Japan and forces the xenophobic nation to open its doors to foreign trade. ESR triumphantly proclaims that Japan finally "gets it".

    A.D. 1865: President Lincoln is 'bitchslapped.' The nation mourns.

    A.D. 1901: Italian inventor Guglielmo Marcoli first demonstrates the radio. Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich immediately delivers to Marcoli a list of 335,435 suspected radio users.

    A.D. 1911: Facing a break-up by the United States Supreme Court, Standard Oil Co. defends its "freedom to innovate" and proposes numerous rejected settlements. Slashbots mock the company as "Standa~1" and depict John D. Rockefeller as a member of the Borg.

    A.D. 1929: V.A. Linux's stock drops over 200 dollars on "Black Tuesday", October 29th.

    A.D. 1945: In the secret Manhattan Project, scientists working in Los Alamos, New Mexico, construct a nuclear bomb from Star Wars Legos.

    A.D. 1948: Slashdot runs the infamous headline "DEWEY DEFEATS TRUMAN." Shamefaced, the site quickly retracts the story when numerous readers point out that it is not news for nerds, stuff that matters.

    A.D. 1965: Jon Katz delivers his famous "I Have A Post-Hellmouth Dream" speech, which stated: "I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the geeks of former slaves and the geeks of former slave geeks will be able to sit down together at the table of geeks... I have a dream that my geek little geeks will one geek live in a nation where they will not be geeked by the geek of their geek but by the geek of their geek."

    A.D. 1969: Neil Armstrong becomes the first man to set foot on the moon. His immortal words: "FIRST MOONWALK!!!"

    A.D. 1970: Ohio National Guardsmen shoot four students at Kent State University for "Internet theft".

    A.D. 1989: The United States invades Panama to capture renowned "hacker" Manual Noriega, who is suspected of writing the DeCSS utility.

    A.D. 1990: West Germany and East Germany reunite after 45 years of separation. ESR triumphantly proclaims that Germany "gets it".

    A.D. 1994: As years of apartheid rule finally end, Nelson Mandela is elected president of South Africa. ESR is sick, and sadly misses his chance to triumphantly proclaim that South Africa "gets it".

    A.D. 1997: Slashdot reports that Scottish scientists have succeeded in cloning a female sheep named Dolly. Numerous readers complain that if they had wanted information on the latest sheep releases, they would have just gone to freshsheep.net

    A.D. 1999: Miramax announces Don Knotts to play hacker Emmanuel Goldstein in upcoming movie "Takedown"

    • A.D. 1989: The United States invades Panama to capture renowned "hacker" Manual Noriega, who is suspected of writing the DeCSS utility.

      After the CIA keeps advising the president to "Remove The F'ing Manuel", I assume?

      A.D. 1941: Outcomes of critical World War II battles are held up for years due to German allegations that the British illegally acquired trade secrets. Four years later, all of their money tied up in legal bills, Germany files for bankruptcy. Documents are eventually declassified that prove they were right all along.

  • Phew (Score:5, Interesting)

    by HRbnjR ( 12398 ) <chris@hubick.com> on Monday November 11, 2002 @07:59PM (#4646772) Homepage
    I beat the Slashdotting by grabbing this a mere hour ago :-)

    The blurb fails to mention the one new feature which makes this release very worthwhile, at least for me... Sound support! You can now have it play a sound on receipt of any incoming mail. Even better, you can use sounds as actions in filters, so you can set it up to not beep at you every 30 seconds when you receive spam or mail list traffic.

    Also of note is the increased feeling of polish moving from 1.08. I really can't wait for the 1.4 release when it's ported to Gnome 2.

    • Re:Phew (Score:5, Funny)

      by Captain Large Face ( 559804 ) on Monday November 11, 2002 @08:22PM (#4646942) Homepage

      You can now have it play a sound on receipt of any incoming mail.

      I will go to Hell for this [snowcrest.net]. Sorry.

    • Re:Phew (Score:4, Informative)

      by HRbnjR ( 12398 ) <chris@hubick.com> on Monday November 11, 2002 @08:42PM (#4647083) Homepage
      Reply to myself to answer questions to other replies...

      1) No, I'm not kidding. Hence the "even better" line. I only use the filter activation, not the catch all sound.

      2) Evolution filter actions can be activated on any of their filter criterions, which includes: Recipient, Subject, Specific Header, Message Body, Expression, Date Sent/Received, Label, Score, Size, Status, Follow Up, Attachments, Mailing List, Regex, Source Account, and Shell Command.

      So, with Shell Command's as criterion AND actions, that basically means you can plugin whatever you want if it's not already in that exhaustive list.

      In short, it's TOTALLY customizable to do just about anything I can personally imagine.

      Personally, I use procmail to categorize my email into several separate pop boxes on the server, so I criterion playing a sound off my main spam free Source Account, and also added it as an action to my 'folderization' filters for a few important mailing lists.

      And yes, I used Outlook on my Win work box for a long time, and yes, it has been FAR ahead of Free Software offerings. I liked Outlook quite a bit actually. But that's not the point, the point is that now Evolution meets /my/ needs just as well as Outlook did, except for possibly...

      I'm looking forward to the Gnome 2 port mainly for the XFT fonts and Anti-Aliasing.

      I think with Gnome 2.2 when things get a little more polished and the apps ported, Evolution 1.2, Galeon 2, etc, then the GNU/Linux desktop will really start to become viable for many people.

  • Where's VI Support? (Score:4, Funny)

    by md17 ( 68506 ) <james@@@jamesward...org> on Monday November 11, 2002 @08:00PM (#4646782) Homepage
    <sarcasm>
    I used to like Evolution, but after this low blow, I think I might change my mind. How can they add Emacs support and not VI support? Since everyone knows that VI is better than Emacs.
    </sarcasm>

  • yeah right... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Frac ( 27516 ) on Monday November 11, 2002 @08:01PM (#4646790)
    "It's nice to know evolution hasn't stopped."

    If you try to download it from Kansas, you'll get a 404 telling you that evolution never existed.

  • A few thoughts: (Score:5, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 11, 2002 @08:01PM (#4646792)
    I think Evolution is VERY comparable to Outlook. I love some of the features that it has that Outlook lacks. For instance the ability to view HTML formatted mail but not download embedded images off the net. This means no more dot clear images tracking the message and no auto-run scripts doing dirty deeds.

    VFolders, a method of storing searches in a folder view format, are very nice. I must confess though, I don't use it much. I only have 5 VFolders configured.

    Calendaring and contact management is great too, though I can't speak for Exchange interoperability with the Calendar, I feel confident based on Evolution that the connector would be good too.

    As a whole I strongly recommend Evolution. It is an Outlook killer. Unfortunately though, it doesn't forward Melissa, Code-Red, Anna Kourikova, I Love You..... ;)
    • VFolders, a method of storing searches in a folder view format, are very nice. I must confess though, I don't use it much. I only have 5 VFolders configured.

      I'll admit I have a hard time doing cross-folder searches, although I'll admit that it's probably because I haven't spent enough time learning how.

      Which, of course, means that 98% of people won't, either.

      What I'd really, *really* like to see is an easy-to-use email search function. If I could google through my email to find something (I often forget what misc. coworker sent me that important doc), and do it easily and intuitively, I'd be a happy man.

      • My most frequest VFolder is just one that is of all unread messages, regardless of the folder. Also one for stuff received in the last 24 hours, and sent in the last 24 hours.
        For searching, the quick-search bar at the top of the mail folder windows is a god-send. just select the search criteria (i.e. "message body contains"), then the search specification (i.e. "sales figures"), and click search. you can even save searches for quick reference later. ("I'm always looking for the most recent sales figures" - save a search with attachments and 'sales figures' in the message body.)

        overall, i echo the kudos to Evolution above. great app, and i wish we used exchange 2000 at work so i could get rid of the win desktop alltogether and use ximian connector.

    • Re:A few thoughts: (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Yea, with sound support that's activated on filters and the vsubjects and everything. Evolution is a killer everyday e-mail client.

      The one thing that it's missing and I don't think they plan on adding is allowing you to leave the messages on server, but delete them from the server when you delete them like Outlook does. I don't think it'd be that hard....maybe something for me to code myself.

      • Re:A few thoughts: (Score:3, Informative)

        by steveha ( 103154 )
        The one thing that it's missing and I don't think they plan on adding is allowing you to leave the messages on server, but delete them from the server when you delete them like Outlook does.

        I'm not sure why you think that feature is missing. I use Evolution that way, every day: my email lives on an IMAP server.

        Sometimes Evolution doesn't show me the latest messages until I hit the "Send/Receive" button. The tree view will show "Inbox (5)" but I don't see the 5 messages until I hit "Send/Receive". Other times I don't need to hit that button. Its odd but not hard to live with.

        Also, I'm pretty sure you can leave messages on a POP3 server too. Check the "leave messages on the server" option. I don't use POP3 so I can't be certain whether it will delete messages from the server when you delete them locally, or not.

        steveha

    • It'll only be an 'outlook killer' (Score:5, Insightful)

      by myowntrueself ( 607117 ) on Monday November 11, 2002 @08:32PM (#4647006)
      when people can import their outlook data files (.pst files etc) complete with calender, contacts lists, tasks and of course email.

      I *know* one can export outlook data files to imap (uh, correct me if I'm using the wrong acronym there) and then re-import them to unix mail format (theres a howto on this), but, importantly;
      this causes *EVERYTHING* to appear as an email item, including calender entries, contacts lists everything comes across as a piece of email. Which I regard as a lot less than useful...

      Some might say thats better than nothing, I say *phhfft*
    • actually I wish someone would invent a hack or patch to remove the ability to view HTML from outlook and evolution. It's fricking stupid to send email as html. and it causes mre trouble than it's worth..

      if I had a hack to do it I'd deploy it to EVERY desktop in my company silently and mention as the complaints started "New company policy in reducing email and network load."

      email should be PLAIN ASCII TEXT ONLY.

      sorry, if I seem jaded, but I'm forced to deal with an exchange server every day... and exchange is the absolutely the worst email server ever invented... I cant believe that any company would intentionally install and maintain the crap that it is.

    • Re:A few thoughts: (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Trinition ( 114758 ) on Monday November 11, 2002 @08:49PM (#4647134) Homepage
      Great, now all we need is for it to have the one feature that Outlook still has over it. No, not Exchange integration. I mean running on Windows. I'll stick with my Microsoft utlook (*sigh*) fo rnow.

      • Evolution on Windows... (Score:3, Informative)

        by Spoing ( 152917 )
        In the short term, when using Windows, the most stable and simplest thing you can do is use a VNC viewer pointed at a *nix box that has Evolution on it. Otherwise, take a look at these efforts to get Gnome and other programs ported using Cygwin;

        1. http://homepage.ntlworld.com/steven.obrien2/index. html [ntlworld.com]

          http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=gnome&m=1010157075 21446&w=2 [theaimsgroup.com]

          http://www.geocities.co.jp/SiliconValley/1596/en/c ygwin.html [geocities.co.jp]

        Unfortunately, I don't see any new efforts at a port of Evolution to Windows, but as it improves folks will start to demand it everywhere they are.

        Mac OSX users are much more lucky -- they can get Evolution right now. Fink [sourceforge.net] lists it as a ported app.

        It would be nice to have a Windows CD with all X apps so that folks can see that *nix systems aren't usually text-based or some ugly form of CDE. Till then, I've found the boot CD and full Debian distributionKnoppix [knopper.net] to be an ideal introduction. Blew the socks off of a admin I showed it to who didn't know it was possible, and impressed others who like the idea of Linux but can't be bothered with actually learning anything (kids, job, wife, do the math).

  • "Evolution Reaches A New Milestone" I guess that means it can operate its digital watch without any need of aid...

  • Bring on the GTK2 version (Score:5, Informative)

    by Plug ( 14127 ) on Monday November 11, 2002 @08:05PM (#4646821) Homepage
    Isn't it nice when you're having a discussion on IRC about Evolution needing to be ported to GTK2, you Google for the time line and get a post from July [ximian.com] saying it'll be worked on after Evolution 1.2.

    Then, I thought "well, I'll read the latest months news on the Evolution mailing list" and see this announcement. [ximian.com]

    Lo and behold, a trip to Slashdot, and what has just been posted.

    This all happened between my morning and lunchtime Slashdot reading! Woo, the universe is on fire today. Perhaps if I think about Duke Nukem Forever it'll be out by next Tuesday.

    Applause to Ximian for their new release and to the GTK2 developers everywhere. Gnome 2 is turning KDE users' heads.

  • Why Open Source Needs Microsoft (Score:5, Insightful)

    by LordSah ( 185088 ) on Monday November 11, 2002 @08:12PM (#4646874)
    I see Evolution as a great example that open-source cannot be end-all solution to the world's software problems. A big reason is usability: open-source doesn't have the resources to research and develop effective UI. Usability experts, consumer studies, prototype testing and well-designed feedback loops are all needed to design user interfaces that are intuitive and efficient.

    It takes for-profit companies, with a lot of money to throw at the problem, to design original and effective UI's. Evolution neatly copies Microsoft Outlook's user experience. It's a good thing that MS put all that work into designing the UI, and didn't give Ximian any guff over using it.

    From the cover-my-ass dept: I'll admit that there are some exceptions. But by and large, the UI on open-source sucks unless they are copied from for-profit software, such as Outlook (for Evolution), NEXTStep or Windows (for various Window Managers), Wordperfect/MSWord (various word processors). And before somebody says that you don't need UI--Random J User cannot effectively use text-console programs without a lot of training.

    • Re:Why Open Source Needs Microsoft (Score:5, Insightful)

      by plierhead ( 570797 ) on Monday November 11, 2002 @08:34PM (#4647021) Journal
      It takes for-profit companies, with a lot of money to throw at the problem, to design original and effective UI's.

      This is utterly true, and it is refreshing to see someone highlighting it. To go even further, designing an effective UI is something you simply can't get right in one go, no matter how much money and experts you throw at it. Most products only develop a good UI after several versions, based on a *lot* of user feedback.

      So Microsoft has to fork out on developing this great UI, and anyone who cares to can come along and pick it up for free and leverage it. Thats a great thing. And ironically its how Microsoft got where they were in the first place - not by being great innovators but by being "fast followers".

      There might be a lot more OSS successes if more people swallowed their pride, decided they didn't have to reinvent the wheel, and became fast followers themselves.

    • UI design costs money but so does coding and that raises a question: Why don't usability experts contribute to open source projects the same way people writing the code do? Is it because they don't want to contribute for free or is it because coders are likely to ignore their recommendations anyway in favor of their own personal preferences and then say "I'm doing this voluntarily so don't tell me what to do!" I'm just asking - not trying to offend anyone.
    • Microsoft has billions of dollars in the bank and with all that money they must be spending hundreds of millions of those dollars on security research, therefore windows must be more secure than linux, right? There's no way that some weird Finnish guy and a couple hundred of non-rich hobbyists submitting patches could come up with an OS core more secure than something made by a large corporation like Microsoft, right?

      Contrary to popular belief in the linux community, Microsoft is actually one of the software companies most frequently criticized by usability professionals. They are the most frequent inductee in the Interface Hall of Shame [iarchitect.com]Just because they've got more money than some industrialized nations doesn't mean they aren't capable of cranking out some horrendously bad designs. If Microsoft had effective usability, they never would have come out with Window-in-Window MDI, multi-row tabs, or any of the other atrocities they've released over the years. Unfortunately, Open Source Software has incorporated more than their fair share of these stupid designs in the mistaken belief that microsoft knew what they were doing.

      A developer community is only successful in areas where they have very strong beliefs and values that are advantageous. Linux has succeeded so well on the server because the linux development community had very strong values regarding security and stability, and these sorts of values were advantageous on the server. Unfortunately, linux people are unix people, and unix people have had a long standing tradition of calling end-users stupid, telling them to go RTFM, and decrying the field of usability as BS and usability folks as "whiners".

      Who'd want to do usability for free for people who say things like:
      • "Don't whine about what you're getting for free"
      • "Free Software does not entitle you to a usable interface"
      • "I can't believe some people get paid to criticize the work of others"
      • "Usability is in the eye of the beholder. Don't listen to any of these 'Usability Experts'"
      • "If you want to improve the interface, learn how to code and submit a patch."


      Open Source doesn't need money to improve usability. It needs an attitude adjustment.

    • Re:What OSS really needs: UIForge (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Lord Bitman ( 95493 ) on Monday November 11, 2002 @09:59PM (#4647571)
      What we really need is a large forum for communicating User Interface ideas to programmers. The problem with OSS is that it tends to expect /everybody/ to be able to pick up the code and remove the horrible from apps. This just isnt the case.
      It's true, we can't afford consultants and experts to tell us what 70% of potential customers would like to see, but we do have this whole internet out there, and something should be done to harvest the feedback.
      Not saying that no options are out there right now, only that the current options arent working, and there needs to be better ways for /normal/ users, not programmers, not even just people who prefer OSS, just users of programs to, basically, complain. Until the OSS Community has a real and good forum for complaining, we arent going to see programmers taking notice and fixing things like UI problems.

  • Unstable (Score:2, Interesting)

    by bombdotcom ( 85138 )
    Too bad evolution has been -- for me -- one of the most unstable apps I've ever used. It breaks due to dependency problems (wombat, bonobo, gconf, etc.) every time I upgrade something via red-carpet. At this moment, I can't even start evolution due to some stupid dependency problem that's not adequately explained in any docs, error messages, or mail lists I've been able to find. I could never recommend it to a friend.

    Good thing I prefer pine configured to use vi as its composer anyway.

    • Agreed, somewhat (Score:2, Interesting)

      by robbo ( 4388 )
      I use evo for IMAP at home and school, and have encountered period instability. I have 1.2 installed and so far no real problems, although the now-famous Emacs bindings don't seem to work. I've heard horror stories from friends, though, claiming it messed up their contacts. I'm afraid to try the sound support.

      Btw, anyone know if there will eventually be newsgroup support? That's the one feature that keeps me bouncing back to mozilla.
      • I really don't know, but last I heard they had given up on news support. If you want real news support use Pan. Pan has all the nice features.

        Pan Homepage [rebelbase.com]
      • NNTP support is available, but it's not enabled by default (The code is unmaintained), and Ximian has decided to focus on more important projects first.

        I think you can build from source with --enable-nntp .

        I have to admit, I really want Evo NNTP suppport.

        I just want a single news/mail reader. Pan is ok, Mozilla NNTP doesn't work for me, but I really want tighter integration with my mail client.
    • You main problem is likely red-carpet. Red-carpet does a poor job at handling dependecies and Ximian does a just as bad job at making rpms. Personally I either use RedHat's Rawhide rpms for evolution, or like in the case of 1.2, I compile my own rpm based on their rawhide src.rpm.

  • Source bizarreness (Score:2, Informative)

    by salimma ( 115327 )
    .. Evo 1.2 has been announced on Ximian's website [ximian.com] for quite a few hours, and has even made it to FootNotes [gnomedesktop.org], but..

    Neither gnome.org or ximian's FTP servers carry the source, whether tarball or src.rpm. Oversight in a moment of excitement, or company policy? I sure hope it's the latter.

    Oh, and CVS for evolution-1-2-branch is already bumped up to 1.2.0.99, so obviously they have had the time to release the source ...

  • Evolution (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Evolution is one of those pieces of OSS, that you can point at and say: "OSS can deliver, there, eat this". It belongs to the group of amazing projects like Apache, Samba and Mozilla if you ask me. Now if we had some great multimedia programs (MPlayer is getting close though).
  • Here's a link to the User's Guide [ximian.com] and to What's New [ximian.com].

    Fun things:
    mmmmmmmm...... Signature Editor
    sounds on mail arrival!!
  • i'm the sysadmin for a group of developers. we all run redhat 8.0 and i want to stay with .rpm packages that utilize standard redhat 8.0 libraries.
    we usually use RHN (RedHat Network) for keeping our packages up to date, but i have a feeling it's going to be a long, long time before Redhat incorporates this new Evolution into their package list.

    anyone have any ideas what i can do to get this new Evolution running on our Redhat 8.0 machines without having to deviate from our current upgrade strategy?
    • Evolution 1.1.90 is already in rawhide, so Evolution 1.2 will likely be in 8.1, but that is probably still many months away. They may even be using Evolution 1.4(gtk2) by then since they switched to Gnome2 with RedHat 8.0.

      Personally I had already installed gal 0.21, gtkhtml 1.1.5, and Evolution 1.1.90(Release Candidate) from rawhide. Then when I found 1.2 was out on Slashdot I downloaded gtkhtml 1.1.6 and Evolution 1.2.0 tarballs from the Gnome FTP Server [gnome.org]. Then I used the rawhide src rpms, changed the version number, changed the version of Mozilla it was looking for since I am using Mozilla 1.2b(Evolution uses Mozilla's nss and nspr for SSL support), and rebuilt the package.
    • The messlab [sourceforge.net] apt4rpm repository has had the evolution betas for quite some time now. I'm sure it will get updated in the next day or so to 1.2. I've been running it on my RH8 system since he set it up, it's the easiest way to upgrade evo. :)
  • I've been using Evolution for almost a year now and I am not missing outlook one bit. Evolution was the reason why I was able to switch to Linux on the desktop. However; one thing that irks me about Evolution is when you hit delete, it does not move the message to the trash like a normal e-mail client, instead the message is "marked" and then you need to "expunge" the e-mail, which instead of moving it to the trash it permenantly erases the message. Does any evolution user here know how to change it so delete moves a message to the trash?

    This is version 1.1, not 1.2. From a useability standpoint shouldn't evolution's delete function like most other e-mail clients?

    • It bothers some people, but that's how IMAP works and that's how Outlook (especially Express) handles IMAP. And like it or not, Evolution is 'based on' Outlook (in the loosest sense.)

      You mark a message as deleted, and then you purge each folder as you finish. I personally prefer this behaivour to moving all my messages from dozens of folders into a single trash that I'll never check through or find anything in.

      Doesn't it have an "auto expunge on leaving folder" option anyway?

      From a usability standpoint perhaps it should offer the option either way. It's open source remember. Go hack it in.
    • As mentioned below there is a "Hide Deleted Messages" option. Evolution annoyed me to no end when I first started using it till I found that option. Mozilla Mail does the same delete purge thing it just always hides the deleted messages. Where this is still annoying is when you ssh into the server and use mutt/pine to check your mail and see all the deleted messages.

  • Outlook and VB (Score:4, Interesting)

    by BrookHarty ( 9119 ) on Monday November 11, 2002 @08:46PM (#4647113) Journal
    Can you run visual basic scripts on Evolution mail on exchange? (Or some other scripting language)

    One of the things I do when my email gets too big, run a vb script that saves all attachments. Then deletes the attachment from the email. I can take a 100meg folder and reduce it to 5 megs. Currently I have a few mailing lists and that plus normal work email its easy to get about 30 megs of email a day. (hourly statistics, office docs, etc)

    Can you administrate permissions on your outlook folders and mailing lists with evolution mail? (exchange compatible question again)

    We have a few emailing lists for vendors/interal departments/etc, and I need to be able to add/remove them.
    Also we give permission to our folders when we are on vacation, so people can scan for any customer who emailed us directly without going to the correct support email address. (Ya, customers would never do that would they?)

    Rich format or just html for email?

    I know when I'm trying to work with someone its nice to highlight some instructions in yellow, or key parts. Rich Text is very handy for that. I guess html would be ok, but I tend to stay away from that in outlook.

    Meeting options?

    I saw the screenshot of the meeting availability option, does that work with exchange's availability meeting info?

    Netmeeting (for meetings)

    Some of our meetings are spread around the US, so we use netmeeting so people can watch the powerpoint slideshow. Also a few of us can work on a document at the same time, or watch someone give a demo. All the netmeeting info is included in the email, the user just has to click and view. (That is still confusing for some people...)

    Recall emails.

    Can you recall an email after you sent it? I see people doing that all the time, i normally turn it off so they cant recall and hide the evidence. :>

    PST files.

    I'm currently using office undervmware. But I share my configs/rules/etc on a windows share, so I can boot into winxp when I want the extra speed (laptops are slow..), when I need to work on very large excel spreadsheets.

    Hell, one of the reasonsI can use Koffice/OO/SO is sometimes they use =hex2dec office addins, or other nonstandard stuff.
    -
    You can go a long way with a smile. You can go a lot farther with a smile and a gun. - Al Capone (1899 - 1947)

    • Re:Outlook and VB (Score:2, Interesting)

      by slide-rule ( 153968 )
      Recall emails.
      Can you recall an email after you sent it? I see people doing that all the time, i normally turn it off so they cant recall and hide the evidence.

      "Recall" is an Outlook hack (in my opinion and understanding). It sends a second message that tells the client "hey, if you got this other message, and it is still on the server, and the user hasn't read it yet, and they haven't turned this feature off, and its Tuesday and raining, then silently delete that message before the user sees it."

      Given at work I have all my mail configured to re-route into a PST, "recalls" don't work, so I get two messages from some dork. (Worked out great once to figure out who the hell was anonymously spamming the entire company every day and redirect some geek hell on his a$$, but that's another story ... when the first message had his full sig accidentally appended.)

      I don't know if Evo. supports a way of doing this (i.e., sending a message that causes another message to disappear) but I'd wager it would rely on the server and/or client to know what/how to do this, and given you can't control your mom or grandmother's AOL client (generic "your"), I can't imagine it'd serve much purpose.

      MS Outlook innovation? Depends on your point of view, I guess.
    • One of the things I do when my email gets too big, run a vb script that saves all attachments. Then deletes the attachment from the email. I can take a 100meg folder and reduce it to 5 megs. Currently I have a few mailing lists and that plus normal work email its easy to get about 30 megs of email a day. (hourly statistics, office docs, etc)

      Well, there's no VB implementation for Linux afaik, so no. You can do something similar though with external scripts I think. I'm curious about this too actually, I'll look into it.

      Can you administrate permissions on your outlook folders and mailing lists with evolution mail? (exchange compatible question again)

      No idea, sorry, I'd guess if this is an Exchange server feature then the Connector would adhere to its rules

      Rich format or just html for email?

      Come on, use your noggin! HTML of course, why bother with rich text when HTML can do it all? Bear in mind outside of Outlook land, html isn't at all dangerous, so it's perfectly trustable.

      Meeting options?

      I saw the screenshot of the meeting availability option, does that work with exchange's availability meeting info?

      As a meeting option wouldn't be useful without a server to coordinate on, and Ximian don't make a server, I'd guess the answer would have to be yes.

      Netmeeting (for meetings) Some of our meetings are spread around the US, so we use netmeeting so people can watch the powerpoint slideshow. Also a few of us can work on a document at the same time, or watch someone give a demo. All the netmeeting info is included in the email, the user just has to click and view. (That is still confusing for some people...)

      Unless NetMeeting runs under Wine, no. I believe the rdesktop protocol it uses is available on Linux too now, but I don't know exactly.

      Recall emails.

      No, that's a non-feature imho. You said it yourself, you don't use it, most people get by without it somehow. Not a big loss.

      I'm currently using office undervmware.

      You may wish to look into CrossOver office

  • imap is fixed in that it won't download your whole folder list in a nasty infinate loop by default.

    There's also a global pref's option, instead of different options depending upon what 'folder' your viewing.

    still isn't QT though, I might have to port the ui!

  • It can't do PST files though (Score:3, Interesting)

    by bogie ( 31020 ) on Monday November 11, 2002 @09:07PM (#4647240) Journal
    I find it odd that you would clone Outlook and then not be able to import the files that Outlook uses. I mean no matter what Ximian says, Evolution IS an Outlook clone for linux users.

    Without the ability to import PST files they are completely ignoring the very users which they are trying to attract. Unless of course they aren't interested in those users, which I would have a hard time believing considering how the program has been designed.

    More on Evolution itself, I think besides the PST thing, its a fantastic program. Compared to the early versions, it launches and closes in a reasonable period of time. It's good looking and really I think is without a doubt the best opensource "full-featured" email/Pim every made.

    One thing I also wonder about is a win32 port of the program. Just like OpenOffice eases the transition because you can get started on a windows version first, so would a windows version of Evolution. I know, easier said then done, but its something to think about.
    • Well, it takes a few steps, but it can be done.

      The way I did it, back when I moved to Linux full time on my desktop a little over a year ago, was to import all of my outlook express email into Mozilla, and then from Mozilla into Evolution. I'm not sure, but I'd imagine that the same technique would work for regular Outlook files.
      • Well, apparently you can do it from Outlook (Express or not), but you have to do it under Windows. That is to say: run Mozilla under 'doze, convert the PST files (does Express really use PST? I don't think so), and then Evolution can import them from Mozilla in linux.

        The problem is that lookOut files are in a proprietary format, and the only way Mozilla can do it is to take advantage of a Microsoft DLL file that--you guessed it--does not work/exist under linux ;)

        DMCA issues (if applicable) aside, I'm sure the *nix community as a whole (and 'doze users hoping to switch) would welcome someone writing a PST->mbx (or PST->Maildir!) converter for *nix.

        The Evolution team at Ximian is very small and right now, after this release, they're focused soley on the GNOME 2 port.

        That means no more new features for a while (and this applies to just about every other great idea people mentioned in this article's comments). But they're not very receptive to new ideas anyway, they usually respond (if they're in a good mood) "you want it? you code it. we're busy."

        You should have a look at the wishlist items in bugzilla.ximian.com. Some of the most requested (and IMHO useful) features have sat there neglected for well over a year! So as far as a PST converter goes, I think you can pretty much forget it in the forseeable future.

        All this said, Evolution is a great program, despite its flaws. It's all I've used for e-mail for over a year, and 1.2 kicks ass compared to 1.0x.
    • You can set up an imap store on a Linux server and drag the messages from the Exchange folder to the imap folder. For that matter, you can drag them back to the Exchange server.

    • I found this at least (Score:3, Informative)

      by bogie ( 31020 )
      http://www.cyberus.ca/~phoenix/outport/

      which exports Calendar,Contacts, and Tasks to Evolution.

      That just leaves doing the manual mail part via Mozilla.

      I guess that works, but its still a bit messy and not really appealing except for individual users. Its still better than nothing though I suppose.
  • You can go directly to the release notes here. [ximian.com].

  • I want to support Ximian, but I have no need to buy their products directly. However, does Ximian receive money from the packaging of Evolution with Redhat? I paid $40 for my shiny new RH8, I wonder if any of that money made it's way into the pockets of other FOSS companies?
  • as a bitter Outlook user, I want to move to something else. Don't talk to me about Netscape, that just sux. Evolution's gotten a lot of press lately, and the screenshots I've seen of it look great. So I have 2 questions: Does anyone know if Evolution will be ported to Windows? and otherwise, are there any good alternative email clients currently on windows? To avoid confusion let me specify that I mean good in an average-person sense, not an elite haxor command-line sense.

    thanks.

  • w00t! (Score:2, Funny)

    by qwerpoiu ( 532823 )
    Emacs support? Oh boy, now I can play Tetris while composing an email!

  • Why emacs key bindings? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Dunkalis ( 566394 ) <.crichards. .at. .gmx.net.> on Monday November 11, 2002 @10:48PM (#4647867)
    Wonderful. They take an email client, and add emacs key bindings, thinking all of us emacs users will switch over. Why switch to Evolution when we have an email client, a newsreader, a web browser, a text editor, a blender, and a kitchen sink in one 20MB tarball? If I want to use emacs-style bindings for my email, I'll use emacs, thank you very much :).

    The question is *. The solution is emacs.

  • my showstoppers.. (Score:3, Informative)

    by LinuxHam ( 52232 ) on Tuesday November 12, 2002 @06:59AM (#4649802) Homepage Journal
    1) I don't want to have to receive everyone's full calendar by email in order to search for free time (when not using Exchange). Last I checked there was a way to enter the URL of someone else's calendar, but no instructions in the manual on how to format the calendar on the web/ftp site. And certainly nothing about how to put it up there. Put some WebDAV hooks into Evo and let an Apache server act as a "calendar hub".

    2) Would be nice to sync my calendar with Yahoo! That's what keeps my wife on Windows.

    3) Perhaps a plugin API for syncing to address books on cellphones.

    That's all for now. I can't move until those work. Pine and Yahoo! until then.

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