Ximian Evolution's New Clothes

Lispy writes "Looks like everyone's favorite graphical email client, Ximian Evolution, will get a new interface with the upcoming release. I found a posting on the Evolution hackers bulletin board which leads to some mocked-up screenshots (here: calendar, tasks, mail, contacts and one of the shrunken navbar). Although this is mostly eyecandy, this could be the right time to make yourself heard. What do you think about a maturing Evolution that goes its own way and leaves the Outlook-like interface behind?"

Comments

no spam filter?

[tomstdenis]

Quickly checked their feature list. No automatic spam filter [as in Mozilla].

No sale. I live off that moz filter [since it catches basically all spam I get].

Tom

Re:no spam filter?

[dracvl]

One word.

POPFile.

You'll love it, I promise ;)

Re:no spam filter?

[Mr.Ned]

Evolution isn't targeting your demographic. Evolution is the complete Outlook replacement. Most corporations will have a server-side spam filtering set up; while an integrated Bayesian filtering mechanism might function better, in practice it's probably not worth the individual user's time to set up and train.

A quick look thorugh the official Q & A shows a simple, local SpamAssassin integration HOWTO.

Re:no spam filter?

[aastanna]

Oh, I don't know. Apple's Mail.app has an integrated Baysian filter and it isn't hard to set up at all. One click to turn on training mode, then you just say "Spam" or "Not Spam" to every email that's identified incorrectly. When it stops making mistakes, one more click to go from training to actually filtering. Outlook is quite common on Windows boxes as a simple mail client, witness the popularity of spam viruses. If it wants to be an Outlook replacement how could it hurt to include such an excellent feature.

Re:no spam filter?

[mystran]

In addition, you don't need to genius to add (external) spam filter to Evolution anyway. =)

Tools -> Filters.. -> Add

Re:no spam filter?

[SweetAndSourJesus]

Most ISPs do spam filtering. Earthlink has spam filtering services that need to be turned on, but they also do host-blocking whether you like it or not.

Try sending mail from a dynamic IP to an @earthlink.net address.

Re:no spam filter?

[Libor Vanek]

But imagine how cool would be if you can through the Evolution interface give command to SpamAssassin that this message is spam (even if not marked so) and this (even marked as spam) isn't. This would make Bayesian learning much more user friendly.

Re:no spam filter?

[tcopeland]

There's also a nifty Outlook to Evolution conversion utility. It does a good job on contacts, tasks, etc, and gives pointers on how to convert email folders.

I used it to convert from Outlook to Evolution and it worked pretty well.

Re:no spam filter?

[jfm3]

Most ISPs do spam filtering these days. Users demand it.

Spam is put in a special IMAP folder rather than being deleted outright, so you can double check if you want. This is the same thing you get with a client side spam filter, right?

I'd rather have client side spam filtering than not, I agree, but I still think the ideal place to do it is on the server side.

Re:no spam filter?

[tomstdenis]

Oooh, ooh, one word.

Redundant.

I already have Moz installed, it already sports a mail client which has spam control.

Why would I install this new suite and then a spam filter?

Tom

Re:no spam filter?

[Zuke8675309]

The beauty of POPfile is not that it is a spam filter. In fact, it's not a spam filter. POPfile is an email sorter/classifier. Subtle difference, but very important. You can train POPfile to sort email into "buckets" or categories of your own creation. Of course, one of those categories will be spam - it's just that catching spam isn't the *only* thing that POPfile does and that is why it's far superior than other spam filters. At work, I have about 8 different buckets set up that my email sorts into based on content. AWESOME for keeping your incoming email organized and keeping the spam all to itself.

XImian's logo looks like a self-spanking monkey.

[Anonymous Coward]

Now that is evolved.

Re:Bluring out emails

[jared_hanson]

It's OK, Slashdot has done a remarkable job of censoring anything that I have been trying to see.

clothes?

[elmegil]

Maybe they could make other things work right before worrying about the look and feel? Like the IMAP implementation? I just resolved today that I *am* going to get around to writing my own email client after the bloody thing stopped working with my IMAP INBOX for no apparent reason, and with no apparent fix in sight. And no, email clients by browser makers are not worth a damn so they're not an option either.

Re:clothes?

[good soldier svejk]

Maybe they could make other things work right before worrying about the look and feel? Like the IMAP implementation? I just resolved today that I *am* going to get around to writing my own email client after the bloody thing stopped working with my IMAP INBOX for no apparent reason, and with no apparent fix in sight.

Wouldn't it be easier to fix their implementation than to write a whole new client from scratch? That is sort of the point of Free Software; if you don't like the implementation, change it. No?

Re:clothes?

[Kaa]

I just resolved today that I *am* going to get around to writing my own email client after the bloody thing stopped working...

Zawinski's Law: Every program attempts to expand until it can read mail. Those programs which cannot so expand are replaced by ones which can.

Re:clothes?

[IIRCAFAIKIANAL]

oooooohhhhh (groan).

Sounds you got one of those self spanking monkey's I heard about...

Re:clothes?

[elmegil]

Given that I was planning to work in Java anyway, that looks pretty cool, I'll check it out. Thanks! Bitching on slashdot DOES pay off!

Re:clothes?

[akorvemaker]

You may want to consider Sylpheed. It uses the GTK+ toolkit which is fairly cross-platform. It's meant to be fast and lightweight. It has a Windows port.

It may not be what you're looking for, but it can't hurt to take a look. And if it's just missing a few features, contributing to this project may be more feasible than starting your own.

Evolution not for everybody

[UnknowingFool]

Although Evolution is comparable to Outlook in many ways, it is not for everybody. Take fundamental Christians, for example. To them, Evolution doesn't exist. :)

Re:Evolution not for everybody

[mblase]

Actually, most fundamentalist Christians who are informed about such things will say that it's only macroevolution which they disbelieve. Which, I suppose, means you have to execute it using a mouse click instead of a keyboard shortcut.

Re:Evolution not for everybody

[netgee]

What do studies say about someone who dismisses a (rather large) subset of the population as "not relevant" simply because of their personal beliefs?

Re:Evolution not for everybody

[undertow3886]

Who are these informed fundamentalist Christians of which you speak?

Great

[Bob Abooey]

I'm all for eye candy but...

I've been using Evolution for the past couple years and I'm giving some thought to making the move back to Kmail or even to ..gulp... Mozilla for my email client because Evolution is just butt slow. Butt slow. I'm using version 1.2 that comes with Linux 9.0 and it's slow. I really hope they are working on optimizing the code as well as making it look good because as it stands now you're not going to wow anyone who is using Outlook (which isn't blazing fast by any means) into switching.

Re:Great

[int2str]

"Linux 9.0", eh?

You're not gonna get much love around here, Bob. What is it, RedHat 9, Mandrake 9.0?

The current stable Linux version is 2.4.20. Don't confuse the Linux kernel with your GNU/Linux distribution of choice.

Cheers,
André

Re:Great

[ajs318]

I thought that was the point of package management - that you could go back and reinstall older versions and their libraries if you had to, and have it all taken care of for you. If you're running Slackware or LFS, with no .rpms or .debs, you can pretty much make up the directory structure as you go along {it's only the package managers that insist on strict hierarchies, and to be fair how else are they to have a cat in hell's chance of knowing where your files are at?}, and compile the latest versions into their own directories.

Re:Great

[Jellybob]

Damn, you almost sounded intelligent until you spouted off about "DEBIAN" 9.0 - if you're going to be picky about version numbers, you should really check you're not 6 releases ahead of yourself (and that's only if you count a RC release as a full release).

Re:Great

[phoenix_rizzen]

Well, since we're being nit-picky, there's no such beast as a "Pentium 866". The fastest Pentium available is 200 (yes, there's the 266 MHz, but that's a Pentium MMX).

If you are going to correct people, at least be correct yourself. :)

Outlook was bad anyway

[Ranx]

The Outlook interface was bad anyway. I can understand making an UNIX-version of Outlook to make it easier for Windows-users to migrate to UNIX, but from an usability standpoint, it's unbelievable.

Even Microsoft has come to understand this: the upcoming Outlook will be quite different.

Re:Outlook was bad anyway

[burns210]

"Even Microsoft has come to understand this: the upcoming Outlook will be quite different."

Ya, but acording to this screenshot... It may be a even WORSE user interface.

Re:Outlook was bad anyway

[spectecjr]

"Even Microsoft has come to understand this: the upcoming Outlook will be quite different."
Ya, but acording to this screenshot... It may be a even WORSE user interface.

Doesn't look any different to me. All they did was put the preview pane to the right of the folder list.

All that really looks that different is the UI theme, and that's because it's from Longhorn.

Compare these screenshots:

Office 2k3 Beta 2 with a more usable layout

Outlook 2002/XP

Not much difference, except for the theme and the handling of the left-bar, with better docking of the folder view.

Simon

slashdotted, use google cache

[leomekenkamp]

Those new clothes might get burned pretty fast if their server keeps on getting hit by the slashdot effect; please try google's cache instead.

Re:slashdotted, use google cache

[Abcd1234]

Which is not very useful since google caches the text of the email, but not the actual images (which are presented as links rather than inline).

Emacs keybindings

[DarknessInBlindingLi]

As long as they don't give me my Emacs-style keybindings back, I don't care about no eyecandy!

Re:Emacs keybindings

[ZarKov]

You can have Emacs-style keybindings in all of your GTK2 apps. Set the GConf key /desktop/gnome/interface/gtk_key_theme to Emacs.

If you're a Slashdot subscriber...

[WIAKywbfatw]

...you get first dibs on slashdotting everyones servers!

Re:If you're a Slashdot subscriber...

[LurkerXXX]

Yeah, but since most stories are dupes, you'll just be slashdotting an already slashdotted server anyhow.

Well

[quantaman]

What do you think about a maturing Evolution that goes its own way and leaves the Outlook-like interface behind?"

Not much since the site is /.ed though I'm hoping it will be nice :) My main concern is whether they'll get any kind of automatic address completion like there is in Eudora or the Mozilla address bar, contacts are nice but a bit of a pain to set up and they're still not as nice as autocompletion.

Separating from Outlook

[dlosey]

While it would be nice to try and surpass Outlook in useability, is that something worth trying at this stage in the game? If you are trying to convince a company to use a new email client, you want to ensure them that they will not have to retrain their employees. With Ximian, they do not have a large enough user base IMHO. If I were them, I would wait until I had a little bit more market share before trying a move like that. The general office worker usually can not deal with huge software changes without retraining. I know many workers who just follow the same list of commands/buttons for checking there email, without knowing what all the commands/buttons do.

Re:Separating from Outlook

[roothog]

Actually, since Microsoft is also abandoning the current Outlook interface, as a previous poster noted, this seems like the perfect time to change interfaces. If they do not change, they look like old product. Changing keeps them current and offers the new opportunity to distinguish themselves from Outlook.

Re:Screenshots

[edmz]

seems to me that the ximian screenshots you point to are not for the mentioned beta 2, but rather current v1.x

Outlook 2003

[ikewillis]

In Outlook 2003, Microsoft is also abandoning the current Outlook interface in favor of a "panes" driven interface.

Looking at these screen shots, Ximian has opted for a toolbar-driven approach. This seems like a reasonable way to go, considering that it's a methodology familiar to the majority of computer users.

I think any frequent user of Outlook learned to despise the side navbar. I'm glad that both Evolution and Outlook 2003 will be abandoning it.

Re:Outlook 2003

[guanxi]

Microsoft is also abandoning the current Outlook interface in favor of a "panes" driven interface.

Isn't that straight out of the OS X finder? Though, of course, Apple probably got their idea from Xerox.

Re:Outlook 2003

[fava]

Anyone notice in the screen shot listed above most of the email is msn spam?

Re:Outlook 2003

[quakeroatz]

I think any frequent user of Outlook learned to despise the side navbar.

Any "frequent" user would know to:
1. Right Click Navbar
2. Select Hide Outlook Bar

Sometimes even Linux users need to RTFM, the one from Microsoft.

Re:Outlook 2003

[Jon Abbott]

Isn't that straight out of the OS X finder? Though, of course, Apple probably got their idea from Xerox.

Yes, but Apple seems to be adopting the sidebar idea for Finder that both Evolution and Outlook are dropping... I just hope my mom's head doesn't explode with all of these UI changes taking place.

Re:Outlook 2003

[DigitalCH]

Been using it for about 9 months... Trust me it works great. Especially if you have a nice flatscreen. Between the improved look and feel and the "real" XML integration this is truly the first office upgrade thats worth it since office 97.

Move away from outlook

[ccano]

The calendar views in Outlook and Evolution are horrible. It's hard to distinguish the demarcations between months/weeks etc, and it's just very non-user friendly IMHO.

My current hopes and dreams are on a often-forgotten Mozilla Calendar, which I'm hoping will find the attention of hte masses and get that last-mile work it so desperately needs to become my permanent calendar...

Re:I just have 2 words to words to say

[Drakonian]

Does it have the calendar/task features that Evolution does? Outlook similarity is a big selling point of Evolution, IMO.

Re:I just have 2 words to words to say

[Osty]

I have 4 words to say: Mozilla Don't Got Calender.

If you're willing to go for one more word, you could actually sound intelligent. How about, "Mozilla doesn't have a calendar," instead? Also, since it's irrelevant (and impossible?) for Mozilla to have or be a machine in which cloth or paper is made smooth and glossy by being pressed through rollers, I fixed your misspelling of "calendar".

getting accepted means not scaring the illiterate

[laugau]

I mean think about it, to REPLACE the outlook interface, you need to offer an alternative that is not only stronger, better and faster, but one that the computer illiterate (and marginally literate) will use. If you think about it, we are still the minority and are as happy with ximian as mutt, but can we assume the same of 99% of the user base? Absolutely not!!! We need to get them addicted to our interface with transparent innovations before we go to the visible (and potentially intimidating) ones.

In most dev classes, aren't we taught to automate the existing business practices before changing them? The whole thing is an evolution... but evolution is evolving too fast in this case.

Tabs not buttons

[Anonymous Coward]

This was posted to gnomedesktop.org last week.

I did a quick mockup of what this would look like with tabs instead of buttons.

Some of the reasons for using tabs instead of buttons:

• Custom tabs - User can create new tabs for access to frequently used views (replaces the shortcuts)
• Tabs can be renamed - Allows user to specify a name that is more meaningful to them
• Tabs can be dragged - If Anjuta2 style containers are used tags can be dragged to be reordered or even dragged off the shell into it's own application window.
• Less screen area waisted - tabs allow clean navigation without resorting to taking up a chunk of UI

--
J5

Re:Tabs not buttons

[Mournblade]

That's pretty sweet. I was thinking a while back that i'd love to be able to run the "other" Mozilla Apps (Mail, Calendar, etc) as Tabs in the browser window.

Re:Tabs not buttons

[cpeterso]

Your mockup looks very nice. I agree that tabbed "views" seem better. Less screen real estate and they help visualize the data "views".

I used to work with one of the dev leads for Microsoft Outlook. If you think the Outlook UI is crowded or difficult now, you should hear the ideas that Outlook PMs proposed that were shot down! One proposal was similar to your tabbed mockup, but instead of one row of tabs along the top, there were THREE DIMENSIONS of tabs! There were tabs along the top, along the side, and along the bottom of the window! These different tab rows would interact in strange and "useful" ways to create new data views.

It's sad, really.. :-)

Changed to a new set of Outlook clothes...

[mrdlcastle]

Just an FYI, If you look closely at the snapshots they are identical (almost) to the way Entourage looks (the Apple version of Outlook).

So in reality, they are not moving away from Outlook. They are just updating to keep up with it.

Re:I just have 2 words to words to say

[k-hell]

Mozilla.org hosts a Calendar project. It can be found here. Although still in development and a bit buggy, it includes the basic functionality. I have been using it for a couple of months now.

Currently, I think the Calendar only supports Mozilla. I am not sure what will be done (if any?) to support Firebird/Thunderbird. I hope that it will be a standalone project like the new browser and mail client.

Better choices out there

[mao che minh]

I gave up on Evolution when I tried the version that shipped with Red Hat 7.3. I also took one look at Kmail at the time and decided to pass.

Mozilla Mail was overall faster, easier to configure, far less bulky, and part of the browser (lighter). It's spam filtering capability is also a must - as is it's security and presentation options.

The only thing I liked about Evolution was the little configurable main page, where you could put in your favorate news-feeds or weather forecasts and what not. It also crashed harder then Outlook on a p133 with 16MB of RAM and Windows 98 First Edition.

Re:Better choices out there

[elmegil]

part of the browser (lighter)

I thought it just made the browser heavier. Seems pretty pointless to me; email isn't a web page, shouldn't be a web page, and the mozilla/netscape/whatever browser based email clients I've seen all suck.

Not yet ...

[BillsPetMonkey]

When evolution supports multibyte characters - that's when it will surpass outlook. Seriously - I use Japanese and English email and as soon as I tried migrating to Evolution all my email just &#"%"#%\'"&#%\%"'&%!>('$

Re:Not yet ...

[IamTheRealMike]

Wierd. The amount of asian spam I get is incredible. It virtually all renders nicely too, in antialiased glyphs :)

Try Evo 1.4 - that's based on GTK2, which uses Pango, which has lots of international characters/unicode support goodness.

It cant be worse...

[AvengerXP]

Than Lotus Notes's Interface. Oh the horror, the humanity!

Re:Good Ridance To Outlook Style

[k-hell]

This url for those of you who couldn't make the above url work.

Ximian Evolution

[harryk]

Will be great for moving people away from MS desktops. Coupled with Abiword or even OpenOffice is really giving me goosebumps.

One way that I'm encouraged by alot of the desktop push is by companies (some) moving to browser based applications. The company that I work for is developing their next application to be completely browser based. While this is no big deal, the interesting part, is that it 'should' work well with mozilla, thus paving the way for full linux desktops. NICE

Win32/Cygwin port

[Stonent1]

Has anyone ported this to Win32 or Cygwin yet?

Re:Win32/Cygwin port

[ptr2void]

What for? Are there still people using Windows?

A Small Reason to Switch, Gone

[digime]

Evolution, as is, is one of the few "killer apps" that promotes the adoption of Linux on the desktop at home and in businesses IMHO. From a corporation's perspective going from Outlook to Evolution as far as users are concerned is easy. It seems the developers are talking about coding away major similarities between Outlook and Evolution to make life easier for themselves, not to help the average user. And it definitely doesn't help with the transition to Linux. I think it's a real shame.

Re:A Small Reason to Switch, Gone

[IamTheRealMike]

Supporting Exchange 5.5 would require a complete DCOM implementation, as well as an understanding of the MAPI protcols.

In short, it's a LOT of work. So much work, in fact, that the investment probably wouldn't be easily recouped. As many places are upgrading anyway, I can see why they don't want to support it.

OTOH it is open source. Perhaps once Wine gets full DCOM support, it will be possible. But by the time that happens, truly nobody will use Exchange 5.5 any more at all :(

Roaming address books..

[Garion911]

I haven't researched it recently, but what would be a kinda killer app for me is roaming addressbooks... From what I read, older versions of Netscape had this feature, but no one supports it now..

I would really like to be able to sync my palm, and have the email address available on my web-email.. Or on my GUI email client (Sylpheed).. Or in OpenOffice..

Yes, LDAP will do alot of that, but I would also like per user.. I want my own roaming addressbook, and my girlfriend can have her own.. ANd being able to have a global addressbook would be bonus..

Is there anything else out there, besides Netscape Roaming, and is supported by a few email clients?

Windows port?

[Anonymous Coward]

Ah, a decent Outlook replacement. Maybe I won't have to suffer with these OE bugs any more. And when I use Linux I can stay with the same client. Maybe I'll even switch my laptop to Linux if I can do that.

Er, nevermind, Ximian doesn't care about us Windows users.

Multiple Calendars

[FU_Fish]

I'm really hoping that multiple calendars makes it into the next realease. This is one feature that I've wanted for a long time and have never had the time to code in myself. I guess time will tell. Thanks to those of you who work on evolution, it's a great product.

Whither WCAP?

[IGnatius T Foobar]

One of the things holding back open source groupware is the absence of stuff that does true client/server group calendaring and scheduling. This shouldn't be the case -- the Netscape/iPlanet/SunONE calendar server has been talking WCAP for ages, and the calendar client in Netscape 4.7 spoke WCAP fluently. The protocol is well-documented. So why hasn't Ximian stepped up to the plate and implemented it?

Re:Whither WCAP?

[Dr. Smeegee]

They are waiting for Cit/UX groupware to be finished so they can see the right way to do it.

Re:Whither WCAP?

[Wesley Felter]

Maybe they don't support WCAP because it's a single-vendor stopgap protocol; the standard protocol (CAP) will be finished soon enough.

One key Outlook feature missing...

[theendlessnow]

...they haven't figured out a way to automatically send an arbitrary message to everyone in your address book via some external means.

I'm not going to use it until feature complete!!

Re:Finally

[mblase]

I think it's great that they are moving it beyond being an Outlook-alike.

Agreed. IANALU (Linux User), but one of my biggest complaints about Linux software in general has been its inevitable tendency to imitate Microsoft's graphical interface first, and Apple's second. Anytime a project like Evolution or Mozilla is able to break rank and develop its own interface, it's a Good Thing, because it proves the software is mature enough to improve on someone else's interface design.

Re:I just have 2 words to words to say

[ChaosMagic]

Although still in development and a bit buggy, it includes the basic functionality. I have been using it for a couple of months now.

You were right about the buggy bit, it's only the 14th you know; you've been using it for two WEEKS not months... ;)

Mirror: http://acm.cs.nyu.edu/~tugrul/evo2/

[tugrul]

Calendar
Tasks
Mail
Contacts
Shrunken Navbar

Re:That's all this world needs.

[elmegil]

And where the hell did I say it was going to be open source? Or even released to anyone but me?

Evolution is missing MAPI

[acidtripp101]

I have a friend who is having problems converting his workstation over to a *NIX machine because every browser in existance for *NIX is missing MAPI support, which he requires. I know that Ximian sells a package that emulates mapi stuff, but that doesn't cut it.

Re:Try KMail

[elmegil]

Um, KMail under Solaris GNOME? KMail on my windows machine at home? Don't think so.

Usability research and testing

[c0d3h4x0r]

There is one problem with straying from the Outlook user interface: Evolution's developers will need to instead conduct their own usability research and testing, which can be costly and may not be something they are good at.

Regardless of how you feel about Microsoft, the fact is that they perform thorough usability research and testing on all their software. A frustrated individual may question or complain about the interface of Outlook, but that interface was methodically refined and evolved to meet the needs of the widest majority of users, not that one user's preferences.

The single biggest failing in Microsoft's approach to usability is overkill. They make everything far more complex than it needs to be. For instance, in nearly every Microsoft program there are at least 4 different ways to accomplish the same task (window menu, shortcut key, toolbar icon, context menu). Ridiculous, and more than your average person can (or wants to) wrap their brain around.

Personally, I don't think much research or rocket science is necessary to create a usable program. Just follow the KISS philosophy ("keep it simple, stupid") and you'll be 90% on the right track. The critical part is to test the design against as many real, average users as you can, and seriously incorporate their feedback into your design (even if it seems contrary to your personal feelings about how the program should work).

Or, put even more simply: Give people what they want, not what you want to give them.

Evolution Screenshots cache / mirror of mockups

[Anonymous Coward]

I have a mirror / cache of the mockup screenshots. Not all of them are up there yet but I'll put them up as soon as I get them

evo2_contacts.png
evo2_calendar.png
evo2_mail.png
evo2_tasks.png
evo2_navbar_shrunk.png

Re:Evolution Screenshots cache / mirror of mockups

[Jordy]

As I said in another thread. This interface is *very* similar to Microsoft Entourage. Not that there is anything wrong with that, but Entourage does a few other nice things to refine it a bit. Some screen shots of Entourage:

Address Book w/ small buttons

Mail

Calendar

Re:Evolution Screenshots cache / mirror of mockups

[rvsrvs]

So why smudge the guy's email address in the top pane of the address book, but leave his email and PHONE NUMBER in the bottom? :^)

[OT] changing sent and drafts on mail.app

[petard]

I changed my sent and drafts (OS X 10.2) by highlighting the mailbox I wanted to use, going to the "Mailbox" menu, and selecting "Use Selected Mailbox for" -> the option I wanted. Interestingly enough, mail.app appears to update all its message counts during its message cycles for me too, but I don't recall doing anything to cause that. (I have new messages distributed into approx. 15 folders.) It only shows the ones in the inbox(es) in its dock biff, however.

HTH-

petard

LDAP support

[po_boy]

I wonder if they'll allow me to specify my LDAP contacts database as my default source with this new eye candy. Currently, I have to make new contacts in my own database and then move them to the LDAP server.

No S/MIME

[bivaughn]

Evolution/Connector would certainly be a killer app for me and allow me to move away from Windows/Outlook, but without S/MIME support, it's a no-go. Lots of financial institutions are moving to S/MIME as well, not just computer firms like mine. Come on X guys, give us something more standardized than GPG!

-biv

My 2 cents on Evolution

[bsands]

I really think evolution should try and keep a similar feel to Outlook at this stage. With Outlook so entrenched on the desktop; a similar feel is a great way to convince people to convert. My only criticism is Ximian is pricing their exchange connector way too high in my opinion. I would love to use Evolution to access my work email. However, at 69 bucks for a single user license there is little incentive to move away from Outlook; which so many have already paid for. If they considering pricing it around the 20 dollar range, maybe they would make up the difference on volume.

200 Baud.

[Ayandia]

Trying to download these images reminds me of when I practically had to whistle into my phone to check my mail.

Thank god for progress...and Slashdot's nostagia-inducing ServerPain(TM).

Start from scratch...

[trboyden]

I was very disappointed in the result of the Ogo project. What started out as the Outlook/Exchange killer ended up being just another "sure I'm free except to make me work you have to buy a license" project. I think the Open Source community need to band together and start from the ground up on a new cross-platform email client and server that is standards based and has all the functionality of an Exchange setup. I can't program, but I'd be willing to organize and manage if there is interest by programmers out there to join such a project. I think a good Exchange replacement would use IMAP for it's communication protocol, MySQL for the backend message store, and some good coding and user interface testing with plenty of documentation for a start. Ideally I think a good PIM should be an all-in-one app like Outlook, but the UI could be done a lot better. Managing multiple apps from a systems admin point of view can be hell when they all have their own little quirks.

Re:XImian's logo looks like a self-spanking monkey

[0racle]

BSD's demon isn't offensive, it's a play on words, and ask most people it's the cutest logo for a computer system they've seen. It's a sad state of affairs when a monkey (Ximian, get it?) is offensive. It's just a logo, and quite an apt one. I assume you approve of the Debian swirl thing, as long as they don't include Tux, as I see you don't seem to like penguins. Sure it can't be construed as offensive without some serious thought, but what does it mean, how does it symbolize the Debian Project? And why stop there? What about the Enron 'E', its a little crooked, seems we should have known they were up to something, or IBM's, I mean with those parts missing, my god its down right shady, should I not trust IBM's products now? The logo for MS windows isn't non-cultural as you say because they wanted to appeal to a large audience but because it's a Window, it made sense. Apples is an apple because, well the Steve's didn't think that a pomegranate would be a good image for a company named Apple, oh and notice that little Byte out of it, see humor, something it seems you lack. A logo should be something that embodies the entity it represents, while ideally being something that is easily recognizable. The people obviously have a thing about monkeys, who else would choose the word Ximian for their project, or mono for a C# implementation. They like monkeys, it's their project name, so obviously their logo is also a monkey. The BSD's demon is humor along the same lines as Apples, so it makes perfect sense to those who use it. If you want to deprive yourself of good software because a monkey scares you, that's up to you, but these logos and images do encompass the projects they represent, and for those who know, for example the users, they make sense

Re:I just have 2 words to words to say

[stuntpope]

Because (for one example), in Outlook, someone can email you an appointment which can then get added to your calendar, and will signal a reminder when that appointment time rolls around. Maybe you don't need this, but if the idea is to sway Outlook users to use Evolution instead, a simple 'does one job well' email client isn't going to get users to switch. They'll say "how come I can't do x in Evolution, I could always do it in Outlook' and then they'll moan that non-MS apps are inferior.

Don't laugh - I use pine

[gosand]

I gave up on Evolution when I tried the version that shipped with Red Hat 7.3. I also took one look at Kmail at the time and decided to pass. Mozilla Mail was overall faster, easier to configure, far less bulky, and part of the browser (lighter). It's spam filtering capability is also a must - as is it's security and presentation options. The only thing I liked about Evolution was the little configurable main page, where you could put in your favorate news-feeds or weather forecasts and what not. It also crashed harder then Outlook on a p133 with 16MB of RAM and Windows 98 First Edition.

I'd have no idea what Outlook was like if I wasn't forced to use it at work. The only thing I like about Outlook is the calendar portion of it. The rest is crap.

At home I use pine. Yeah, that pine. I have tried the following email clients: Kmail, Moz, Opera - yet I always come back to pine. While on vacation in Paris, I was able to pay a couple Euros at an internet cafe, download PuTTY, and check my email over ssh, all in about 2 minutes. No downloading of messages, and more importantly attachments. No worries about viruses or flashy garbage html. I do get some spam, but it is quick to delete and add to my own ruleset if I see a pattern. I use fetchmail to pull all of my various accounts into one place. I can even check it over a 56k when visiting my parents, and it isn't too slow.

The one drawback may be attachments, but if I am at home, I have applications set up to view those. If I am remote, I can always save them off and download them if I really need to via ftp or http.

For me, simplicity rules. For work, I can see why you would need some of the features - but for the most part, it is just fluffy packaging.

STILL no memos/notes???

[macemoneta]

The memos piece has been missing forever. Can't display memos synced from PDA. That's one Outlook feature I used heavily.