Evolution Reaches A New Milestone

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."

Comments

homococks

[Anonymous Coward]

pulsating, open sores homococks.

On

[Anonymous Coward]

est le nombre le plus isolée que tu fais jamais.

sddfsfds

[Anonymous Coward]

I would like some fideo good sir (or madam) thank you in advamce

Habits

[First_In_Hell]

It's nice to know evolution hasn't stopped.

It has for my company, most of us are still using vi (~cringe~), when much better stuff is available. I guess old habits die hard!

Re:Habits

[ealar dlanvuli]

Did you just imply there is a better text editor than vi?

I sincerely hope you did not, and I will refrain from killing you if it was an honest gramatical slip. Otherwise expect to meet my shotgun as soon as I figure out where you live.

Thank you, and good day.

Re:Habits

[First_In_Hell]

I am not knocking vi, I still use it myself, but I have never actually ventured out to see if there is anything else available. You have to admit it is kind of crude.

Re:Habits

[noshellswill]

Try NotePad, pad're ... it comes free-as-beer like mp3 & midi support on every rock-solid WinME system.

Re:Habits

[Anonymous Coward]

the threat of killing you with my shotgun was supposed to imply sarcasm, my bad :)

Re:Habits

[Anonymous Coward]

I misread and thought you said shogun. A much more exciting way to go.

Re:Habits

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you mean the auto parts maker or the jap. art stuffs?

I can see how being bugeoned to death by a piece of artwork might be interesting :)

Re:Habits

[Anonymous Coward]

No, man, that groovy board game.

Re:Habits

[Anonymous Coward]

And the swords make great swizel sticks for your martini olives.

Re:Habits

[packeteer]

Actually its not free at all. You must pay for the whole OS first. Notepad is not bad in itself but it cannot be purchased separatly. Although i have found it IS the perfect program to write your code and compile later with an external compiler. And nothing can beat windows explorer to organize all your source/header files.

In Soviet Russia...

[Anonymous Coward]

...The new milestone reaches evolution!

mutated?

[dirvish]

Evolution has reached a new milestone

Does that mean there was a beneficial mutation?

Re:mutated?

[dirvish]

Why do you think the viruses mutate? Because they are living things also and they mutate to deal with a changing environment.

Much of biological science is based on evolution.

Re:mutated?

[Anonymous Coward]

How ironic, you gave an example of beneficial mutation in your post.
Virus mutations allow the virus to survive better to its environment (well, not all mutations, but the ones we notice are indeed the ones that worked).
From a virus perspective, such mutations are extremely beneficial.

It's a shame some religions forbid their members from sticking their heads out of the sand.

Re:mutated?

[Anonymous Coward]

virii arn't living things, as they do not have a life force of their own. They are as much alive as a car; in fact, a virus probably has less of a life form than a car. A car is a complex structure that takes in food and exhausts...gas.

a virus is simple molecules that science can not not explain, at the moment, other than that they may have some sort of chemical attraction to those substances that can help them reproduce.

use a better example, such as giraffes and their long necks, or birds, whose bones are significantly lighter than most mammels, just so they can sustain flight.

Re:mutated?

[Xenographic]

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...

Re:mutated?

[Burgundy Advocate]

use a better example, such as giraffes and their long necks

Indeed. The giraffes who were able to stretch their necks longer were able to have offspring, and their necks were then longer.

It's kind of like when professional bodybuilders have children -- their children get bodybuilder genes passed on. In fact, if more parents would get to the gym, not as many children would be obese.

It's like no one ever learned anything from Darwin.

Re:mutated?

[dirvish]

Let me get this straight...they can reproduce but they are not living things. That doesn't seem right.

I better make sure my car hasn't started reproducing...

Re:mutated?

[Anonymous Coward]

It's kind of like when professional bodybuilders have children -- their children get bodybuilder genes passed on. In fact, if more parents would get to the gym, not as many children would be obese.

Do you know the difference between a genotype and a phenotype? Sure, if the parents are genetically predisposed to bodybuilding, their children would be too. But if CowboyNeal drags his fat arse to the gym, his manbabies are still going to be, uhm, large.

Re:mutated?

[NeuroChrist]

from what i remember from biology, a virus is the threshold between life and non-life. it has the dna and structures to be 'alive', but is missing the 'alive' part.

Re:mutated?

[quinto2000]

I think this was a subtle troll.

Re:mutated?

[Anonymous Coward]

I think this was a subtle troll.

NO SHIT SHERLOCK!

Re:mutated?

[larry bagina]

actually, there are fortuitous mutations. Cells have complex mechanisms to detect and fix mutations, and it is true that many mutations either have no effect, or have a negative effect, but it's silly to say they only cause intense damage. Would you say that the only result of a lottery is losing? Most people will wind up poorer (but not wiser), but someone also ends up wining big.

A classic example is sickle cell anemia, which is caused by a one-codon mutation, resulting in red blood cells which have a decreased lifetime. However, in Africa (where sickle cell anemia originates), it is (or was) beneficial because it provided protection against malaria, providing the person with a longer lifespan (as compared to a non-mutated person who dies of malaria at age 3 without producing any children).

Re:mutated?

[Bill Currie]

Isn't it melanoma (and other skin cancers) instead of malaria that sickle cell anemia helped against?

Re:mutated?

[Anonymous Cowrad]

Please define "the 'alive' part"

I must have missed physiology class that day.

Re:mutated?

[Anonymous Coward]

no.

The last point at which life cycle of the malarial parasite can be frustrated in humans is at the phase of red cell invasion and multiplication. Red cells are constantly created and destroyed as part of their life cycle. A mutation that somehow destroys both the infected red cells and the parasite could therefore eliminate the malaria parasite. The destroyed infected cells would be replaced by new, healthy cells.

Re:mutated?

[belroth]

If I remember correctly for a person to have sickle-cell both parents have to pass on the gene, but having the gene from only one parent provides protection from malaria without the problems.

From an evolutionary viewpoint this is a good bet - malaria has been one of humanitys biggest killers (if not the biggest). As a species the sickle cell gene makes sense - if you're unlucky to have it from both parents it royally sucks.

gnome armageddon

[Anonymous Coward]

this is the sixth text revision done on 04-11-2002.

dear reader the gnome armageddon has started,

first of all i want to clarify that this text was meant to be a source of information otherwise i wouldn't have spent so much time into writing it. belive me it took me a couple of days writing this text in a foreign language. even if you don't care at all for gnome, you may find some interesting information within this text that you like to read. please try to understand my points even if it's hard sometimes, otherwise you wake up one day and feel the need to switch to a different operating system.

on the following lines i'm trying to give you a little insight of the gnome community. the things that are going on in the back, the information that could be worth talking and thinking about.

many of us like the gnome desktop and some of us were following it since the beginning. gnome is a promising project because it's mostly written in C, easy to use, configurable and therefore fits perfectly into the philosophy of u*nix. only to name some of its advantages.

unfortunately these advantages changed with the recently new released version of gnome. the core development team somehow got the idea of targeting gnome to a complete different direction of users. the so called corporate desktop user. in other words they're targeting people that aren't familiar or experienced with desktop environments. usually business oriented people who are willing to pay money for getting gnome on their computers.

having this new target in mind, the core development team mostly under contract by companies like redhat , ximian and sun decided to simplify the desktop as much as even possible by removing all its flexibility in favor of an easy clean simple interface to not confuse their new possible customers. so far the idea of a clean easy to use desktop is honourable.

some of the new ideas, features and implementations such as gconf , an evil windows registry like system, new ordering of buttons and dialogs, the removal of 90%-95% of all visible preferences from the control center and applications, the new direction that gnome leads and the attitude of the core development team made a lot of users really unhappy. these are only a couple of examples and the list can easily be expanded but for now this is enough. now let me try to get deeper into these aspects.

you may imagine that users got really frustrated because their beloved gnome desktop matured into something they didn't want. during the time, the frustration of a not less amount of people increased. more , more and more emails arrived on the gnome mailinglists where users tried to explain their concerns, frustrations and the leading target of GNOME.

but the core development team of gnome don't give a damn about what their users are thinking or wanting and most of the time they come up with their standard purl. the reply they give is mostly the same. users should either go and 'file a bug' at bugzilla or the user mails are being turned so far that at the end they sound like being trolls or the user feedback is simply not wanted. whatever happens the answers aren't really satisfying for the user. even constructive feedback isn't appreciated.

if you gonna think about this for a minute then things gonna harden that they are directing into the commercial area. the core development team actually don't care for the complaining home user. it's more important for them to reach the customers with the cash. it seems that this has been told to them by the company leaders. everything about gnome has been decided already, a way back or direct communication isn't possible. don't get trapped by sentences like 'we listen to our users'. they listen to you - yes, to make funny silly jokes about you afterwards.

i thought that everything was build up on friendship, build on programming for fun, build on understanding each other. but the reality looks like it's all for the big money. the cash is what matters everything else is a lie and a dream. time for people to wake up.

not long ago they threw one of the most important long year core developer martin baulig out of team. a guy who worked really hard on getting gnome into the right direction. a nice friendly person who put all his time into gnome. but narrow minded gnome elites such as havoc pennington were responsible that he left the gnome project. the trouble and the pressure that was put on him was to much.

with the new gnome desktop a lot of user interface changes happened such as button reordering . needless to say that this confuse people who are used to the 'right' button ordering for ages. even our fellow linux guru alan cox wasn't thrilled about this idea. but the gnome elites such as havoc pennington, seth nickell, calum benson and dave bordoley knew it better. why following the road of any other desktop that exists ? why not doing something that don't confuse their users and still stay usable ? well it seems to be too easy. gnome needs to be different than anything else so they changed the button order which was one of the reasons that users became unhappy. they said that there was a hard fight about this and the decision was made to change the buttons. but i belive they simply copied the behaviour of macos because most of the gnome developers use a macintosh as either laptop or desktop. sad that they forgot to keep in mind that users tend to mix applications and that this will lead into weird button searching and clicking.

but as if this wasn't enough the same people decided that the new gnome human interface guides were the ultima non plus ultra in human interface guides. the announcement contained informations that the kde usability people got initiated into it. unfortunately the kde people heard about it the first time when seth nickell went to the kde mailinglist which happened after the announcement. you can imagine that they got highly pissed off about this attitude. you can read more on this link . to summarize it, the kde people clarified that gnome should care for their own business.

the problem that came with the new interface guides was, that every little gnome hacker started to become an user interface expert over night. a lot of gnome programs that we like to use matured into a disaster over night. hackers that never programmed correctly for their life started to blindly follow the hype of simplification. for an example look what happened to galeon's interface (pay attention for the last paragraph). even philip langdale a long year galeon hacker got highly indignant by the target that gnome leads and wrote this email to the galeon mailinglist.

here another reason why users became angry. the elite assumes, that the user knows nothing about their system. you find a couple of heavily insulting mails on their mailing lists containing sentences like the quoted ones.

"the user don't know what a window manager is",

"the user don't know what themes are",

"the user don't know what a homedir is",

"the user can't compile a kernel",

"the user don't want to customize their desktop",

"the user shouldn't see preferences which purpose they don't know"

you may imagine that a lot of people are being offended by such lines because it's exactly these gnome users who are meant by these phrases. to read more such lines on the gnome mailinglists, simply click on this link and grep in their archives. be said that most of these sentences are coming from havoc pennington.

such evil practices shouldn't be tolerated by the users and need to be fighted. u*nix users aren't stupid people. who actually gave havoc pennington the rights to decide what the user wants and what not ? various users told him that people who use a u*nix like system are well aware of their capabilities dealing with such a complex system. there's a reason why people are switching from alternative operating systems. they want to learn, they want to use the full power of the system, they want to change everything they like.

to top all this, look at the future plans of nautilus . the current maintainers got the idea of changing the whole nautilus concepts into an object oriented user interface design. you may be highly interested in reading the exact words of alex larsson's vision for nautilus' future direction by clicking on this link .

to summarize it, it's assumed that the user don't need to deal with his homedir or his whole filesystem because it may confuse him or because he don't understand it. the new concepts of nautilus should be that the user deal with symbols in the nautilus view. e.g. you get a cdrom symbol and by clicking on it you see the directory of your cdrom, you get a photo symbol and by clicking on it you get a list of all your pr0n pictures, you get a music symbol and by clicking on it you get a list of all your mp3's. you don't know where all these files are located because you don't deal with the bottom layer of your homedir or filesystem anymore as mentioned earlier.

the question is why are people that know nothing about their users, that know nothing about correct user interface design destroying gnome ? the users don't deserve all this specially those that backed gnome for all the years. even sun threw a bunch of so called user interface experts together and have them work on gnome. don't forget that sun are the creators of the common desktop environment . we don't need another cde clone named gnome. even havoc pennington author of the good user interfaces text isn't able to get his own written software following his rules.

not long ago there was an report about the 'two captains of nautilus' where the reporter (uraeus a gnome contributor himself) reported alexander larsson and david camp. you may imagine that such a report can't be taken serious because it's done by their own people. we here have a saying that sounds like this 'one crow doesn't hack the eye of another crow out'. now you can click on this link and read more. it may be interesting to read the replies from various users all over the globe of what they think about gnome and nautilus in general (please pay attention to the listed ip's there). another nice and informative reading can be found by clicking on this link .

the fileselector problem was a long discussed issue in the gnome community. finally they came to an solution for this and have decided to go for this ugly fileselector instead going for this one which was developed by a free volunteer for a long time and in general looks and behaves better.

most users have no problems with the idea of keeping things simple and clean. removing some not needed preferences was indeed a good idea but it doesn't stop. people started to remove everything from their apps. you're forced to use dubious programs like gconf-editor which basically works like the windows registry editor, to tweak uncommented preferences. i don't think that this is an advantage. even the possibility to tweak preferences with an editor was taken away with that ugly implementation of gconf. all your preferences are stored in a directory tree with an unknown amount of *.xml files. even if you delete programs their keys are still remaining orphaned in these trees and finding them is like playing trivia. at the end it's worth a discussion if a system driven by a single home user needs such a registry like system. we didn't need such a system for over 30 years but the gnome development team got the idea copying one of the most retarded systems from windows to u*nix. not to mention that the copy is more retarded than the original.

it's a shame to see how such a nice desktop got thrown into the trash by such people. but there is a lot more behind the scenes that i don't know about. everything around gnome is a big marketing strategy. poor people are working the hell out of gnome for nothing and companies such as those mentioned above are getting the big cash. for sure you could say - go and fork gnome - but seriously how can you go and fork gnome ? such a big project which needs a bunch of people to keep the code alive and compatible. well you know it's all about open source the code is signed under the gnu/gpl or gnu/lgpl, you can't own it. even the companies are aware of this. but if you can't own the code - go and hire their developers. you can direct them like puppets in any direction that you - as company - like. exactly this is happening with gnome.

well you could easily come up and tell me to simply not use gnome and let them do whatever they like. well, you are right with that but things are more complicated nowadays. gnome is influencing a lot of third party projects such as xfree86 which recently added a lot of gnome components into their cvs repository. please know that with the next coming xfree86 version you get a lot of gnome components without even knowing it. code like, gnome-xml , pkgconfig , fontconfig , xcursor and xft2 were mainly written by people who're heavily involved into gnome development. also the gimp is maturing more and more into getting the look and feel of a native gnome application. the cvs version of the gimp has a lot of gnome pixmaps inside and they are heavily working on integrate the gimp into gnome. if not today but the direction is sure and i fear the day this gonna happen.

it's ok that these things exist and it's ok to see xfree86 and the gimp are beeing hacked on. but please think about the people that don't like or use gnome. what about them ? why force them to have gnome components installed on their systems ? why can't gnome go the same way that kde went e.g. doing their own stuff without infecting other projects like aids. seeing more and more libraries and applications that were in no way related to gnome jumping on the pkgconfig boat which's really not needed. look what will happen to solaris, the world famous operating system on u*nix used by big companies and long years experts. they really plan to replace cde with gnome. i know that cde wasn't the best invention of desktops but it rarely crashed and it fits far better into the philosophy of xfree86 with their configuration system than gnome. you know the good old way having your settings defined with .xdefaults and all nice default configurations are going into /etc/x11/app-defaults/ and so on. understandable that the good old way may be blocking the future of applications for multiusersystems - but why must it have to be a windows registry like system that replaces future configuration ?

well to come to an end i personally don't like many of this stuff. i can't stand the button reordering, i don't like the gconf system and even more i don't like the commercial outsourcing of gnome and the bad influence that gnome has on other applications. the bad attitude of some gnome developers is another story since we are all different reacting humans. luckily there are people sharing some of my thoughts otherwise i wouldn't be able to proof my text with so many links. even amongst the gnome developers there are silent voices of people that hate many of these decisions and silently use something else. right now if you checkout the gnome cvs repository every day you find out that the whole gnome development seemed to came to an halt. the contributions to their cvs are poor. while projects such as kde are reaching easily 10-20k commits per month - gnome is getting around 1-2k per month on it's best times. it really looks like the situation of gnome is unclear so it would be better to have it not influence so much other programs or at the end we deal with an disaster.

now i hope this text was informative for you. i hope that you start to think about the situation and the global direction. the situation of gnome is unclear, their target is groggy too since i can't belive that the users that they are targeting ever heard of u*nix or linux. they plan to get out of the 0.05% desktop niche but this will for sure not happen if they continue their current direction and their bad ugly attitude.

Re:gnome armageddon

[Anonymous Coward]

Fucking jackass of moderator modded it down within the first 10 seconds without even reading it. Dumb asshole!

Re:gnome armageddon

[StarHeart]

Wow, this is exactly what I have been thinking and telling people for months. Thank you for this very elegant explanation :) You rock!

Re:gnome armageddon

[StarHeart]

Oh yeah, forgot to say, Havoc Pengington is EVIL!

Re:gnome armageddon

[Anonymous Coward]

No problem my friend. You are welcome.

Re:gnome armageddon

[1jpablo1]

I find somewhat strange your statment about gnome being promising because it's written in C. Following that logic, I'd say it should be written in assembler, isn't it?

Seriouslly, it's more efficient to code in something like ocaml, or ruby (with critical parts in C/C++) than in a "low" level language such as plain C.

But, anyone is free to spent its own time as one wishes, so I won't complain.

Regarding the direccion taken by the developers, it's of course sad if they wont listen to some users, but this being free software, anyone could fork the code. That's why I don't think this situation is such a tragedy.

Personally I do like evolution, but at any rate prefer the whole kde desktop than gnome's.

Re:gnome armageddon

[cenobita]

well, what did you expect?

as linux grows, so will it's userbase, and with the userfriendly options currently in place, gnome and kde are the most appealing choices to users coming from a windows/mac background. the distributions push them heavily, and their apparent ease-of-use puts them in a very favorable position to grab that share of users.

another issue that i'm seeing more and more is that to run many of the applications we like, some of us are essentially being forced to run programs that rely on a fully-built gnome or kde environment.

take someone like me, for instance. i like a relatively minimal, but customizable and attractive desktop. my way of thinking is that it should be fast and functional, but if i'm going to be staring at it for hours on end, i want nice looking apps with a relatively well-done interface. for some people, this means mutt and xrmftp. for me, it means sylpheed and jigdo.

as a result of my way of thinking, i'm more naturally inclined to use applications which are both fast and attractive, rather than fast-as-hell and ugly-as-sin. using the latter type just doesn't feel right for me, and as a result, i'm finding myself liking what many of the gnome-intended programs offer in terms of features, useability, and appearance.

my point? for users like myself, we're being "forced" to use gnome-dependent or kde-dependent applications. due to the specific desktop nature of most gnome applications, it's getting harder and harder to not install the whole damned mess, just to run several apps that i like.

much of this, i'm sure, stems from a seeming lack of interest in developing this kind of software within the non-gnome and non-kde circles. even so, it's just...disappointing, i suppose.

perhaps i don't have much of a point here, or i'm just rambling..but it's still kind of saddening to me that to run the apps that i want, i may have to install something that i really, really don't want to. users of gnome and/or kde are probably wondering why this would bother me, but those of you using things like fluxbox/blackbox/waimea (among others) may understand where i'm coming from.

Re:gnome armageddon

[plague3106]

Well what do you want them to do? Unless they're going to include thier own library to make things look nice (which would be a horrible solution), they have to tie it to something.

I'm not really sure you can have it both ways, unless someone is will to take the core code and rewrite the parts that call gnome to call something else. I guess they could make it easier to do that, but they might not see any benefit in doing so.

Re:gnome armageddon

[Anonymous Coward]

I have been a gnome user since the project was first announced (1997, IIRC) and, recently, a gnome developer. I agree with almost everything you said. I do not, however, agree with your remarks about gconf. It is unlike the registry in all important ways. Yes, it is a central repository of keys and values, but it goes a step further. All keys can be documented so when editing one, you can know it's purpose provided the developer added it. It is also different from the registry in file format. The registry is a giant, easily corruptable dump of data that was a mistake. GConf uses separate xml files for each app in an organized directory structure. If the gconf file for evolution becomes corrupt (not likely), you can nuke that file or restore a back up and no other apps are affected. Try restoring a registry in windows - impossible. You are wrong about gconf, but the rest is valid, imo.

Re:gnome armageddon

[Karn]

!!! NEWS FLASH !!!
Gnome has never been targeted at advanced users!

It has ALWAYS seeked to be a completely free KDE replacement, and KDE is targeted at regular users. Read the KDE faq. I suppose someone could argue that Gnome doesn't claim this, but you have to consider why Gnome even came into being..

Advanced users will still have 1000 different Window managers to use, even if Gnome and KDE are targeting regular users, so why do you care?

People need to get a life and stop whining because project X isn't designing their software with them in mind.

Re:gnome armageddon

[Anonymous Coward]

You should start reading the other half of the above comment too. The initiator of this mail worries that other projects such as XFREE or THE GIMP are maturing more and more into GNOME applications because more and more GNOME related material is flowing into these projects... got the point now ?

Re:gnome armageddon

[StarHeart]

While what you say about GConf reassures me about it in some ways. It is still a central repostiory of keys and values. That alone reminds me way too much of the registery. Even with comments it is still a pain. Another serious problem is when many developers say Oh, I think 1% of users will use this option so you will have to set it in GConf instead of the application. I think that is really wrong. Especially since most of the time what they think is 1% is really like 25%.

Of course GConf isn't nearly as horrible as the new menu system which is just god awful.

Re:gnome armageddon

[cenobita]

well, i'm not saying the gnome project themselves *can* do anything. it's developers that have the option of utilizing gtk, without gnome, to create an app and make it "look pretty".

anyway, i'm not saying gnome and it's associated users necessarily *should* do anything, either. it's obvious that their goals and ideas are different than mine, so they're likely do whatever works best for them, and creates the most integrated system possible.

i'm all for integration and consistency, to an extent, but it seems to be that interoperability is a more worthwhile way to go. personally, i'd rather see someone create a graphics toolkit that's free of any one particular environment, but still focuses on an attractive, consistent look and feel. it could then be used, across multiple desktop types, free of dependency.

as for "they have to tie it to something", says who? you do have to tie gnome to a particular toolkit, but you don't have to tie that toolkit to gnome. blackbox, for instance, doesn't depend on anything, and nothing depends on it. if there were a toolkit, tied to no desktop in particular, you could run applications on blackbox, windowmaker, afterstep, etc. all with the same general look and feel, but without all the extra cruft associated with something like gnome. the only real exception is the way things like the toolbar and menu work, both of which could at least follow the color scheme of the current theme imposed on apps.

in effect, this "fake toolkit", for lack of a better term, isn't tied to anything, but can be used anywhere and everywhere. this shouldn't be such a foreign idea, imo.

i could, i suppose, do this with something like tk or xforms..but they're ugly as hell, imo. xforms, last i checked, wasn't specifically tied to anything, either.

like i said, though. i don't like/use gnome or kde on my desktop. i just don't like being required to download bit after bit of crap that i don't use, just to run a few pieces of software. i'm well aware that i could just use something less attractive/comfortable, but that kind of negates my view on desktop usage.

the gnome project, as i said, can do what they like, based on their goals, as can developers writing software for gnome. whether they would see any benefit in making things more of a shared effort, i'm not sure. i suppose i've always felt that sharing information amongst the greater unix community was part of how open-source worked, though, so the benefits of doing it seem fairly obvious to me.

Re:gnome armageddon

[Karn]

I think the original poster is just too paranoid and a bit selfish.

If he doesn't want KDE or GNOME libs in his program, then he can strip the code out himself. "Real" users know how to do that kinda stuff, right? (I'm not a real user, and I don't complain about the extra GNOME compat stuff in a program.)

The extra code in there doesn't bother me. What bothers me is the fact that there are 2 Desktop environments targeted at regular users. It'd be nice if Evolution and Konqueror (as an example) both used a common toolkit instead of using 2 different toolkits. It eats up memory and the look/feel is inconsistent. Personally, I wish Gnome would become a power-user desktop and let KDE cater to the more simple users.

Re:gnome armageddon

[Anonymous Coward]

No, you don't get it. The problem here is the fact that it infects other projects in first place. Walking around and hacking shit out is not the real solution. The real solution would be to not infect it in first case.

Re:gnome armageddon

[Anonymous Coward]

It's still offtopic.

Re:gnome armageddon

[twener]

> Personally, I wish Gnome would become a power-user desktop and let KDE cater to the more simple users.

Funny, I think it's at the moment just the opposite way round.

Re:gnome armageddon

[Anonymous Coward]

An interesting read and very well researched.

I have just got a couple of points.

I like the dumbing down of Gnome I want my Mum to be able to use a computer to get the job done. Why should she need to have a Degree in CS to write a letter or browse the web. It should be simple and not confusing. But this should not be the end. As she learns more then she should be able to turn more on so the idea of user levels would be great in my opinion. Windows makes the PC eaiser to use but at the expense of real control, Gnome must not fall into that trap. I should still have the control if I want it.

On Gconf. I think that it is a good idea. It brings the control of configs into a central area so apps can start to share config params. Gconf allows the settings to be changed on all apps at once as you put the setting in. So if I set a system wide proxy setting then it would apply to all the apps as I set it. The current XML backend to Gconf works OK in my opinion but it is only the current backend. There is nothing to stop me putting this into LDAP or database for more central storage in corporation or wrting a textfile based backend if I prefer that. The Gconf editor is a start but in the end will not be enough it does have help on most of the parameters that are there but it would be nicer if it was more user friendly.
Gconf also standardises on the way to do configuration so that we only need one lib for doing configs and not a seperate one for each app. Have a read of the Gconf Website and try to understand the aims behind it before you slate it as just another registry.

Galeon2 has its bad points and good points. Its faster and the tabs rock but I cna move the tabs down the left side and I cant set the proxy! But these are issues that need to be talked through and in the end it need to be easy for the beginner to pick up and use straight away but also good enough for the advanced user. That sort of change does not happen over night. So positive feedback is what is required.

Why should other apps not use gnome libs if they are the best way of getting the job done? I think that in general now there should no problem with taking the libs that you like and using them in your app you depend on all sorts of external libs why not some gnome ones.

john
A long time gnome user with a Mum that should be using Gnome!

Re:gnome armageddon

[Anonymous Coward]

I beat your mom up the ass!

Evolution Reaches A New Milestone

[Anonymous Coward]

excellent.. I've been waiting for opposable thumbs for, oh, several millennia now.

now all I need is working eyes, instead of these pale orbs which can only detect light and dark.

Evolution

[ruckc]

So its now Insects -> Monkeys -> Humans in the evolution chain?

I know I am a feat of nature

[ealar dlanvuli]

But I normally do try and keep it quiet. Please no more slashdot headlines about me, ok?

Re:I know I am a feat of nature

[Anonymous Coward]

Fine, fine. But it's not every day that we get to witness the evolution of the last neanderthal into a homosapien.

Re:I know I am a feat of nature

[Anonvmous Coward]

"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.

Re:I know I am a feat of nature

[Anonymous Coward]

heh, I've come to the conclusion you can't get modded up without blatant karma whoring or being a "crowd pleasing idoit."

I sorta stoped trying =p

Re:I know I am a feat of nature

[Anonymous Coward]

what the fuck. Someone just modded a -1 troll post -1 overrated.

Please catch this in metamod if you get this comment, thats amazingly stupid and can only be explained by my other post in this thread (which was a troll).

I hate to sound like a troll, but mod the comment not the user. The moderation on this (almost funny) post that wasn't intended to be a troll at all (look up the fucking definition of troll) is disgusting. For someone to then mod a -1 post to -1 overrated is just insane.

fp

[Anonymous Coward]

[insert creationist troll here]

pine still wins out

[Slashdotess]

I work in a small office where we tried to make the switch to evolution on our linux desktops. Some of my coworkers liked the nifty new graphical interface. I still prefer pine. With pine I can use all the keyboard shortcuts I'm used to. To each his^H^H^Hher own, I guess.

Re:pine still wins out

[Anonymous Coward]

I work in a small office
(Janitor closet at the burger king)
where we tried to make the switch to evolution on our linux desktops
(but there isn't a CD ROM drive on the cash registers)
Some of my coworkers liked the nifty new graphical interface
(They just got back from huffing nitrous and liked the colors when the CD was microwaved)
I still prefer pine
(It's the best material for brooms. Fewer splinters!)

Re:pine still wins out

[stefanlasiewski]

(Pay no attention to the trolls. They're probably just 15 year old immature boys).

I've used pine for the last 8 years, and it's a great program. I still consider it easier-to-use then Evolution. I've switched between Pine and Evolution a dozen times in the last 2 years. My fingers still autotype the Pine keybindings.

Several things that Evolution has over Pine:

- It's not just an email program. It's also a Contact Manager (Pine only has an addressbook), a Calendaring program, and a Todo list.
- Pine does not display message threads very well
- More intuitive message filters
- Simpler to setup multiple mail accounts
- It displays HTML and Graphics appropriately. My friends/coworkers keep sending me HTML email (HTML can be useful in email sometimes), and Pine munges 1/5 of the messages...

Re:pine still wins out

[glytch1000010]

i love pine. been using it for about 3 years now. i've tried mozilla mail, sylpheed, evolution, kmail. pine spanks them all. and slrn for news (:

Re:pine still wins out

[Anonvmous Coward]

"With pine I can use all the keyboard shortcuts I'm used to. To each his^H^H^Hher own, I guess."

Is that why you're using ctrl+6+h instead of a backspace key?

Re:pine still wins out

[Anonymous Coward]

What the hell

does this have to do with

anything?

Re:pine still wins out

[Anonymous Coward]

What the hell

does this have to do with

anything?

*I know I just posted this to the comment above* but some threads deserve two of these bulleted lists. :)

Re:pine still wins out

[stefanlasiewski]

Yeah, I think the final switche happened when I needed a good program to maintain my contact list, and an easy way to send email to people in the contact list.

So, it was either Pine + some ascii contact list + perl scripts , or it was evolution.

And then I needed a todo list that was integrated with a calendar...

Now all I need is for my Calendar to connect to various iCal or other calendar servers, and for my todo list to integrate with Bugzilla, and I'm set!

Re:pine still wins out

[irix]

I still use pine when I am dialed in, but when I am at work I have been running Evolution for about 8 months.

I guess I never got attached enough to the pine shortcuts to miss them, and some things (e.g. looking up several recipients from an LDAP address book) are much faster from Evo than from pine.

I have to say that Evolution is one fantastic application. I have been keeping up-to-date using Ximian Red Carpet, and I haven't had a problem the entire time. Kudos to the Ximian Evo hackers.

Re:pine still wins out

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, but too bad Japanese character support is still fucked. I tried moving over from Japanese Eudora (running under NT via VMWare) to Evolution, and while the menus were properly rendered in Japanese (well, for the most part anyway), the message text was, quite frankly, fucked. Until Open Source developers get their fucking heads out of their collective asses and realize THAT ENGLISH IS NOT THE ONLY LANGUAGE USED BY COMPUTER USERS, I guess it'll remain fucked.

Re:pine still wins out

[Anonymous Coward]

Have you mentioned this to them using helpful, descriptive language, or do you just gripe about it on Slashdot?

Re:pine still wins out

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm mentioning it here, cocksucker. That should be good enough to get the word out. Multilingual language support in Evolution is fucked. And I just tried the new Ximian released version a few moments ago, and it's STILL fucked. So fuck you!

Re:pine still wins out

[Anonymous Coward]

well said!

Re:pine still wins out

[Anonymous Coward]

Mutt has a pretty good thread view, and good support for GPG and other others.

Re:pine still wins out

[Anonymous Coward]

THAT ENGLISH IS NOT THE ONLY LANGUAGE USED BY COMPUTER USERS

Calm down, not everything is a conspiracy. Evo supports english best because that's the native language of most of the developers.

I can guarentee you that it supports Spanish just as well. Why? Because some of the devs are primary-Spanish speakers.

Have you tried entering a bug in bugzilla? It looks like many of the Japanese language bugs have been resolved, but I still see that some bugs remain.

http://bugzilla.ximian.com/buglist.cgi?short_des c= japanese&short_desc_type=substring

Languages with > 256 characters are a bitch to render. Heck, languages with > 128 characters are a bitch to render. It's been this way since the dawn of the computer age.

Fuck, it's not just Ximian's fault. Lord knows that I18N is far from complete, and it's been in the works for the last 10 years.

Ha, funny,

[Anonymous Coward]

I read it as Evilution.

Mandatory emacs joke

[GreyWolf3000]

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.

Re:Mandatory emacs joke

[kevcol]

Hmm, well, meanwhile at LinuxToday... http://linuxtoday.com/news_story.php3?ltsn=2002-11 -11-013-26-NW-DT-SW-0001

Emacs vs. XEmacs?

[Istealmymusic]

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.

Re:Emacs vs. XEmacs?

[ruckc]

XEmacs is Emacs with an X interface.
I think XEmacs has some different bindings than Emacs.

Re:Emacs vs. XEmacs?

[The OPTiCIAN]

XEmacs is Emacs with an X interface.

Um.. no it's not.. it's a different fork in the source. The X is (or was) about 'eXtended'. They both have a X interface, they both have a terminal interface.

Re:Emacs vs. XEmacs?

[Anonymous Coward]

it was forked because of differences with RMS (and his vision), just like egcs was forked from gcc for the same reason. egcs was later made the official gcc and appointed as the steering committee, but only because RMS was no longer involved with gcc. He is still involved with Emacs, so they won't be reunted any time soon.

Re:Emacs vs. XEmacs?

[rodgerd]

This explains the split between Emacs and Lucid Emacs and the journey to Emacs/XEmacs in more detail than you ever could have wanted.

Re:Emacs vs. XEmacs?

[Anonymous Coward]

duplicity is not the same as duplication

Re:Emacs vs. XEmacs?

[ninewands]

... and, IMHO, Xemacs is vastly superior to GNU Emacs ... both in X and in the console ...

But then I guess that's why they make chocolate and vanilla ...

The history of the world

[Anonymous Coward]

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"

Re:The history of the world

[Khalid]

Oh man, thanks for the good laugh ! that was one of the funniest post I have ever read on Slashdot.

Re:The history of the world

[aardvarkjoe]

Ugh. Just another reminder that those who participated in the earlier days of slashdot are a dying breed...

Re:The history of the world

[Maldivian]

I nominate the parent post for the /. hall of fame.

Re:The history of the world

[octalc0de]

OGG - user 99154 - NO comments
OOG - user 135011 - NO comments.

Earlier days? OGG seems to be the lower UIN!

Re:The history of the world

[iabervon]

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.

Re:The history of the world

[pimpinmonk]

It's Marconi, not Marcoli. Otherwise, you're got it :-)

Re:The history of the world

[LazloTheDog]

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

Having spent a couple years delving into arcane, yet often often fascinating, Alexander scholarship, that's the one that got a hearty laugh out of me. Good work on the whole thing!

JM

Re:The history of the world

[Danathar]

Seriously, this is SO funny, a new category needs to be created, like ROTFL funny, or supendously funny...and so on

Re:The history of the world

[Anonymous Coward]

this is about the funniest thing i've read in a long time.

anyone notice that this comment is attracting a lot of moderation -- its up to 25 mods and counting.

i hope the offtopic modders get killed in metamod.

Re:The history of the world

[Anonymous Coward]

Enemas are pretty damn funny!

Re:The history of the world

[handsomepete]

Thanks for that. It made my night at work. If anything I just wanted to respond to bookmark this comment for future review.

Re:The history of the world

[erth64net]

If you want to get picky. :-) In 1942 the American Supreme Court decided that Tesla discovered Radio, not Marconi.

Re:The history of the world

[serutan]

For an anonymous coward, you sure put a lot of effort into this. And a damn fine effort it is. Funny as hell, especially the Gutenberg one. Time to come out of the closet and get a login!

Re:The history of the world

[roman_mir]

It would be even funnier if I did not read this on /. about 2 years ago.

Re:The history of the world

[roman_mir]

Ha! So you believe he actually wrote this? I read this post about 2 years ago on /. it is hard to say if this is the same AC who wrote the original.

Re:The history of the world

[Burgundy Advocate]

*plonk*

It's neither one of those users. You have just pegged yourself as a newbie.

http://slashdot.org/~OOG_THE_CAVEMAN/

Re:The history of the world

[Anonymous Coward]

The original was by Yu Suzuki anyway.

Re:The history of the world

[CryptoKiller]

That was really one of the funniest things I've read in a very, very long time! Great stuff! :)

Re:The history of the world

[Anonymous Coward]

I think this is the best thing I've ever read on Slashdot.

Re:The history of the world

[Anonymous Coward]

My UIN is in the 600k! Of course I'm a newbie! And please tell me WHY THE FUCK MY ORIGINAL POST IS MODDED OFFTOPIC? It's a PERFECTLY well response to the comment above.

Remember, moderators! If a comment is attached to the story, it must be relevant to the story. If a comment is attached to a comment, then it is relevant to the COMMENT.

Re:The history of the world

[Anonymous Coward]

Remember, moderators! If a comment is attached to the story, it must be relevant to the story. If a comment is attached to a comment, then it is relevant to the COMMENT.

Welcome to slashdot.

Phew

[HRbnjR]

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

[cscx]

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

You're kidding, right?

Re:Phew

[Anonymous Coward]

I know of a nice email client that has had this elusive "sound support" for about 10 years now- its called Outlook!

Re:Phew

[Com2Kid]

• • Sound support! You can now have it play a sound on receipt of any incoming mail.
  
  
  You're kidding, right?

I sure hope so. Us Windows users are bitching about degrees of CONTROL over our sound support.

"well why can't I just have a sound play when such and such person enters the system between this and that time, I don't want an alert when just anybody comes on!"

Also from the original post;

• 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.

That is nice, and it sounds powerful. Indeed a filter could be setup so that sound only played it the mail was from a certain user. Not the most intuitive system in the world, but very powerful.

I would still like to be able to not have MSN Messenger pop up a window when just ANYBODY comes online, ick. That is one thing that *Nix has over Windows, it is almost always more configurable. Just doing that configuring can at times be a pain. ;)

Re:Phew

[Captain Large Face]

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

I will go to Hell for this. Sorry.

Re:Phew

[rampant mac]

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.

Let me inject some reality here... Nearly every mail client created from 1998 and on has done this very same thing.

Open source needs to step back and re-examine itself a bit. 4 years ago OSS was on the verge of a revolution, now the open source "movement" has become evolution.

Why rehash the same tired software? Introduce something NEW (for Microsoft to copy).

Re:Phew

[Planet Bob]

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.

'You have mail... It's not spam!'

At least now we know Evolution will survive to the year 3000...

Re:Phew

[HRbnjR]

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.

Re:Phew

[ninewands]

Damn I wish I had mod points!! That was FUNNY!

Re:Phew

[runderwo]

Why rehash the same tired software? Introduce something NEW (for Microsoft to copy).

You might note that on a news site, the focus is probably on reporting news that people care about. Such as, much-requested features that have finally been implemented. Why should they report on every little detail, especially those that users might not even care about until they have used them and realize how powerful they are?

If Slashdot reported on any truly NEW features in Evolution, you'd have 200 replies from people saying "Why would I need to use XXX feature?" or "Why did they even bother?" or "What's a XXX?" So I think it's a good idea that they focus on reporting things that are relevant to the readership.

I think if you examine things objectively (e.g. look at the code yourself) you'd realize that there's a great deal more innovation going on in OSS projects than can be gathered at an immediate glance.

Re:Phew

[UserGoogol]

what the fuck is *Nix?

*nix is the nickname for the family of Operating Systems which are descended from Unix. The term originated because the word Unix was copyrighted under somewhat strict rules. Eventually, unix became free to say, but *nix now meant any kind of 'nix operating system (Minix, Linux, Mac OS X, and classic Unix.) because * traditionally is a wildcard.

Re:Phew

[Anonymous Coward]

What I would really like is Usenet support. Outlook is great for its one inbox and outbox support for mail, news, scheduling, etc...

Re:Phew

[scotch]

ARGGHHH, make it stop! Suddenly I have an idea for a sampled techno song (prolly been done, tho).

Re:Phew

[Anonymous Coward]

Outlook for Windows 3.0?

Re:Phew

[Anonymous Coward]

YHBT. YHL. HAND.

(sheesh, you must be new)

Re:Phew

[Surak]

I dunno, but this looks like a good start. :)

Re:Phew

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh great, Open Source developers have delivered features that count, such as sound support for incoming messages, rather than niggling little annoyances like FUCKING MULTILINGUAL LANGUAGE SUPPORT!

Sheesh. No wonder Windows is such a hedgemony.

Re:Phew

[Surak]

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... ...virus support? :-P

Re:Phew

[hobuddy]

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.

Congratulations! You've just delivered the 958,174,596th instance of The Prediction.

Fork

[Anonymous Coward]

XEmacs is a fork of Emacs. Both can run inside X11, but they look differently and have some internal differences.

Where's VI Support?

[md17]

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>

Re:Where's VI Support?

[lowry-kun]

No... but honestly, there are some of us who prefer VI. I personally use Mozilla Mail - and notice that I am always hitting the escape key and :wq and forgetting that the message won't send that way.

Re:Where's VI Support?

[The OPTiCIAN]

Doesn't gnome already have vim support for text boxes? Wouldn't evolution just use the gnome widget?

Re:Where's VI Support?

[CMonk]

But seriously. In theory you can use any bonobo component as your text editor. Here is someone already using VIM... http://www.opensky.ca/gnome-vim/

Re:Where's VI Support?

[EverDense]

How was that sarcastic?

Re:Where's VI Support?

[Anonymous Coward]

that's just because you are a moron.

Do you hit :wq when you try to log out?

do you hit escape when you want to load a page in mozilla?

again, to recap...

You hit ESC :wq because you are one step below a trained monkey.

Re:Where's VI Support?

[Anonymous Coward]

Vi(m) is sort of evil that way. You work with it all day and as soon as your enviorment changes a bit you're sort of disoriented. I'm sure where I work people already think I'm the crazy "computer guy" just because whenever I need to show somebody something and type things I'm always hitting the escape key at random intervals and typeing things like :w , cw, dd.. for no apperent reason.

Re:Where's VI Support?

[glytch1000010]

at school i frequently save my document and exit word. then i notice word is still open and there is :wq at the bottom of my document. its very annoying, m$ should put vi keybindings in word.

Re:Where's VI Support?

[Spy Hunter]

VI lovers will just have to use KMail instead.

Re:Where's VI Support?

[Anonymous Coward]

In your dreams.

Re:Where's VI Support?

[Anonymous Coward]

Haha!

OP: Sometimes I mess up and type VI commands in other programs
Troll: That's because you're a fucking moron/trained monkey blablabla
NP: Hey, I'm a fucking moron/trained monkey too!

(I don't agree with the troll - it's easy to become accustomed to a procedure you follow often - but it IS funny)

Re:Where's VI Support?

[Surak]

Try mutt. It supports using any external mail editor, including vi.

Re:Where's VI Support?

[Ilan Volow]

Ximian decided not to support VI because it isn't a prime number. You'll have to wait for VII to come out.

Re:Where's VI Support?

[civilizedINTENSITY]

just m-x viper-mode and you've the best of both worlds (literally, you can use the emacs movement commands while in edit-mode :-)

Moral: emacs support gives you vi support, buth vi support doesn't give you emacs support.

Re:Where's VI Support?

[unclebulgaria]

How true! Emacs doesn't even boast a Paperclip

Re:Where's VI Support?

[Anonymous Coward]

Umm, this isn't completely true anymore. Someone wrote an emacs emulation mode for vim.

All right!! ... Augh rats.

[El_Smack]

*goes to mirror, looks in with anticipation*
*sigh*
Rats, I'm still the same "slightly less hairy, and only -slightly- more intelligent than the one's they keep in zoos" monkey I was when I woke up.
How about anybody else out there? Anyone have better luck than me?

yeah right...

[Frac]

"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.

Re:yeah right...

[Anonymous Coward]

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

Don't you mean you'll get a 403, permission denied?

Re:yeah right...

[Anonymous Coward]

Too bad for all of you it is true that there is no such thing as evolution.

Re:yeah right...

[civilizedINTENSITY]

You are both right: permission is denied to tell anyone that evolution ever existed!

Re:yeah right...

[Tyreth]

Though we must not forget that natural selection does occur.

Though I imagine most evolutionists will have trouble understanding how natural selection can be true while evolution (change from species to species) cannot be.

Let them wonder. I have spent too long explaining it. They should take some time to understand the creationist view before I talk to them again.

Re:yeah right...

[ComaVN]

They should take some time to understand the creationist view before I talk to them again.

You mean I should understand that some uberbeing created the world <10000 years ago, deliberatly making it look like it's much older than that, and burying some fake fossils etc. just to fool us?

You're right, that will take some time to understand.

Re:yeah right...

[Tyreth]

You more than adequately proved my point. And you have even further embedded in my mind the fact that everyone I have argued with so far does not understand the creationist argument.

Come back when you at least understand our position.

Re:yeah right...

[ComaVN]

If that's what it takes to prove a point with you, I can understand why you'd consider creationism as a valid theory.

But please, try to explain it. Or at least give a link to where your kind of creationism is explained best.

Re:yeah right...

[Tyreth]

Could we be serious for a moment... you don't know how many times I have engaged in a discussion and beat my head against a wall because they don't understand creationism. And I'm being deadly serious with what I say. There are certain concepts that they consider true, and so they try and understand the creatinist argument within that context - and fail because of that to see what I'm saying.

When I argue against evolution I can imagine what replies I would give to my arguments if I believed there were no God, and that all life arose through chance mutations. It is probably easier for the creationist to do this, since they had the advantage of being brought up in an evolutionist society - so that view is saturated everywhere. Creationism is a foreign view to our society at large, and therefore little understood.

I don't know if you are going to be any different. There is more to learn than just a link can provide, or a message I write. I have learned this from discussions online. For you to understand, you actually have to open your mind and say for a moment "what if there was a God? (or if you already believe there is) What if the earth is really only 6,000 years old? How then would I explain ?" Then perhaps you will begin to understand what arguments are futile circles, and what issues are the crux of the debate.

I know if I provide a link (or am pretty certain anyway) that you will read, and your mind will begin to come up with a thousand and one reasons why the thing you just read is irrelevant, false, or poor logic. Then you will post excerpts here, and I will have to explain to you step by step why the point they were making was actually relevant, and wasn't as idiotic as you first thought.

However, if you think you are a different breed to those I have encountered before, then I would be willing to send you some links - but my time is more precious than it once was, and I have no interest in running around in circles again. I could provide you with some links on the basis that you read them for your own knowledge, so that you can better understand our argument - but not so that I can begin a lengthy debate with you. I would be happy to clarify any points of confusion and help you understand our position, but not debate for hours via slashdot or e-mail.

And please don't refer to it as "[my] kind of creationism" - my views are the same as the prominent creation scientists, and where I differ in opinion from them I redirect you to their superior knowledge, because I am no authority.

Re:yeah right...

[ComaVN]

The reason I refer to it as "your kind of creationism" is that I have encountered a lot of different takes on it. Some are very strictly bound to the bible (the earth is flat and 6000 years old), others argue that the world may well be billions of years old, but was still created by god, and all species were created as they are now. There are also people who think changes within species do occur (any dog breeder can tell you this is true,) they just won't become "other" species. There are also people who don't make any assumption about what deity created life, they just claim it was created by some supreme being. This make a lot of difference in a discussion.

Of course, this also happens in the evolutionary circles, where for instance the age of the universe or the exact mechanism of evolution is sometimes hotly debated.

I agree that most discussions about this tend to run around in circles (on both sides.) I like to think I don't do that.

I am convinced there's an awful lot I don't know, and an awful lot I think I know is probably false. The very existence of anything in the first place puzzles me greatly, but I don't think the existence of an omnipotent God who created the world 6000 years ago, does anything to explain that better.

Maybe we should leave it at that. Neither of us is a biologist, geologist, paleontologist or theologist (I assume,) so all we can do is throw someone else's research around.

Re:yeah right...

[Tyreth]

Sure, I'm more than happy to leave it at that.

Re:yeah right...

[deadmantalking]

apply occams razor and you will realize y "Assume for a moment that God existed" is not valid. It can lead us down the slippery slope of "Assume the Devil too existed", "assume more than one God", "assume god were male", "assume whites were superior" etc.
in science, even assumptions must have a reasoning to them.

Re:yeah right...

[Tyreth]

I find this very ignorant considering that any discussion of origins must first begin in assumptions.

Or have you seen the birth of the world?

Some slippery slope.

Re:yeah right...

[Anonymous Coward]

Its a fair and valid point. All things being equal, the simplest explanation that best fits the observations is usually the correct one.

Explaining creation through the existence of an invisible, but "intelligent" ether is hardly simple. Especially when esoteric arguments are required to explain the fundamental differences between observation and religious expectation.

Re:yeah right...

[deadmantalking]

lemme guess... about 300 years ago you beleived in a Flat Earth as well... and continued to beleve so until the first satellite pictures showed that it actually was a geoid.
it is not necesasary that Darwinism is the best theory to explain life as we see it... but it covers evolution much better than creationism. Requires fewer assumptions too!
Its like democracy u know.. aint the best, but better than all the other options out there!

Re:yeah right...

[Tyreth]

Yes you are absolutely right.

Around 400 years ago I used to believe in a flat earth. But then, around my 513th birthday (I can't remember exactly, the years tend to blur after a while) I met a delightful man named Galileo. He was very smart, and funny too.

He was kind enough to show me all his research into the planetary orbits. He had some very convincing arguments and undeniable evidence. After spending a week or so with him (not trying to overstay my welcome though - but he just loved to explain his ideas to others) I had no choice to agree with him but that I'd been wrong - and the earth was a sphere - and that the earth revolved around the sun.

Then another man around 350 years later (I was about 870 at that time) another man named Charles Darwin invited me over. He was another smart man, but his mind seemed a bit clouded. He showed me his theory, that life had arisen through change passed on to children over millions of years. I had trouble taking him seriously, because he didn't have any evidence. I even read his book, which sounded like an interesting idea, but also acknowledged that there was no evidence. However, he remained hopeful that the evidence would show in good time. I decided that the wisest course of action was to wait and see.

Unfortunately, all the children of the Short Lived found his ideas quite desireable, as it removed responsibility from them. Being a short lived race, they loved the freedom and lack of moral responsibility. So his ideas spread like wildfire before there was any evidence. Unfortunately, now, around 150 years later there is still no evidence, but his ideas are being taught everywhere.

It matters little. I have lived around a 1000 years, and I know that the ideas of the Short Lived are fickle and change like the wind. What is popular today will be despised tomorrow. The Short Lived never learn from their mistakes, and in this case it will be a blessing for them to turn from these fairy tales that Charles Darwin could not prove to something with some evidence.

--

Try not to throw insults into your arguments. I do not believe evolution is the best fit (why do you group it as darwinianism vs creationism rather than evolution vs creationism?). I don't think it requires fewer assumptions, that is something that would have to be argued for and demonstrated - but I simply don't have the time, esp. considering all other discussions I've had about the subject. Always a waste of time. Unless there's a few lurkers I've helped to understand the issue properly.

Re:yeah right...

[deadmantalking]

Apologies for thew condesending tone in the previous message.
Anyways, one huge argument i have against Creationism is its fundamental logic of the age of the Earth etc is a statement made by a Pope who had not even really studied the issue well. At least Darwin tried better.
I mean, the Hindus beleived that the present universe was created a few million years ago, with a whole description of nothing existing except the maker... who then first made water amd so on!
Its a theory thats as valid as the 6K year creationist idea. and as 'proven' too!
As for short lives and permanance, u will note that science never defines absolutes, religion wants absolutes. Galileo was true in his day, but any physics student will tell u that the great mas ideas are unable to explain many things that that are accepted today. The earth is not a sphere any more, its a geoid...
science has an undefined absolute called "Truth" which it knows that it can neer reach, but it also aims at continually coming up with better and better approximations of the same. Newton made it better, Einsiten made it better... but the Truth will never be reached...
creationism depends on having to beleive the word of some old man sitting in some palace a european land who makes random decisions which we are supposed to beleicve as the word of the "eternal one"
Sorry

Re:yeah right...

[Tyreth]

I'd like to respond, but I really don't have the heart for it. I really have been in so many of these conversations that I've lost the zeal I used to have. People aren't going to change their minds, and I certainly won't until something new is presented, why should I? I understand evolution (as much as a lay person can), so I know what I need to see to change my mind.

I do agree with your analogy of truth - that is much like our journey in life. Or for some of us anyway, we pursue truth as a great treasure, getting closer but knowing that it will never be fully realised. One of the beauties of life really, that the joy of learning never ends.

A few thoughts:

[Anonymous Coward]

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..... ;)

Re:A few thoughts:

[Skyshadow]

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.

Re:A few thoughts:

[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:

[psychosis]

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:

[Anonymous Coward]

Anna Kourikova, I Love You

Hey! I saw her first.

Re:A few thoughts:

[Lumpy]

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:

[Trinition]

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.

Re:A few thoughts:

[Anonymous Coward]

i agree.. i absolutly agree! :)

nothing is worse than formating emails w/ html..

Re:A few thoughts:

[reaper20]

It won't strip the original message of HTML, but Mozilla Mail will display HTML messages as "plain text".

It works really well.

Re:A few thoughts:

[steveha]

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

Re:A few thoughts:

[digitect]

You could have linked: HTML Email: Whenever Possible, Turn It Off!.

Re:A few thoughts:

[mrbrown1602]

An interesting tidbit, as of right now Outlook 11 has a feature similar to Evolution's VFolders.

Re:A few thoughts:

[Anonymous Coward]

It is an Outlook killer. Unfortunately though, it doesn't forward Melissa, Code-Red, Anna Kourikova, I Love You.....;)

You'll never replace Outlook if you can't replicate it's most functional aspect!

Re:A few thoughts:

[Pooh]

For instance the ability to view HTML formatted mail but not download embedded images off the net. Yes it can, sometime when a spam reach my inbox, embeded remote image show some girl sucking meat. Your http proxy may not had been configured.

Re:A few thoughts:

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, but that's only because the ex-Notes users have been bitching about the lack of "views" (vfolders) in Outlook for years.

Re:A few thoughts:

[Anonymous Coward]

> actually I wish someone would invent a hack or
> patch to remove the ability to view HTML from
> outlook and evolution.

Someone did write a patch for evolution which allowed you to enable and disable viewing of HTML mail. But i don't think the devlopers wanted to include it (an insane decision IMO, i too abhor HTML mail).

I would urge everyone to email the Ximian guys and request that the feature be implimented.

Re:A few thoughts:

[varslot]

Surely you can get it to forward 'I Love You', by designing a mail filter which takes this action based on the subject line:)

Re:A few thoughts:

[perlyking]

Evolution is a bad example of trying to mimic windows applications. I use Outlook every day (have to at work) and I though Evolution might be able to offer me similar features with less bloat at home.
I tried the version that came with MDK 9 so it may have changed since then but it lack some of the easy intuitive use of outlook, e.g you get an email - you cant drag it to the calendar and have it enter itself as an appointment. Another is I couldnt find any way for it to notify me nicely that I have unread mail.

Re:A few thoughts:

[JonK]

Try this if you're on Outlook 2002 sp1. Stick it into a GPO attached to the Users group for maximum effectiveness.

Best Outlook patch ever

Re:A few thoughts:

[Arthur Dent]

There is a COM Addin to remove HTML from outlook available at NT BugTraq.

It has a nasty bug when using Outlook with an IMAP server, but since you're using it with Exchange, that should not be a problem.

See, I knew Russ would be good for something :).

um

[Anonymous Coward]

much faster mailbox indexing (and thus loading.)

funny. after i updated (red carpet) it kept hanging on the mailbox load until i killed/restarted like 5 times

now it works perfect though, gj ximian as always

Re:um

[cryosis]

It did that for me as well. After the second killing spree, I decided to let it do it's thing. After checking back on it, I think that it converts your message stores to a new format. It doesn't appear all that different from the old, it just takes a couple minutes to the change.

That said, I really like the new version. It feels cleaner than the old. Good job, Ximian.

Perseverance of evolution

[Anonymous Coward]

Glad to see that they didn't let that terrible David Duchovny movie stop them...

Can't snag this with apt yet

[TweetZilla]

Anybody know when it will be available for debian? I like the current version but some of these changes would be really helpful.

Re:Can't snag this with apt yet

[dcstimm]

Knowing Debian it wont be avalible for at least 6 months.... A program needs to be "stable" to make it into "unstable" aka SID. Like for example, Unstable Debian still doesnt have Xfree86 4.2.0!! Its to unstable for debian unstable:)...

Debian sucks, Gentoo rules...

Re:Can't snag this with apt yet

[magnified_plaid]

I hate to feed the trolls, but debian unstable has xfree 4.2.1 as a quick look at the xfree86 package page would reveal.

Actually it's in testing as well.

Re:Can't snag this with apt yet

[dcstimm]

wrong, those are unofficial packages only for x86...

Re:Can't snag this with apt yet

[damiam]

They're in the repository, which means they are most definately official packages.

Re:Can't snag this with apt yet

[Anonymous Coward]

jasonc@pug:~> xdpyinfo
name of display: :0.0
version number: 11.0
vendor string: The XFree86 Project, Inc
vendor release number: 40201000
XFree86 version: 4.2.1

4.2.1 is in unstable here.

Re:Can't snag this with apt yet

[ealar dlanvuli]

I'm thinking 11/11/11 would be a good guess...

Re:So...

[YahoKa]

Yeah, innovation never started either cause it's such a ripoff of Outlook. I hope Microsoft sued their hippy asses for all they're worth (i.e. nothing).

Oh yes, it's a rip off. But it's a highly improved rip off with many excellent features. I use it and love it.

The plusses of integration

[Com2Kid]

On the plus side, application integration makes for a situation similar to that which Window's users have been spoiled with for awhile. Being able to read an e-mail, tap a bottom, and have an appointment alert added is a nice way to work. As is being able to be writing an e-mail message and seamlessly switch over to a calendar, double check the date of a meeting, copy it and flip back to the date message and paste it in.

On the flip side, implementing for "The X Window System" (I think I got that right. . .) means that development is always going to be playing catch up to Microsoft.

*begins to imagine the work necessary for implementation if video attachments and video on demand for the desktop ever take off*

Well not like that is going to happen too soon. *G*

Re:The plusses of integration

[Tet]

On the flip side, implementing for "The X Window System" (I think I got that right. . .) means that development is always going to be playing catch up to Microsoft.

Sigh. No. There's nothing about X11 that dictates that. In fact, in many respects, X11 is far more advanced than Windows. It's down to the authors of the application as to whether they want to copy or to innovate. Sadly with Evolution, they seem to mostly be going for the former, but that's their choice. If Ximian were targeting Windows instead of X11, I'm sure they'd still be bringing out essentially the same product.

Re:The plusses of integration

[Com2Kid]

• Sigh. No. There's nothing about X11 that dictates that.

Neccitating building from the ground up mayhaps?

Ok put it this way;

implementing window transparency support in, err, Windows, is ONE LINE OF CODE (namely an API call. :) )

Actual programs to do something with this (put a UI around it and all that) can take up, oh, 5 or 6 kilobytes of code compiled.

Heh.

The API call is stable, it has been there since Windows 2000, it is not going anywheres anytime soon, though developers who don't mind pissing off Windows 2000 customers (which they should be mindful of. ^_^ ) can even use hardware acceleration for some of the GUI elements.

About the only thing that X-11 seems to give to developers is some damn fine networking material. Now I will grant that Windows, err, sucks when it comes to remote usage. It sucks and it sucks horribly. 128kbit is not enough. 256kbit is not enough. Quite frankly I do not know the minimum bandwidth that IS enough, Netmeeting sucks. A lot. Heh. But it does its job, more or less. On occasion.

But cruddo, anything else? Want to play a video in a window? Sound? Music? Heck just shoving GUI elements together even. Things integrate with less seems and less work then they do on X-11.

The reason for this should be quite obvious. The Windows API sucked for the longest time. Heck it was revised a few times and came out sucking even MORE.

But MS is nothing else if not persistent. They kept at it until they had something usable on their hands. Usable AND modern (more or less. :P ) While it isn't OSX, it also doesn't need to thwamp the CPU to get anything done (heh).

X-11, err, well. Heh. There isn't much actually to it. . . . It is not very close to the hardware, which is a good thing for portability, but it makes creating a consistent user experience all that much harder.

Re:The plusses of integration

[LordSah]

I use XP's Remote Desktop over a dsl connection quite regularly. In school, I used X remotely (again, over a dsl connection). Subjectively, I think that Remote Desktop is quite a bit smoother. I can't quote specific numbers or anything, but I'm much happier with the responsiveness and ease of use of RD over X.

X is still more versatile (I don't think one Windows box can have more than one RD connection to it at once), but MS is catching up.

Re:The plusses of integration

[BrookHarty]

Well, actually until the hardware vendors support linux as they do windows, X11 will be behind the times. My box is a gaming/work box, so I have to dual boot.

New gfx cards are hardly supported by Xfree, and even the CVS takes a while to catch up. And (OpenGL/DRM/etc) takes longer for X11.

I dont even consider X usable on the network, tightvnc or remote desktop does a better job at that.

Re:The plusses of integration

[yomegaman]

Being able to read an e-mail, tap a bottom, ...

Won't that get you fired for sexual harrassment?

Re:The plusses of integration

[thasmudyan]

I think you're absolutely right. (This is getting off topic but since this entire thread formed here anyway I might as well say something about that...)
There are a lot of people who think that:

- "No, OSS GUI interfaces are not broken, they are in fact superior (just not ...well usable)"
- "X is so much more advanced" when it is in fact a pain in the ass and slow as hell even when used over what it is made for - network connections.
- "By the way text mode is the way to the future, GUI is for faggots" which I think doesn't need any further comment
- "Linux has sooo *not* a dependency hell but Windows has" ignoring the fact that Linux libraries situation (source and compiled objects alike) is totally out of hand because often times you can't even run two apps alongside because they need different versions
- "Linux software installation is just so smooth" when in reality one can install even complicated apps on Windows and OSX within mere minutes while on Linux you are lucky if it takes under 2 hours to get something running.

Now, all this is not neccessarily a bad sign for the state of the OSS developer community, if people would just *recognize* the problems and try to fix them in the future. But sadly nobody seems to care, quite on the contrary. Everyone pointing out these problems will be marked "flamebait" disregarding the fact that a well meaning wake-up call often originates from a friendly corner.

Re:The plusses of integration

[Com2Kid]

• I dont even consider X usable on the network, tightvnc or remote desktop does a better job at that.

TightVNC is in my experience just a tad wee bit slower then remote desktop for Windows to Windows connections. 800x600@8bit color over a 128kbit upstream 1.5Mbit downstream.

I guess I should try it again now that I am at 256kbit upsteam, but for some reason I doubt it will be too much better, remote desktop did not improve much. . . .

Re:The plusses of integration

[be-fan]

You, frankly, are a tard. Complaining that X doesn't do audio and whatnot is like complaining that the GDI doesn't do audio. You get all those fancy features (except for Window transparency, which as yet to be used as anything more than eye candy) if you use something comparable to Win32, like Qt or GTK+ and the necessary open source libraries like lib XML. True, it's not integrated like Win32, but who gives a flying fuck? If googling for 20 minutes to find the best library for a particular task is too much of a time drain, you're working on some *very* trivial projects. The upside, though, is it allows competing implementations, which leads to better implementations overall. Just compare the APIs today. UNIX has a bunch of fragmented, but high quality APIs. Win32 is integrated, but still sucks.

PS> And Windows remote desktop works just fine over my 1.5/384kbps DSL line (usably, 256 kbps).

Re:The plusses of integration

[Anonymous Coward]

"Linux software installation is just so smooth" when in reality one can install even complicated apps on Windows and OSX within mere minutes while on Linux you are lucky if it takes under 2 hours to get something running."

Yeah, that's my biggest beef w/ desktop *nix.

At first I had the time to spend hours researching what dependencies the dependencies needed, where to find them, how to compile them, how to install them. Maybe 1 out of 5 of the programs I'd try to install I'd actually get installed.

After a short while, I got tired of all the hoop jumping and obstacle courses, and just didn't bother trying to install anything that didn't come with my distro.

And then I realized this form of self torture wasn't worth it, and went to XP.
(I still do all my server stuff on *nix though, I wouldn't change that)

Re:The plusses of integration

[ninewands]

Quoth the poster:

I dont even consider X usable on the network, tightvnc or remote desktop does a better job at that./blockquote?
Odd, I'd say the same thing about Windows. I frequently run X apps on my Linux box at home through a gzipped ssh tunnel from my Sun workstation at work. It is remarkably responsive even though I STILL haven't managed to convince the U to shut down P2P (which consumes 40% of our gateway's bandwidth) on the campus network. Everytime I've used vnc or Netmeeting to remotely operate a Windows box, it has been a total slug.

I guess different people just have different expectations ...

Re:The plusses of integration

[civilizedINTENSITY]

- "No, OSS GUI interfaces are not broken, they are in fact superior (just not ...well usable)"
obviously trolling
- "X is so much more advanced" when it is in fact a pain in the ass and slow as hell even when used over what it is made for - network connections.
It is network transparent with complexity costs. And yes, this does mean its more advanced.
- "By the way text mode is the way to the future, GUI is for faggots" which I think doesn't need any further comment
obviously trolling: the right tool for the job; nobody does Computational Visualization work without graphics
- "Linux has sooo *not* a dependency hell but Windows has" ignoring the fact that Linux libraries situation (source and compiled objects alike) is totally out of hand because often times you can't even run two apps alongside because they need different versions
which means they aren't from the same distribution versions...i had to ditch my CDBurner's software when I upgraded to w2k...oh well
- "Linux software installation is just so smooth" when in reality one can install even complicated apps on Windows and OSX within mere minutes while on Linux you are lucky if it takes under 2 hours to get something running.
depends on what your doing: apt-get is the sweetest updater i've *ever* used, rpm is coming along (grpmi looks sweet), and if you stay within your distribution its mostly a no-brainer as long as hardware doesn't bite your butt, which mandrake seems to have a handle on with autoprobing

We do have issues to resolve, but I'd hate to give up Xfree when Moore's law seems to suggest the cost/benifit will be ever lessening and just as network transparancy could really start being useful.

42nd milestone

[Shadow Wrought]

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

Nah

[Tim]

They just renamed it "Intelligent Design"

(rim-shot)

Re:Nah

[Anonymous Coward]

So you mean Evolution was made from /dev/urandom instead of by intelligent designers? ;)

Bring on the GTK2 version

[Plug]

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 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.

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.

Re:Bring on the GTK2 version

[Anonymous Coward]

Or maybe you should think about a girlfriend instead.

Re:Bring on the GTK2 version

[salmo]

If you check out the Gnome summary released today, you will also see that Evolution tops the CVS commits list partly due to the activity on the GTK2 port. mmmmm. gtk2 evolution. Next thing you know Mozilla will be all GTK2ed and AAed.

Re:Bring on the GTK2 version

[reaper20]

Daily GTK2 Mozilla builds are being provided by mozilla.org.

Re:Bring on the GTK2 version

[Com2Kid]

• Next thing you know Mozilla will be all GTK2ed and AAed.

I'm sorry, but can somebody PLEEAASEEEE tell me why it has been taking this long to get complete workable implementation of a feature that Windows has had since around 1997 or so? (NT4+ / 95w/+)

Re:Bring on the GTK2 version

[Anonymous Coward]

Did you pay for your copy of Gnome?

Re:Bring on the GTK2 version

[chefren]

Did you pay for you copy of Windows? :)

Re:Bring on the GTK2 version

[Skweetis]

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.

Perhaps you could think about my incredibly boring and mind-numbing inventory/documentation project?

gnus

[cyborch]

<ignores that fact that bindings does not mean elisp support>

will gnus then run under evolution too?

a mail client with an editor with a news/mail client?

</ignores that fact that bindings does not mean elisp support>

Re:gnus

[Strike]

Evolution actually does have newsgroup support (contrary to popular misconception), it's just not done yet. Compile it with --enable-nntp and off you go. I haven't used it, I've just perused the evolution-hackers mailing list :)

When will it help run worms?

[Anonymous Coward]

I mean Outreek Express has been serving the blackhat community for years.

When will evol be able to run windows worms via a plugin or such.

Re:So...

[Anonvmous Coward]

"Yeah, innovation never started either cause it's such a ripoff of Outlook. I hope Microsoft sued their hippy asses for all they're worth (i.e. nothing)."

The nice thing about Open Source is that you've got companies like Microsoft who've already done the R&D and QA for you!

Re:So...

[stefanlasiewski]

Ah yes, but it has one major feature that OE doesn't have. It runs on un*x, which means I can use a decent graphical email/Calendaring program on my OS of choice.

Why Open Source Needs Microsoft

[LordSah]

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

[broken_bones]

I think in "covering your own ass" you may have severely weakened your originial point.

You say:
"I'll admit there are some exceptions. But by and large, the UI on open-source sucks..."

It seems to me that if there are exceptions then the premise that open source NEEDS comercial models is misguided. If this was a true and inherrant need there would be no exceptions. This is not so say that some open sourced software doesn't have horible user interface. However, if you want to look at the other side of that coin there are commercial products with horrid user interfaces.

Usability for Random J User is also not a good metric for an UI design. For example, an average computer user being introduced to AutoCAD would not think about using the command line. Yet I have never seen a proficient user of that software that did not rely extensively on the command line. This indicate that user interfaces and their most efficient uses can be learned.

In short Random J User is not a good measure for the efficiency of an interface. (Random J User however is important from a marketing standpoint where out of the box usability is more important than long term efficiency.) Likewise since both open and closed source products can serve as examples of good and bad user interaces I think it is a stretch to conclude that one needs the other to produce good UIs.

Re:Why Open Source Needs Microsoft

[plierhead]

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.

Re:Why Open Source Needs Microsoft

[Joe Tie.]

I think whether an UI is good or bad depends to a large extend on the audience. Most open source projects don't really need an ultra easy to use gui because Random J User isn't going to be using it, that's what windows is for.

I'll agree for buisness use quite a bit of the GUI's would be inapropriate, but for home use I don't know that I could really call it bad if it's just as good as it needs to be for the average person who will be making use of it.

Re:Why Open Source Needs Microsoft

[koolade]

...open-source doesn't have the resources to research and develop effective UI

While Evolution may be a good example for your trolling generalization, it's just not true about all open source projects. One could just as easily claim that open source doesn't have the resources to research and develop fast, flexible, complete, or efficient software systems. There are talented open source programmers who pay attention to those things, just as there are talented open source programmers who work on UI.

And just because some projects choose to clone commercial software's UI doesn't mean that it's because of a lack of resources. Many commercial software companies choose to reuse existing UI concepts. Where did Microsoft get the UI model for Windoes? Where did Apple get it?

Re:Why Open Source Needs Microsoft

[LordSah]

I'll amend my argument then. Open-source doesn't NEED crap. But it certainly benefits greatly from having closed-source shops doing a lot of their work for them. Open-source is largely a bunch of programmers who work on a project because they want to. Those same programmers aren't too interested in interviewing 100's of people off the street to see what they think of a prototype user interface. Those same programmers don't spend money hiring technical communication folks to design user interfaces. Those same programmers make the software look like how they want, and as such, it can be very difficult for non-programmers to use. Or worse, they're only interested in doing the nifty algorithmic work under the hood, and don't bother thinking about UI at all.

Let's #define "Random J User" to be "Random J User Who We're Targeting With Our Software" When you're talking about operating systems (unless that OS isn't intended for desktop use), email software, word processors, games, etc, then the new Random J User is anyone who uses a computer casually. An intuitive UI is extremely important for this audience, and as such the old Random J User is fine metric for this software. GCC doesn't need to worry about that metric because its "Random J User" is "C Programmer Working On A Unix-derivative".

Ximian realizes this, which is why they designed their software after Outlook. Outlook's interface is awesome for its audience, which happens to be the same audience Evolution is targeting. Ximian didn't have the capability to build a unique UI that was as effective, so they stole one.

Re:Why Open Source Needs Microsoft

[mijok]

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.

Re:Why Open Source Needs Microsoft

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh bollocks. Usability experts aren't magic goblins only enticed by pay-for work. Open source has usability experts, it's just that no one listens to them.

Usability experts need to educate and convince each and every person they meet in order to get anything done. People respond without knowing the concepts or the terminology, it's a lot less work to convince someone of fitts than it is to explain how people use mouses and how when you throw your mouse at the edge of the screen being able to hit something means is good. People learn the terminology of software with threads and spinlocks and races. People learn that shit. People don't learn usability, and there are a lot more people with an opinion. For usability experts it's an uphill battle very much unlike programming debates.

Until open source respects usability it won't get usability.

Re:Why Open Source Needs Microsoft

[LordSah]

One could just as easily claim that open source doesn't have the resources to research and develop fast, flexible, complete, or efficient software systems.

Open-source has one resource: programmers. That's all you need to build a fast, super-tight piece of software. OSS doesn't have money, which is what you need a lot of times in the software industry. Another great example is open source games vs. commercial games. Commercial game companies have artists, musicians, directors and animators. If an open source game has one or two of these sorts of people, they're really lucky. Generally though, the developers working on the game lack these skills, and they end up with shitty game. That game may have a great 3D engine, or super-clean multiplayer model, but it'll still look like shit and lack content. Content is what really makes or breaks a game in the industry.

I guess I'm trying to say that there will always be a need for commercial software, regardless of what RMS says. I'm not saying that OSS doesn't have a place, and that folks should dump Linux/BSD/Gimp/XBill for something expensive. The world of software development would move far too slow if there wasn't any money in it.

Re:Why Open Source Needs Microsoft

[runderwo]

I guess I'm trying to say that there will always be a need for commercial software, regardless of what RMS says.

This is really silly. RMS and especially the "Open Source" world have never _once_ tried to limit the commercialization of software. The Open Source model, especially, is a _business model_ put forth by ESR's writing. What do you think Red Hat, Suse, Mandrake, et. al. are? They're not a bunch of anti-capitalist hippies. They have built a business around distributing, supporting, and improving open source software.

Just because something is open source or even Free Software (as in GPL) does not mean it can't be commercialized. And OTOH, just because something is free-as-in-beer-ware does not mean that the user is free to do as he or she pleases with it.

Take your anti-RMS trolling elsewhere if you can't represent the facts properly.

Re:Why Open Source Needs Microsoft

[Anonymous Coward]

People don't learn usability, and there are a lot more people with an opinion

If anyone disagrees with me on this consider that not everyone has an opinion on the VM for Linux 2.5/2.6, but everyone has an opinion on whether a particular button should go left or right. People talk even though they don't even take an interest in usability. There's a lot more noise, and a lot more debate, when anything in the interface changes. It requires so much more effort to get started on UI work than it does programming work.

Re:Why Open Source Needs Microsoft

[Anonymous Coward]

and, I guess, the main point is the usability isn't a matter of opinion. It's a science. You measure how most people use things and you evolve the interface to suit. It's about learning common elements that people find useful. Don't talk about usability unless you can reference studies - you're just adding to the noise.

It's not a matter of taste. It's a science.

Re:Why Open Source Needs Microsoft

[Shelled]

Except for the addition of 'My' to desktop icons, a discernable shift towards the KDE-look and a constant re-juggling of lower level system menus, XP's desktop has changed very little since Win 95. Apparently the great UI was discovered some time in the early nineties.
Windows development is driven by refinement of a familiar configuration, not innovation. There may be vastly more efficient and advanced window managers already in use but they wouldn't fly with MS's target user. Famiarity & popularity != best.

Re:Why Open Source Needs Microsoft

[epukinsk]

It takes for-profit companies, with a lot of money to throw at the problem, to design original and effective UI's.

You could just as easily say "it takes for-profit companies, with a lot of money to create a enterprise-class operating system." I think you're underestimating the Free Software community.

The truth is, it takes talented, experienced usability experts with time, human resources and testing facilities to create original and effective UIs. I predict that as OSS solutions mature, you're going to see usability hackers flocking to OSS the same way you see kernel hackers flock to Linux and FreeBSD.

It's the same mechanism that draws kernel hackers to Linux. People who dedicate their lives to usability want to be able to change and develop and improve their computing environment in the same way that kernel hackers want to improve the kernel they run.

If a usability expert is running Windows, and they think Windows Media player's interface is crap, they can't do a damn thing about it. They aren't interested in implementing a brand new media player from scratch. But if they are running Linux, they can take GStreamer or the command-line version of XMMS and write their own GUI. Or take Rhythmbox's GUI and modify it to vibe with their UI expertise.

That's a powerful, powerful draw. Unfortunately, the tools need to be *as good* as Windows before we'll really start seeing usability experts migrating. But just like Kernel developers started migrating in droves when Linux was mature enough for their needs, so will UI developers.

Erik

Re:Why Open Source Needs Microsoft

[Anonymous Coward]

Nonsense! Sure, Evo may copy interfaces, but look at the productivity of vi or emacs! (take your pick). I didn't say that they may have an easy learning curve, I'm talking about sheer productivity for experienced users. Besides, it's now about who did it first, it's about *what works*.

For that matter: tabbed browsing? Or tabbed organization of groups of windows in the first place? (say, Fluxbox?) Pie menus? Or *gasp* virtual desktops?

Look: XP just came out with some lame powerpack virtual desktop thingy: I used it -- only 4 desktops, and ass slow to switch. About the *only* good part is that they let you set separate wallpapers for each, hardly a killer feature. In this case, they're obviously following the open-source lead.

And to beat the dead horse some more, with OSS you get choice: don't like Gnome? Be like me and run Blackbox. Even more minimalistic? Ratpoison/Ion. Like a sheer deathstar type approach to your UI? KDE beckons. And intermediates exist all along the route at various points with things like E and WindowMaker.

The sheer choice means that you get to pick what UI you like. And before you open your mouth, no, they DON'T all suck! The one-size-fits all UI design of M$ doesn't take this into account (no examples of Litestep please -- that thing's impossible to get configured correctly, this coming from someone who's braved both Debian and Gentoo installers...), and not only for the OS, but for the apps as well: don't like Evo? Mutt, Kmail, mailx, Sylpheed-Claws, and about a billion other capable mailers are ready to cater to your smallest whims.

The belief that there should be the same interface for experts and beginners alike, and the general one-size-fits-all philosophy of commercial OSes and systems hell-bent on 'uniform look and feel' and 'standardization' creates inflexibility: either it's Fisher-price style like WinXP, or just horribly convoluted (like many specialized help desk apps -- Remedy anyone?)

Mind you: some bits of your criticisms are valid: I don't care what mailers I use, but cut and paste had better work across everything! I should be able to import and export all bits with ease, and when I click a mailto: link in any browser, my chosen mail client should pop up. The point is, there are usability components to be dealt with, but it's in the nitty-gritty, not the layout of icons on the screen or the number of items in the menubar. And in terms of the real logistics of usability behind the scenes, the OSS folks are indeed very much hard at work.

Consequently, while I don't use Gnome the desktop or Nautilus the filemanager, I'm highly interested in the interoperability of all Gnome apps with each other, since I use plenty of those through my blackbox virtual desktops. These are the things that matter to me as I grow in knowledge as a Linux user, and OSS addresses these concerns increasing well. So as far as I'm concerned, the sheer diversity of the OSS program selection, as well as the folks dedicated to the less-sexy behind-the-scenes usability bits, mean that OSS usability is very strong indeed!

Re:Why Open Source Needs Microsoft

[civilizedINTENSITY]

Except that you assume that the customer's needs/desires are what motivate the for-profit corp., when actually its all about increasing shareholder value. With fair-competition, the two would (should) be synonomous. Today, we've a monopoly in control, and its obvious that UI issues and bug reports and security issues aren't all that important. Else, I'd be able to right-click block images.ad.in.your.face.com. DRM isn't from the user's side of interfacing. With Free Software we actually have software written to work the way users want it too, rather than the way consumers are to be trained to act.

Re:Why Open Source Needs Microsoft

[Anonymous Coward]

If I pretend that a devteam at MS thought up the outlook UI do I get some kool-aid too?

Re:Why Open Source Needs Microsoft

[IntlHarvester]

Another example in this vein is Microsoft Word, which still has the *exact same* crappy modal dialog box layout that it had in 1994.

Not because MS doesn't know that it's crappy (Word for Mac has nice pallettes), but because if anyone had to spend a nickle on corporate training on top of the new licencing program, they'd shit bricks.

So all of the "freedom to innovate" is spent on crappy Clippy features that everyone disables and never invested into basic improvements in the program interface. (I haven't seen the O11 beta, but the last 4 versions are enough of a track-record.)

Re:Why Open Source Needs Microsoft

[2ms]

Huh. I've always considered it to be pretty much the other way around -- MS UIs are Godawful, however open-source software is forced to mimic it because average users don't like to have to relearn how to use their computers.

Evolution looks like Outlook (by far the most widely used application of its type because it is comes with MS Office) to make it easier for Outlook users to switch. If MS didn't have monopoly, then Ximian would have the freedom to attempt something better, but they don't.

Re:Why Open Source Needs Microsoft

[Anonymous Coward]

That's because if we make a truly userfriendly GUI instead of copying windows' lousy interface, people will run away screaming: "But it doesn't look like windows".

Re:Why Open Source Needs Microsoft

[vb.warrior]

Cause mis-representing that fruit case is hard isnt it!

Re:Why Open Source Needs Microsoft

[Anonymous Coward]

Usability a science?? I think it is more a craft, having to now your app domain, your users and the secrets of the trade.... You might be talking about usability engineering [your beloved Jakob et al probably]. Usability is more about evolution of the interface and stuff. If it were a science, you will get it right the first time...right??

Re:Why Open Source Needs Microsoft

[Anonymous Coward]

I think you mean that open source needs IBM, since the UI of Win 95 and up was largely copied from OS2.

Re:Why Open Source Needs Microsoft

[ArsonSmith]

Fun work vs. Just work.

Why isn't there a free accounting agency that goes around and balances peoples check books for them. Why isn't there a free lawn service that comes by and mows my lawn just because they like to.

Some things you will always need to pay for. Other things will take a little longer before they get the same circulation that software has.

As it gets easier it will come.

Re:Why Open Source Needs Microsoft

[mijok]

Free Accounting & Lawnmowing Inc. ;) isn't quite the same thing as contributing to open source. I can't copy your lawn and if I copied your accounting I'd break the law... (lame joke)

Re:Why Open Source Needs Microsoft

[ArsonSmith]

yes, but the way I am looking at it is also the amount of payoff for free work. If I do my lawn for free (I guess I do anyway) and someone else was able to just copy what they wanted with nearly zero effort than my goal would be to either be completely lazy and just copy other peoples lawns or come up with the best/newest/neatest lawn I can to gain status in the lawn maintance community. If I can do work for my self and it help 1000 people I am more likly to do it.

Re:Why Open Source Needs Microsoft

[King of the World]

"If it were a science, you will get it right the first time...right??" you wouldn't get the same result each time because the audience is usually different and so your needs changes which might affect the interface. So the procedure is the same (the science of usability) but you follow an evolution of the interface, as you say.

Re:Why Open Source Needs Microsoft

[mijok]

why has designing the UI for free less payoff than coding for free then? after all, i asked why coders do but usability experts don't? of course it's possible that some do but i just don't know of it, annd once once again: i'm not trying to be offensive, just curious
i know very well the reasoning that if i work for myself and others benefit from it it's great - i've myself written a plugin for xmms precisely because i needed it myself
(offtopic: my creation is a new improved version of a plugin using ibm's viavoice to control xmms by voice, the original lacked features i wanted and only worked with viavoice beta - so i made a new one, the sad part is of course that viavoice for linux was made unavailable from IBM's website before i got around to release my plugin - so it's waiting on my hd and hopefully viavoice will become available again, then i will release my plugin)

Unstable

[bombdotcom]

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.

Re:Unstable

[StarHeart]

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.

Any plans for Mac OS X support?

[arc.light]

Microsoft has an Exchange client for the Mac called Entourage, but it is crippled so it can *only* communicate with an Exchange Server, no POP/IMAP/SMTP connections.

Re:Any plans for Mac OS X support?

[questionlp]

They also have Outlook 2001 for Mac which is a full-featured (well, it has a lot more features for Exchange users than Entourage) Exchange mail client. Unfortunately, it isn't an OS X native application, thusly requires Classic. I use it at work when I'm working on my OS X machine and it does the job quite well.

Re:Any plans for Mac OS X support?

[ekidder]

Err? I was using Entourage for quite a bit of POP and IMAP stuff. Now, I wasn't using Exchange at the same time, which may have been an issue. I've had that problem with Outlook on Windows as well. My solution was to setup multiple profiles for Outlook: Work (Exchange) and Home (POP3 x 2, IMAP x 2). I'm not sure if Entourage supports that. Now, though, I'm using Mail.app, so.. err, well, no point really.

Re:Any plans for Mac OS X support?

[arc.light]

Bleh. I think I got "Entourage X" and "Outlook 2001 for Mac" confused. Outlook 2001 is not OS X-native, so I don't want it. Entourage X is OS X-native, and does support POP/IMAP/SMTP, but does *not* support the more advanced scheduling and Global Address List support that the Ximian Connector does.

Cyrillic?

[Anonymous Coward]

I so want to switch to Evolution. I can not for the life of me make it support Cyrillic fonts. I use RedHat8.0 and have tried it under both KDE and Gnome. Pomogite!!

Vim

[yerricde]

Did you just imply there is a better text editor than vi?

Yes.

It's called "Vi IMproved".

Or, if you want to build an operating environment around an editor, you can always go for XEmacs.

Re:Vim

[Anonymous Coward]

ahhhhhhsahfhdsahsdahfsda

HEAD EXPLODING

Re:So...

[Anonymous Coward]

Ah yes, but it has one major feature that OE doesn't have. It runs on un*x, which means I can use a decent graphical email/Calendaring program on my OS of choice

yeah, but OE runs on Windows 2000, which means I can use a decent graphical email/Calendaring program on my OS of choice.

Re:OSX Support

[pleclair]

apparently, evolution can be run under OSX, but its hard:

http://primates.ximian.com/~aaron/doing/evo-osx.ht ml

I think this doc is a few months old, but at least, with some effort, evolution has been run on OSX by at least one guy. he did have to build it from scratch, though, and says that it isn't "for the faint of heart" *support*, yes, is another thing ... i wouldn't hold my breath, but I know several ximian people with macs, so maybe they'll get frustrated and do it ;-)

Source bizarreness

[salimma]

.. Evo 1.2 has been announced on Ximian's website for quite a few hours, and has even made it to FootNotes, 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 ...

Re:Source bizarreness

[stefanlasiewski]

I think they forgot. The source will probably be availble in the next day or two.

They've done this before. Programs are available via RC, but the source didn't show up for a short while.

Re:Source bizarreness

[StarHeart]

Yeah, I had trouble finding the source too. Then I went to #evolution on irc.gnome.org and was pointed to the Gnome Evolution directory. You will also want to get gal 0.21, gtkhtml 1.1.6, soup 0.7.4, etc.

Re:Source bizarreness

[maw]

Neither gnome.org or ximian's FTP servers carry the source, whether tarball or src.rpm.

I put source there today; see ftp://ftp.ximian.com/pub/ximian-evolution/source/.

Oversight in a moment of excitement, or company policy? I sure hope it's the latter.

I think you mean the former. :) The answer is closer to the former, but actually is neither. There have been some (internal) infrastructural changes recently; one oversight due to the changes was the provision for source to be released automatically.

Re:Source bizarreness

[salimma]

I meant the former, yes. Big apologies to everyone at Ximian :) Thanks for the response.

Binary (and source) RPM for Red Hat 8.0 using Red Hat's spec is available at http://messlab.sourceforge.net for those not using Red Carpet

Re:Phew-Plugins?

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually I would like to know if it has a plugin capability? Let's say I want to add to it's filtering capability.

BTW You got mail! :)

Re:All right!! ... Augh rats.

[MrResistor]

I'm even less hairy, but that might just be because I shave my head.

Re:So...

[Anonvmous Coward]

"

The nice thing about Open Source is that you've got companies like Microsoft who've already done the R&D and QA for you!"

-1, Troll


Oh come on guys, it's a joke. Laugh.

BEWARE MODERATORS YOU HAVE BEEN FOOLED

[Tiro]

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

The poster [GreyWolf3000] is clearly trolling to fool moderators into moderating him up [he told me so by the way].

Re:BEWARE MODERATORS YOU HAVE BEEN FOOLED

[Anonymous Coward]

You're a friend and fan of his, so you must be a troll too.

Re:BEWARE MODERATORS YOU HAVE BEEN FOOLED

[Tiro]

You're a friend and fan of his, so you must be a troll too.

What??!/No.

Re:BEWARE MODERATORS YOU HAVE BEEN FOOLED

[GreyWolf3000]

I really shouldn't reply to this, Will, but my karma's maxed out, unlike yours (at least until the moderators get hold of this one).

Re:BEWARE MODERATORS YOU HAVE BEEN FOOLED

[quinto2000]

Guilt by association. Worked on HUAC, so why not here?

Re:BEWARE MODERATORS YOU HAVE BEEN FOOLED

[Anonymous Coward]

Really? I think not.

Evolution

[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).

It would take too long to learn VI.

[karlheg]

The authors use Emacs, and only know emacs. It would take too long to learn VI.

Here's the link for [What's New in 1.2]

[QuietRiot]

Here's a link to the User's Guide and to What's New.

Fun things:
mmmmmmmm...... Signature Editor
sounds on mail arrival!!

Read this!

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow damnit! This Text has really a lot of information related to the current GNOME situation. A Must to read! A bit long but really informative.

Evoution

[Anonymous Coward]

i've recently switched to using evolution under debian linux at work, and i've been extremely pleased ... corporate standard here is netscape messenger v4.x, and so i'd basically defaulted to that on my old sparc workstation ... when i finally got a new PC, it came preinstalled with win2k, and for a while i just didn't have the time to install a proper os on there... i didn't really look forward to using outlook (no matter how much i dislike messenger) so i just kept my mailstore in ns messenger ... when i finally got a chance to put linux on my desktop pc, i tried out kmail, which effortlessly imported all my nsmail messages ... at this time i also decided to switch to IMAP, though, and kmail's IMAP support is decidedly lacking (at least in 2.2) ... a coworker suggested i try out evolution, and it's been absolutely great ... had no problem interfacing with the IMAP and LDAP servers here, and the interface is just what i've been wanting in a mail client for a long time ... virtual folders are absolutely great, as they allow me to have everything all nice and sorted in a graphical interface (ie, evolution), whilst keeping things in just a straight list for console clients (ie, pine) for when i'm only able to SSH into the corporate network

so yeah, overall it totally rocks, and while there are a few bugs / annoyances in it, i've been very pleased overall ... and besides, the logo has a monkey! how can you go wrong with a monkey?

upgrade possible?

[gol64738]

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?

Re:upgrade possible?

[cubal]

yep... build your own rpm. It should work on any RH8.0 system if that's where you built it, and it won't mess up the RPM database like make & make installs do.

Re:upgrade possible?

[StarHeart]

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. 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.

Re:upgrade possible?

[reaper20]

The messlab 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. :)

Re:upgrade possible?

[davehaas]

I'm running a fresh install of RedHat 8.0 on my Thinkpad T20. I downloaded the rpms from this Ximian ftp mirror site (other mirrors can be found here), moved them into a temporary directory, did an `rpm -e bonobo-conf-devel gtkhtml-devel`, then performed an `rpm -Uhv *rpm` from inside that temp directory. Evolution 1.2 installed perfectly, required no other file or library dependencies, and broke no existing file or library dependencies.

This definitely takes you off the path of pure RedHat Network up2date strategy, at least where those files/libraries are concerned, but for me it's worth the hassle of having the latest version of Evolution running on my system... YMMV, no warranty, etc.

It'll only be an 'outlook killer'

[myowntrueself]

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*

Re:It'll only be an 'outlook killer'

[Why Should I]

Isn't that exactly what ximian connector is supposed to do?

Connect your mail to an exchange server so that native the exchange web store items (calendars, emails, taks etc) are used.

Re:It'll only be an 'outlook killer'

[myowntrueself]

yeah but then you need the exchange server infrastructure...

What I'd like to see is a simple file conversion.

Re:It'll only be an 'outlook killer'

[c0d3h4x0r]

You're totally right. Until all GNU/Linux productivity apps can perfectly and transparently import and export all file formats from all Microsoft productivity apps, they simply won't be able to take hold in the marketplace.

Microsoft knows this, which is why it doesn't publish those formats and changes them--sometimes unnecessarily--to stay one step ahead with each product release.

Re:All right!! ... Augh rats.

[Kragg]

Yes, I have had better luck. I'm still much more intelligent than a monkey, thanks.

I'm not really less hairy though..

evolution expunge

[asv108]

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?

Re:evolution expunge

[Plug]

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.

Re:evolution expunge

[jimmy_dean]

There is a option that you can check on one of the menus that automatically moves mail you delete to the trash. It's there, I don't remember where but look for it...I use it. That thing annoyed me too until I noticed the option.

Re:evolution expunge

[Anonymous Coward]

"It's open source remember. Go hack it in."

Ah the refrain of every missing feature request. (Too bad most features are still missing) So I guess every Linux user still has to be a programmer huh? Make a great excuse anyway.

Re:evolution expunge

[Anonymous Coward]

1) select any email folder
2) View -> Hide Deleted Messages.

Now when you hit the delete key, you'll have a it in the Trash and marked as deleted still in the folder but now it will be invisible. I believe the Trash is simlpy a VFolder that shows messages marked as deleted from all categories thus it's not 2 copies of the message but only one copy visible from 2 places.

Re:evolution expunge

[AELinuxGuy]

Select 'Hide Deleted Messages' from the view menu and it will behave as you wish. Does anybody actually like how it behaves by default? Everyone I talk to gripes about the 'marked delete' behavior.

Re:evolution expunge

[StarHeart]

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.

Re:evolution expunge

[StuffYourReligion]

There is a option that you can check on one of the menus that automatically moves mail you delete to the trash. It's there, I don't remember where but look for it...I use it. That thing annoyed me too until I noticed the option.

No there isn't, and I sure wish there was. You must be thinking of the "Hide Deleted Messages" (which is in the "View" menu, FYI).

Me, I like the "traditional" Trash folder. Evolution's vFolder Trash absolutely sucks, and you only have to read the Evolution mailing list archives to confirm that I'm not alone in thinking that.

I like being able to delete messages somewhat indiscriminately (keep that Inbox clean), and then if I change my mind or need some info I didn't think would be important, I can search through the trash and find it. With other mailers in the past, I would generally go back and mass-delete "trashed" messages that are more than a month or two old. I'd like to be able to do that again (or perhaps better yet, automate the process, specifying how many days is "old enough" to throw away).

Actually, I still have a real Trash folder in my IMAP store, and when I use my webmail client, that's where my deleted messages go. It's great. But with Evolution, deleted messages get flagged into a global "Trash" folder, and if I don't expunge my Inbox regularly, the Inbox gets big and ugly (==slow). If I DO expunge my Inbox, I lose everything I've ever deleted, with no chance of ever getting it back. The result? I keep LOTS of crap in my Inbox that I don't want there, because I'm afraid to delete it.

As far as the "Hide deleted messages" feature goes, that is of course indispensable using the current system. I'll admit it's also convenient to be able to "unhide" them and undelete a message that was flagged for deletion. I don't have a problem with that marking messages for later deletion at all (in fact, deleting messages for real would be terribly slow, especially with traditional single-file mbox folders). But "expunge" should never touch the Trash (unless you're looking at the Trash)--it should only clean up the current folder!

I suppose one compromise that I could deal with is if the "Expunge Folders" feature had an option to only destroy-for-all-eternity messages that are more than n days old. But there's not even that. In Evolution, when you expunge, you lose everything you ever deleted right up 'til the moment before.

If I had to give up all my gripes about Evolution but one, this would be it.

And yes, sigh.... all gripes aside, Evo rocks!

Re:evolution expunge

[asv108]

Thanks for the help guys. The setting works great! Wierd place for it..

Re:So...

[NanoGator]

"Oh come on guys, it's a joke. Laugh. "

It's a lot funnier when you look at the Outlook-esque interface of Evolution and then compare it to ... Outlook! Heh.

Umm.. you've no doubt heard of CVS..

[robbo]

If you know the CVS tag, what are you waiting for? Does a source release necessarily imply a tarball?

Re:Umm.. you've no doubt heard of CVS..

[salimma]

Number 1: I could not find the CVS tag for the release itself, only the release branch

Number 2: autogen.sh from the CVS branch does not run cleanly on RH8.

The source is now available, yes, but it was not so for quite a few hours after release.

Outlook and VB

[BrookHarty]

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

[slide-rule]

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.

Re:Outlook and VB

[big.ears]

MS Outlook innovation? Depends on your point of view, I guess.

Hardly. Many monolithic email solutions of yesteryear had this. Like a product called All-in-One which my college used on a vax until the mid 90s. It actually only held a single copy of any email sent to a distribution list, and everyone's inbox would just have pointers to it. It may have been efficient storage-wise, but that thing could be incredibly slow when the system was busy. Anyway, when email was centrally managed like this, it made recalls easy and undetectable. The email was just removed and nobody was the wiser.

Re:Outlook and VB

[Anonymous Coward]

but that thing could be incredibly slow when the system was busy.

I'm willing to bet it wouldn't be slow if it ran on a machine that can handle exchange :)

Re:Outlook and VB

[cras]

It actually only held a single copy of any email sent to a distribution list, and everyone's inbox would just have pointers to it.

This is easily done today with filesystem hardlinks with Maildir and Maildir-like systems which use individual files as messages. I know Cyrus supports this, don't know about others but I'd like to get Postfix to do this.

Re:Outlook and VB

[IamTheRealMike]

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

Re:Outlook and VB

[Anonymous Coward]

You should try gnome-meeting which is compatible with netmeeting. It's not part of evolution.

Sure.

[cduffy]

For some value of "/dev/urandom" involving beer, office politics, and the varying influences of Real Life, sure. "Intelligent designers" don't live in closed-circuit environments, and while they have environmental restraints (procedures, protocol, software engineering practices), much of what happens during the development process is is still, if not random, chaotic in nature. Experimental features get prototyped, or at least discussed; the good ones (easy to implement, worthwhile, not overcomplicating) live on (and future permutations of them make their ways into other products), the old ones die out.

Well, it's one way of thinking of it, anyhow. :)

Agreed, somewhat

[robbo]

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.

Re:Agreed, somewhat

[StarHeart]

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

Re:Agreed, somewhat

[stefanlasiewski]

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.

Re:Agreed, somewhat

[Totally_Tux]

Try and run "killevo" in the console after upgrading. My contacts were unreadable in 1.2 until I killed Evolution completely and restarted.

Re:Agreed, somewhat

[bombdotcom]

Try and run "killevo" in the console after upgrading. My contacts were unreadable in 1.2 until I killed Evolution completely and restarted.

Just tried it and I still can't start evolution. Error message at the console is "evolution-shell-WARNING **: Cannot access Bonobo/ConfigDatabase on wombat: (IDL:CORBA/COMM_FAILURE:1.0)"

and popup gtk error says

"Cannot initialize the Ximian Evolution shell: Configuration database not found"

Thanks for the suggestion though.

re: your sig

[Anonymous Coward]

"If you can't see this, click here to enable sigs."

thats fucking dumb man. if you cant see it, how can you click anything?

that guy who maintains the list of the worst sigs on slashdot should consider yours for the current worst sig...

Re:I didn't like MS Outlook the first time I used

[Anonymous Coward]

Thus spake the 6 year old...

IMAP

[oliverthered]

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!

ridiculous

[DMBoyd]

Come on... its just an ad for head and shoulders.

Re:All right!! ... Augh rats.

[rodgerd]

Waxing will make you a lot less hairy.

License??

[Anonymous Coward]

It isn't terribly easy to find Ximian's license -- I find that a bit disturbing. They focus on being open-source but damn if I could find license specifics on there homepage. Is this GPL code or what?

killer?

[jhunsake]

It's not an Outlook killer until it runs on Windows.

It can't do PST files though

[bogie]

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.

Re: It can't do PST files though

[Bi9Kahuna]

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.

Re:It can't do PST files though

[leighklotz]

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.

Re: It can't do PST files though

[StuffYourReligion]

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.

What you really want to know - 1.2 Release Notes

[updog]

You can go directly to the release notes here..

Re:Info:

[StarHeart]

Warning, parent is goatse.cx style link.

Vaguely related

[mao che minh]

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?

Evolution and DNA?

[einhverfr]

Hmmm....

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

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

Evolution? More Junk software

[Anonymous Coward]

Does anyone BELIEVE microsoft windows ever evolved from a monkey-like evolution program?

winders port?

[sstory]

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.

Re:winders port?

[damiam]

No, Evolution will not be ported to Windows. If you want a Windows mail client, try Eudora, Mozilla Mail, or telnet mail.yourisp.com 25.

Re:winders port?

[Anonymous Coward]

I would, but yourisp.com doesn't serve my area. Any other suggetsions?

Re:winders port?

[jmv]

Does anyone know if Evolution will be ported to Windows?

Don't count on a native Windows port... unless you want to do it! I don't think it fits the Ximian (or any other company) business model at all. Of course, it's might be possible to compile it using Cygwin, but then installing Linux is probably much simpler.

Re:winders port?

[Anonymous Coward]

As far as good mail clients for windows go, try The Bat ( not sure about home page, use google ). It doesn't have all the PIM features of outlook, it is just a mail client, but as such it has all the features one needs without all the MS crap.

Re:winders port?

[gozar]

In my great quest for a suitable e-mail program under Windows, I couldn't find anything that suited me. Mozilla e-mail was very close, and it's what I used for awhile. Then Red Hat 8.0 came out and I haven't booted into Windows except to play games...

Try Mozilla's e-mail, it's gotten a lot better from the old days. And try to use imap to access your e-mail, it makes it a lot easier to move back and forth between e-mail packages.

Re:winders port?

[sstory]

thanks. I just tried Mozilla and while I still don't like the Netscrapish Browser, the email client, particularly when skinned, is very cool. I am off Outlook! And when I move to Linux, i'll use evolution. With Mozilla I just wish I could get rid of the netscapular problem that when sending emails with no subject line an annoying dialog box pops up about it. There doesn't seem to be a way to eliminate that.

By your logic, Windows is more secure than Linux

[Ilan Volow]

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 ShameJust 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:Attention slashdot:

[Anonymous Coward]

Silly me! I actually opened up another tab and started typing www. and just hit enter. I got to www.com :)

Bullet points are the next cereal cheese!

Re:By your logic, Windows is more secure than Linu

[Anonymous Coward]

Please try to keep posts on topic

Whoops!

Lameness filter, stupid stupid Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Cum sociis natoque penatibus et magnis dis parturient montes, nascetur ridiculus mus. Proin sollicitudin augue eu libero. Class aptent taciti sociosqu ad litora torquent per conubia nostra, per inceptos hymenaeos. Etiam arcu tortor, aliquam ac, egestas eu, ultricies ac, magna. Pellentesque eleifend interdum mauris. Morbi luctus nunc at tortor. Aliquam wisi lorem, faucibus ut, blandit ut, pellentesque tincidunt, elit. Donec a ipsum. Sed tristique, urna non imperdiet mollis, pede risus cursus felis, vel vestibulum diam dolor a mi. Donec placerat faucibus diam. Proin fermentum massa vitae quam. Mauris in ante eu sapien tristique pellentesque. Aliquam sit amet libero vel metus convallis fringilla. Cum sociis natoque penatibus et magnis dis parturient montes, nascetur ridiculus mus. Pellentesque habitant morbi tristique senectus et netus et malesuada fames ac turpis egestas. Fusce tempor porta ipsum. Nunc non est. Etiam pede turpis, suscipit non, dignissim ac, varius vel, urna. Praesent interdum facilisis turpis.

Some thoughts on Evo 1.2

[zwalters]

I've been using the beta version of 1.2 for a week or so. Here are my thoughts:

1)The searches are considerably faster.

I'm a big pine fan, but evolution won me over on the basis of a single feature: the ability to search large folders quickly. I know it's possible to grep a mail directory, and I've even done so in the past, but the ease (and speed) of searches in evolution is so much greater that it effectively gives you a capability you didn't have before. This is astoundingly useful. For example, if I search my mail folder (28,776 messages) for "crackbaby," it takes 7 seconds to find the single message containing that word (somehow, I'm saddened that it was so few.)

As long as searches keep getting faster, evolution will keep getting better.

2)Bringing up new windows still takes a while, especially when the program has been running for a few days.

3)I'm a little disgusted by the fact that they've changed the key for going to the next unread message from 'n' to '.'. From what I've read on the developer's list, this was a big item of debate, and was ultimately won by the camp that wants the interface to be as natural for Outlook users as possible. It still sucks for us pine guys.

3)Nitpicking, but they need to add a keyboard shortcut for "Reply to List." As I understand Ximian's strategy, a large portion of the audience they target (at least for Connector sales) are the professionals who need to have two computers on their desk -- Linux to do all their work, Microsoft for things like email & word processing. Just my own opinion, but I'd expect such people to be disproportionately subscribed to high-volume lists. (Anybody with better information than my own, please respond).

All in all, I see 1.2 as a nice improvement, except for one or two nitpicks. Keep it up, Ximian!

Re:Some thoughts on Evo 1.2

[vidarh]

Evolution really needs a way of modifying keymappings easily (if it already has one, I'd love to hear about it - haven't found it). What pissed me off when I upgraded was the move from "q" to "`" for turning the preview pane on and off. I do that frequently, and I still haven't found a way of generating backtick in a way that Evolution recognizes, so currently I'm stuck using the menus, slowing me down considerably.

Re:Some thoughts on Evo 1.2

[Anonymous Coward]

They also seem to have removed the shortcuts 'b' 'f' for navigating through read messages. The feature I most want to see is an easy way to add/change key bindings

Re:By your logic, Windows is more secure than Linu

[Anonymous Coward]

Why can't I do bullet points when they're nested?

• Ahh, that's the ticket!
  
• 
  
  OK, this is offtopic enough.
  
  
  
• 
  Vivamus tincidunt porttitor ligula. Nunc eu justo vitae purus rutrum congue. Nulla est. Pellentesque habitant morbi tristique senectus et netus et malesuada fames ac turpis egestas. Cras aliquet dictum lorem. Aliquam semper. In pede. Mauris dolor. Pellentesque habitant morbi tristique senectus et netus et malesuada fames ac turpis egestas. Aenean quis mi. Suspendisse dolor diam, luctus sit amet, tempor ac, aliquam vel, dolor.
• 
  
  WHAT? That's not enough to get past the lameness filter?
  
  Phasellus dictum venenatis nibh. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetuer adipiscing elit. Duis vestibulum elit in sapien. Donec suscipit, elit eu tincidunt lacinia, wisi erat adipiscing velit, iaculis lobortis lectus neque et leo. Nullam gravida cursus libero. Nulla dui. Pellentesque venenatis vestibulum sem. Sed est. Integer augue. Sed quam mi, sodales id, ornare sed, vulputate at, ligula. Integer arcu. Sed nisl erat, vestibulum a, sagittis ac, mollis quis, ipsum. Phasellus sapien nibh, luctus in, venenatis ac, fringilla et, nibh.
  

congratulations

[cowbird]

So youre an idiot, and now everyone knows it.

Re:What OSS really needs: UIForge

[Lord Bitman]

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.

For being in a foreign language...

[Anonymous Coward]

For being in a foreign language, it has a lot of colloquialisms. It isn't just broken english, it is broken American slang.

That would have been really hard to translate. I know there are AmericanLsang-Hindi dictionaries out there, but they are sort of hard to find.

This was a really long and well crafted troll. I could be wrong, and I apologize if I am, but you have taken some liberties with the language that you wouldn't if you didn't speak it.

Havoc Pennington is EVIL!

[Tumbleweed]

Well, duh, check out his first name! :)

( just kidding, Havoc - I have no idea if you're evil or not. But seriously - what's your _middle_ name? :)

Re:Havoc Pennington is EVIL!

[Anonymous Coward]

His midde name is pigfucker.

Then fork it, silly.

[ZorkZero]

Gnome is Open Source. If you want things done differently, and there is sufficient energy behind your philisophy, fork it and become the dominant branch. There's nothing stopping you.

Re:Then fork it, silly.

[Anonymous Coward]

Clear proof for not having read the Text! Go sit in the corner!

no

[SHEENmaster]

A singlue mutation isn't an evolutionary advantage until it has had time to spread to offspring, and the population with said mutation continues to expand.

Re:OSX Support

[Anonymous Coward]

osx has outlook express.. wtf do you need evolution for?

Red Carpet also released.

[StarTux]

Also you can get a new version of Red Carpet that works with the newer distributions, guess you want a list:

Mandrake 9.0
Redhat 8.0
SuSE 8.1

Thats it for now, but sure does make the job of getting Evolution simpler. Not to mention the eventual release of all the other goodies :).

StarTux

Buuuut, they broke pilot sync.

[Da w00t]

I tried to get gpilotd to work, but it kept segfaulting. This may be because I recently moved to Red Hat 8, (which I plan on nuking and moving back to Red Hat 7) I can't STAND bluecurve and Gnome 2.0. That, and Ximian Desktop refuses to install on Red Hat 8 because Ximian doesn't do Gnome 2.0. Personally, I use Linux more often on my laptop then I do Winbloze 2000, because I have gnumeric, abiword, and evolution. I even purchased the Ximian Exchange Connector for Evolution. What sucks is the connector communicates through the web interface; being slow as balls.

Would you like some cheese to go with that whine ?

[loginx]

I got rid of windows on all my workstations.
I only buy hardware that I know is supported or will be supported because the hardware manufacturer provides drivers or collaborations with *nix developers, and for those other hardware manufacturers, that's too damn bad... they don't care about me and the feeling is mutual.
My Hardware is not outdated nor more expensive.

For remote desktop, I've heard there was a really nice tool coming with KDE 3.1 to address this issue, VNC is also a good idea, personally I still think SSH blows any XP-RemoteDesktop, VNC or any of that crap.

Why emacs key bindings?

[Dunkalis]

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.

Red Carpet has always been fine

[Chuck Chunder]

on my RedHat 7.3 system, just as another datapoint.

but we all know...

[mrsmalkav]

that the existence of the bombardier beetle has completely disproved evolution.

screw this "evolution" crap.

you all lie. there is no release. see, the page won't load and i can't get to it. obviousy it's all a farce. therefore, there is no release. evolution never began. so there. nyah.

Re:It can't do PST files though-details

[Anonymous Coward]

https://listman.redhat.com/pipermail/valhalla-list /2002-August/014901.html

More specific details on how to do that.

Compile evolution with only email support?

[Moloch666]

Looking at the Makefile in FreeBSD ports I don't see any such options --disable-calendar, etc.

I just need a good X email client that will handle HTML good and put the red underline on mispelled words. Like KMail with that feature would be fine. Even better Eudora for X. Eudora is my favorite client.

Oh well I guess my search continues or I break down and install evolution with added features I don't need.

Re:Why Open Source Needs Microsoft - not!

[madmaxx]

This is a load of crap: no one needs commercial software. Evolution is similar to Outlook - but certainly not a copy. In nearly every way, Evolution is better - and it's not like Outlook is innovative. Outlook is a very obvious approach to mail that just happened to be pushed down our throats.

I'm not sure if you remember Eudora - which would have certainly grown into something as good as Outlook ... but we never found out, as Microsoft pre-installed Outlook express on every desktop in the universe. Eudora didn't even have a chance ... same with Netscape, etc. Exactly where is the innovation in that?

Microsoft shoved Outlook on us too: bundling with Office. Exactly how likely is anyone to choose something outside of what their IT department uses? There is so little choice in it all.

Worse, Outlook is stagnant. When was the last time Outlook received a new feature? I've not seen any significant change in it since it's first release, almost 6 years ago. This too is innovation?

On the other hand, Evolution implements a very standard mail interface - and does it with flair. Sure, it looks like Outlook, but it's not just a dumb copy. Every feature packed into Evolultion is thought out (not just copied), and improved. Single click message highlighting? Not in Outlook. VFolders? Not in outlook. Search bar? Not in Outlook. Configurable 'start' page? Not in Outlook. Standard - did you read that? - a standard mailbox format. Not in Outlook. Image blocking? Not in Outlook.

I fail to see exactly why we need Microsoft. Maybe it's the blind-eye to security. Or maybe it's the extend and extinguish bulldozing of all competition. Or maybe it's the frequent feature additions. Or perhaps it's the great mail handling or standards adherance. Or, maybe not. I'll live fine without Microsoft.

God dammit!

[Anonymous Coward]

So that's what ^H means! I've seen that on /. for close to 3 years now and have been too timid to ask. Just tried it out in Notepad. Well, well, you learn something everyday...

Whoops! (And a scripting question)

[WmFA]

So, to beat the slashdotting, I rushed out and upgraded through Red Carpet. Now my contact lists are broken, the task and calendar components won't launch, and I've got six year old emails showing up in weird vfolders without having been setup.

I love Evolution (it was XEmacs VM before this, which renders HTML in non-Internet time), but I think they need a 1.2.1 pretty fast.

BTW - anyone know how to get the filters' script invocations to process message text? I've been wanting to hack in a working inline PGP decoder for months! I know they've been discussing this option (i.e. filter-invoked shell scripting), but I can't find a reference to how to pass message text into the shell script.

I found this at least

[bogie]

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.

I INVOKE THE DMCA!

[EvilAlien]

... for using my markup!

The cease and desist letter is on its way, chump, pray that your lawyer is as slimey and petty as mine!

I might as well say something on topic that may be of interest. I use Evolution as my primary email application at home, and love it. It has features that has allowed me to kiss Outlook goodbye, and the PDA conduits to sync up the calendar etc with my Palm are fantastic. I wish there was better GnomeCard importation/integration support (I'm having a hell of a time getting Evo 1.08 to import GnomeCard entries synced from my Palm correctly), I've yet to try 1.2 so maybe this issue is resolved. Anyone try this out?

Until one of two things happens (my office migrates to Exchange 2000 or Ximian releases older Exchange server support) I won't be able to use Evolution in the corporate environment, but I intend to as soon as it is feasible.

And now, a treat for those of you with mod points to get rid of...

Guide to Moderators:
1. Sarcastic DMCA references are not funny enought o earn modding up on their own, but are still above Domo-Kun/Kitten references in the 'net cliche scale
2. Use of "pray" and "lawyer" in the same sentence is worth "+1 Isn't it ironic?"
3. Meta-reference to bad Alanis song in Guide to Moderators is worth "-1 Bad taste in music"
4. Lack of beowulf cluster, Linux, or anti-Microsoft comments are worth "-1 off meta-topic"
5. Including of "beowulf cluster, Linux, or anti-Microsoft" comments in Guide are worth "+1 Insightful" for cutting commentary on sociology of Slashdot
6. Guide itself is worth "-1 Offtopic" for the obvious reasons

Thank you for choosing EvilAlien.

Re:What OSS really needs: UIForge

[slantyyz]

I'm not sure that a UIForge type of forum is what OSS needs in the short term. In the long term, yes, I would agree.

Taking time to sift through thousands of complaints may not be the most efficient path towards GUI improvement.

The problem is that the longer it takes for OSS GUIs to evolve to where they should be, the faster the commercial alternatives get ahead.

Perhaps what OSS needs is a place with top-ten lists outlining the best-of-breed GUIs in different applications. The devs can check out the apps and seek "inspiration" from those GUIs for their applications.

For example, if you want to write an audio/mp3 app, take a look at iTunes, MusicMatch and WinAmp. If you want to write a digital video editor for beginners, look at iMovie, Pinnacle Studio and Windows Movie Maker.

If you imitate something with a good GUI based on the best-of-breed apps out there, you're a lot farther ahead without having to do a lot of usability research and focus groups, which can be a time burden on a non-funded OSS project.

I'm kinda mixed on evolution still..

[EMR]

They keep ignoring reasonable requests for feature enhancements that every other mail client supports, but in "Ximain's mind" you shouldn't do that..
For example, being able to "chroot" your mailbox tree if you are using, say, a cyrus Imap server and all your mail is under INBOX. or a WU-FTPD and all your mail is under mail/.. well no longer is it supported in Evolution 1.2. You mail folders will appear as subfolders under INBOX. or mail/ so it looks REALLY awkward to use..
the other one, is a use that my brother needs, as currently they use Outlook and Exchange.. and he's wanting to move to Cyrus (as it's SOO much faster and easier to backup and repair when a server goes down, and they have like 10GB of shared folders) and he has to use outlook on his system (he works at home) as he can't use Evolution because you can't edit existing message and resave them. Which they do, as they store documents and stuff in the Shared folders.. But ximian REFUSES to add that feature as they say "mail is read only" But It's not a mail client, it's an outlook clone.. which is MORE than a mail client.. and collaboration software.. and part of collaborating is being able to EDIT things!!!..
well that's some of my rants about ximian.. There's plenty more, but that's on a different topic and for another day...

Re:I'm kinda mixed on evolution still..

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, damn them for writting their own software and giving it to you, then having the hubris to think they get to decide where to direct their limited development resources. What bastards.

Re:I'm kinda mixed on evolution still..

[stefanlasiewski]

>>>he can't use Evolution because you can't edit existing message and resave them

It's not really a saved email message if you edit and resave it. Few people have the need to edit a saved email message especially from within the email client.

You can edit the Calendar and todo elements from within Evolution. If that's not enough, have you entered your request into bugzilla? That way others could support your idea if it's a good idea.

And then there's always the commandline... the files are right there, and they are plain text. Might screw up the metadata if you make too many large edits, but most email clients will have similar problems.

But really, don't expect Ximian to support every obscure feature request out there.

Re:I'm kinda mixed on evolution still..

[alizard]

few people have the need to edit and resave e-mail

Thanks for the warning. I'm about to install Linux on my workstation for the first time, you saved me the trouble of downloading the new version of Evolution and seeing if the how-to instructions given elsewhere on the thread work just barely in time.

Everybody has a different style of working. I use one of my e-mail folders as a notebook and add discrete entries by sending myself e-mail. I frequently have to update those entries.

If they're never going to support something I use, why bother with Ximian?

Re:I'm kinda mixed on evolution still..

[EMR]

There is a bug report.. and there was a LARGE discussion about it.. But ximian said no..
I post bug reports for everything..

it hasnt stopped...

[hpavc]

... its just legally bound to share science classroom time with 'intelligent design theory' in the ohio classroom.

vs. kmail?

[siskbc]

So I'm using kmail right now...kind of annoying in ways...but not too bad. I'm very receptive to using a new email client. Their site wasn't incredibly clear - does anyone consider evolution to be be significantly better than kmail? Anyone used both?

Re:vs. kmail?

[twener]

Evolution does other things too (Calendar, RDF-Newsticker, ...) for which you would use KOrganizer, KNewsticker, ... under KDE.

Re:vs. kmail?

[Mnemia]

Mozilla's built in mail is actually quite good - comparable to KMail. I used Kmail for a long time but switched so that I could use the same mail client on Windows and Linux. Evolution seems way too much like Outlook to me - and I despise Outlook's interface. Just the memory of supporting Outlook's broken UI at my old job makes me want to shudder.

Re:Whoops! (And a scripting question)

[tinomeinen]

Yes, happened to me too: calender crashed, and contact list completely whiped away.
Do the following:

exit evolution
killev
restart evolution

Now everything works and you have your contacts back end the calender works.
Tino Meinen

Ximian Red-carpet for Redhat 8.0, Mandrake 9.0

[illegalien]

On a related note....

Ximian red-carpet is available for Red Hat 8.0, Mandrake 9.0, or SuSE 8.1 at http://ximian.com/products/redcarpet/download.html

Re:Ximian Red-carpet for Redhat 8.0, Mandrake 9.0

[twener]

And where is Ximian Gnome 1.4 Desktop for these distributions? Oh, I forgot there will be a Ximian Gnome 2.0 Desktop next year...

Re:Whoops! (And a scripting question)

[WmFA]

That explains it. Many thanks!

Any ideas on the scripting?

Evolution?

[pigeon768]

The linux kernel, Emacs/VI, KDE/Gnome, The GIMP, and X11 all belong on that list above Evolution.

I'd run out of fingers/toes/appendages/hair folicles before I could name all the beautiful pieces of software put forth by open-source.

FUD master B

[Anonymous Coward]

You sir are FUDDING.

>some of the new ideas, features and
>implementations such as gconf [gnome.org] , an >
>evil windows registry like system

My .gconf looks like this (short example): ./apps/gedit-2/plugins/time ./apps/gedit-2/plugins/time/%gconf.xml ./apps/gedit-2/plugins/%gconf.xml ./apps/gedit-2/%gconf.xml ./apps/galeon ./apps/galeon/UI ./apps/galeon/UI/Tabs ./apps/galeon/UI/Tabs/%gconf.xml
So you see everything is in readable format and in xml. Everybody is asking to use xml because its obvious advantages, so gnome implements it and the trolls are starting to scream

>by removing all its flexibility in favor of an
>easy clean simple interface to not confuse their >new possible customers.

You want you cake and eat it! Lots of configuration went to the gconf files. It still is flexibel only the configuration preference doesn''t reflect all those switches. You sir is a wannabee power user, with all the power in a form you can digest, just to show off the confused newby who doesn't know allwhat those switches mean! A kiddy who think that he is L33T.
If you're really a power user you would find the switches. And I think when you respond to this you will mostly talk (rant) about metacity, the new stripped down window manager. Neatly forgetting (this is FUD afterall) that you can easily switch metacity for sawfish and've more option to toy with. Oh yeah I was forgetting that you're one of those who needs a preference to switch window-managers, killall metacity; sleep 3; sawfish confuses the heck out of you!

>but the core development team of gnome don't give
>a damn about what their users are thinking or
>wanting and most of the time they come up with
>their standard purl.

I like the new gnome and the direction it takes and what I see is that the developers like it too! I don't see any of them making a statement by switching to KDE, do you?
Galeon2, Gimp, Pan, File-Roller, Abiword, Gnumeric are coming along nicely, thank you......

Oh yeah and about the FUD about Gnome stuff is rolled into other core projects like XFree, I will post another reply after this one about why! With the title KDE != *NIX, if there is one desktop who is a threath for the *nix way of life then KDE is the one!

Very sensible and I totally agree

[myowntrueself]

Plus, its the only thing that could make outlook express safe!
(Except pulling the plug on the network connection)

FreeBSD

[pkplex]

Works on FreeBSD... There have been a couple of crashes though, I was editing a new message when it just froze up and I had to kill it and resart.

Looks pretty cool though :) Yet another successfull Open Source project IMO.

KDE != *nix

[Anonymous Coward]

As promised my KDE rant:

I wonder. Has nobody noticed how alien KDE is to *nix philosophy? It is more a windows concept bolted on *nix! Everything that is a offspring from KDE is unusable for others not wanting the complete KDE package and philosophy and they have a very strong assimilation drive! Everything they see and think it is a good idea has to be adapted (rewritten) and extended, but the KDE desktop is the only one who is profiting from their input. Very unlike the *nix philosophy, GNU (which is not Unix) and the GNU desktop: Gnome who delivers lots and lots of things used by others without needing Gnome. Just like the command-line of *nix: "small programs and pipe". Gnome development is a toolbox with lots of tools which you can use separate without the whole she-bang. They design it that way! And just like the command-line, lots of people are complaining that it is to complex, but they forgetting that there is a amazingly strength in this concept! Modules like Gstreamer, Gconfig, Pango, Atk, Xft2, Xftconfig (about both you can discuss but RH (==Gnome) was the drive behind it), Mono. Now in KDE they would be Kango, Ktk an Kono and so on and only usable in the KDE/QT context, because this is the way they design. People are saying that the lots and lots of dependencies of Gnome are ridiculous and praise KDEs, win32 api like, approach, I say that this KDE approach is alien to and a thread for the *nix philosophy, which makes *nix so flexible.

Re:KDE != *nix

[twener]

> I wonder. Has nobody noticed how alien KDE is to *nix philosophy?

Either we are all dumb or you're simply wrong.

Yes! 10,000 years from now...

[Anonymous Coward]

This is exactly as history will see us.

my showstoppers..

[LinuxHam]

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.

Updating the history - Evolution reaches a New Mil

[TuringTest]

A.D. 2000: On January 1st Microsoft NZ web site is first to announce that they have survived year 21000 bug. Slashdot community rejoices and lots of people swear the new millennium starts next year. ESR agrees that /. "gets it".

A.D. 2001: Mozilla release is expected during this millennium, although plans are to integrate it with the upcoming linux-2.4.0-test92-pre17-ac3.1-25.9, which would mean a slight delay.

A.D. 2002: Evolution reaches a New Milestone: Evolution v1.2. Management congratulates for it only delayed 1 year after the project deadline established by NostradArthur the Prophet.

Incompatible w. linux 2.5.* ?

[Pelam]

I noticed this few weeks ago with then latest 2.5 kernel. Some important parts of the window fail to appear completely e.g. the mail reading part (if I remember correctly) .

I browsed around for clues and found that this is related to communication between Evo components. This wasn't Evo 1.2 of course.

Evo developers seemed to be aware of this, but also seemed to think kernel was to blame. Every other prog seemed to work fine though. New kernel seemed very nice and soon it will be 2.6/3.0... I hope this is resolved by then

Do you have any specific info on this?

Re:Incompatible w. linux 2.5.* ?

[Anonymous Coward]

the kernel hackers are working to fix the kernel now. (well, rml is).

I was in #gnome during a discussion about this with rml and a few of the Evolution hackers and I think they reached the conclusion that it was indeed a bug in the kernel.

Evolution on Windows...

[Spoing]

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

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

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

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 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 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).

Improvements?

[someguy42]

Now if only they could make some improvements on the speed of the thing. That's one place Evolution really outshines Outlook...it's even slower! Open software is supposed to be lighter-weight than its' closed counterparts. And usually, lightweight=fast. Evolution's got great features, power, etc., but when it's slow to load up on a plenty powerful machine, I think I'll stick with Sylpheed.

Re:What OSS really needs: UIForge

[jbailey999]

We do *not* need this. If you have a usability degree from a school or alot of usability experience, Free Software projects are willing to receive you with open arms. Most of the rest of us know absolutely NOTHING about UI design. We know "what we like", which is almost always based on the pieces we got used to first in crappy interfaces like Motif, Win32, or Amiga.

Proper usability studies don't involve computer geeks at all - we're contaminated. They take your grandmother, the secretary down the hall, the postal worker and a car mechanic and sit them in the same room with wild and crazy things (pen/paper, mouse interface, books, etc) and watch how the handle them. Where do their eyes go first, what attracts them, and all that.

I'm glad that Gtk2 is taking some wild steps to do things that usability experts have been telling us for ages we need to do (like defaults on the right instead of the left). It's hard for us, but my non-geek wife sat down and Gnome2 Just Worked for her. No fuss - That's a success story.

Calendar sharing

[rosewood]

I am getting headaches trying to give cheap calendar sharing in outlook xp since you cant do netfolders anymore :

Can Evolution do something similar to netfolders or easily do contact list and cal. sharing?

What About Redhat 6.2?

[bombdotcom]

Evolution 1.2 for Redhat 6.2 is not up yet on Ximian's ftp site. Are they forsaking 6.2 since its so old?

Re:What OSS really needs: UIForge

[Lord Bitman]

The point of UIForge as opposed to regular forums would be organization. "Sorting through thousands of suggestions" would be replaced with a few dozen or hundred suggestions grouped together by what they say.
If you can get perl to do your sorting for you, it's not nearly as bad.

because of cock-suckers like you...

[Anonymous Coward]

...who do nothing but bitch and moan.

Just for the record...

[Anonymous Coward]

Moderation Totals: Offtopic=16, Redundant=1, Funny=23, Overrated=1, Total=41.

Very nice but...

[BrunoC]

The good thing about Ximian Evolution 1.2 is that the upgrade from 1.0.8 erased all my Contacts entries. And this is a very bad thing to do.

funny thing about gnomes

[squarefish]

I've been reading about them in the news a lot lately

Last Post!

[alpg]

Various documentation updates and bugfixes (the best way to know that a
stable kernel is approaching is to notice that somebody starts to
spellcheck the kernel - it has so far never failed)
-- Linus Torvalds in the annoucement for pre-2.1.99-3

- this post brought to you by the Automated Last Post Generator...