Evolution's menus may not hold the secret to happiness, they do hold every ability that Evolution has. This section will serve as a reference for all those menus, and the capabilites that they offer you. In addition, the editor tools for messages, appointments, and contacts all have menu bars of their own. From left to right, the menus available to you when you are reading mail are: File, Edit, View, Settings, Message, Folderand Help. Menus in Evolution are context-sensitive, which means that they vary depending on what you're doing. If you're reading your mail, you'll have mail-related menus; for your calendar, you'll have calendar-related menu items. Some menus, of course, like Help and File don't much, if at all, because they have more universal functions. But you'd never mark an address card as "read," or set the recurrence for an email message you've recieved. depending on whether you're looking at mail, contacts, or calendar information. The File and Help menus in the main Evolution window do not change, because they refer to universal items. Other menus have contents that change depending on context. New... Submenu Folder — Create a new folder. See for more information about folders. Shortcut — Create a new Shortcut in the Shortcut Bar. Mail Message — Compose a new mail message. Covered in . Appointment — Enter a new appointment in your calendar. See for more information. Task — Enter a new to-do item in your taskpad. Covered in . Go to Folder View the items in a particular folder. Create New Folder This item doesn't belong here any more. Print Message Print the current message. Exit Quit using Evolution. Help Index Displays the table of contents for this document. Getting Started A quick look around, and a summary of the things Evolution can do for you. Using the Mailer An in-depth tour of Evolution Mail. Using the Calendar A step-by-step guide to using the Calendar. Using the Contact Manager Find your way around the Contact Manager. Submit Bug Report If you don't report them, they can't fix them. Select this item to let the developers know what's wrong. About Evolution Displays a window with information about the application and its authors. This has the same information as . We'll leave this section blank until the UI stabilizes a little more. Evolution Mail has more specialized menus, and more specialized menu items, than any other part of the application. This menu is currently empty. This menu lets you control the way Evolution displays your information for you. Show Shortcut Bar Toggle the shortcut bar on and off with this item. Show Folder Bar Toggle the folder bar on and off with this item. See for more information about the folder bar. Threaded Message List This item controls whether your message list is displayed by thread or by other criteria. The default order is by date; see for information about the order of the message list. Mail Filters Edit your mail filters here. See for more information about mail filtering. Virtual Folder Editor Create, edit, and delete Virtual Folders (vFolders) with this tool. To learn about using vFolders with mail, see . Mail Configuration Tools for setting up all your mail account preferences. Manage Subscriptions Tools for newsgroup and IMAP folder subscriptions. Forget Passwords This item will cause Evolution to forget what your password is. The items in this menu relate to Evolution mail folders. You can: Mark all as Read Evolution keeps track of which messages you've seen; to mark everything in a folder as read, choose this item. You can mark a single message as read by right-clicking it in the message bar. Delete All This is a favorite item of everyone with too much junk-mail: one click, and it deletes every message in the current folder. Expunge Empties the trash folder, erasing messages permanently. Once you've done this, they're gone for good. Configure Folder Use this item to set the file format in which Evolution stores mail. You can choose from standard UNIX-style mbox files, or the mh format. Converting large mailboxes may take a long time, and it's a good idea to have a backup copy beforehand. The items in this menu relate to Evolution mail messages. Most of them require you to have a message selected, and are also available by right-clicking on a message in the message list. Open in New Window Displays the selected message in a new window. Edit Message Open the selected message in the message composer. You can only edit a message you have written: drafts and messages in the Sent box. Print Message Displays the Print Preview window, ready for printing. Reply to Sender Opens a message composition window addressed to the author of the message. Covered in detail in . Reply to All Opens a message composition window addressed to the author of the message and all known recipients. Covered in detail in . Forward Appends the body of the selected message to a new message. Covered in detail in . Delete Message Marks a message for deletion. Move Message Choose a folder in which to place this message. Copy Message Copy the selected message to another folder. VFolder on Subject This item, and the three that follow it, will create vFolders which you may customize further or save as-is. This one will create a vFolder which will display all messages that contain the subject line of the selected message. VFolder on Sender Creates a vFolder to hold all messages from the sender of the selected message. VFolder on Recipients Creates a VFolder to hold all messages addressed to the recipient of the selected message. Filter on Subject This item, and the three that follow it, will create Filters for which you must select actions. You may keep the criteria as they are, or alter them as you wish. This one will create a filter which will affect all messages that contain the subject line of the selected message. Filter on Sender Creates a filter which affects all messages from the sender of the selected message. Filter on Recipients Creates a filter which will affect all messages addressed to the recipient of the selected message. At the top of the message list is the message list heading bar; you can click on an individual heading — Subject, for example, to have the message list sorted by that attribute. However, if you right click on a heading, you'll get the following menu: Sort Ascending Sort the list, in ascending order, by the attribute you clicked. Sort Descending Sort the list in descending order. Unsort Undo any sorting by this attribute, and leave the message list sorted by the previous one. Group by this Field Instead of sorting the messages, group them in boxes. Group by Box If you have your messages grouped in boxes, you can arrange the boxes as well, by choosing this item. Remove this column Choose this to remove the column from the message list display. Field Chooser Opens a palette of columns. You can drag the columns you want from the palette into position in the message list heading bar; red arrows appear when you get close enough to a possibile position. Your options are: An Envelope which indicates whether a message has been read (closed for unread, open for read). An Exclamation Point for priority A Penguin which indicates something, although I'm not sure what. A Paper Clip which indicates that there is an attachment to the message. From, for the From field of a message. Subject, for the Subject field of a message. Date, for the date and time a message was sent. Received, for the date and time you got the message. To, for the To field. Size, for a message's size. Alignment Use this item to decide upon the alignment of the message attributes within their columns. Best Fit Alters the width of the message list columns to maximize the amount of information displayed. Format Columns... This item is not yet available. Customize Views... Opens a dialog box that lets you choose a complex set of arrangements for your message list, so you can combine sorting and grouping in as many ways as you like. The message composition window has its own set of menus: File, which controls operations on files and data, Edit, for text editing, Format, which controls the file format of messages you send, View, to set how you view the message, and Insert, which holds tools for embedding files and other items in messages. Here's what's in them: Open Open a text file or a draft mail message. Save Save a mail message as a text file. Save As Choose a file name and location for a message you want to save as a text file. Save in Folder Save a message as a draft, rather than as a separate text file. Insert Text File Open a text file and insert it into the current message. (FIXME: belongs under "Insert"). Send Now Sends the message immediately. Send Later Queue Close Closes the message composer. If you have not done so, Evolution will ask you if you want to save your message. The Edit menu in the message composer contains the following items. Keyboard shortcuts are listed next to the items in the menus themselves. Undo Undoes the last action you performed. Redo If you change your mind about Undoing something, you can always use this item. Cut Removes the selected text from the text entry window and retains it in the system "clipboard" memory, ready for pasting. Copy Copies selected text to the system clipboard without deleting it. The text can then be inserted elsewhere with the Paste command. Paste Inserts the contents of the system clipboard at the location of the cursor. Find Enter a phrase and find your match in your message body. As with Find Regex, Find Again, and Replace, Evolution will offer you the option to search forwards or backwards. Find Regex If you are familiar with regular expressions, often called "regexes," you can search for something more complicated, using wildcards and boolean logic. Find Again Repeats your last search. Replace Enter a word or phrase and the word or phrase with which you'd like to replace it. Properties This item brings up the Message Composer Properties Capplet, a portion of the GNOME Control Center that determines the key bindings for the message composer. Help for this capplet is available directly from the Control Center. (FIXME: Write that help doc too) (FIXME: this is in the wrong place!) The Format menu has only one item: HTML Toggles HTML mode for the message composer. When selected, the message is displayed and sent in HTML. If you have written a message in HTML and turn HTML off, most formatting will be lost. Evolution will attempt to preserve spacing and to remove formatting gracefully, however. The View menu controls the way messages are displayed, and how much of the message, its headers, and attachments appear. It contains: Show Attachments Toggles the display of attachments. When this item is selected, Evolution will create a separate pane of the composition window to show what attachments you are appending to the message. The Insert menu holds tools that allow you to include images, horizontal rules, and other objects in the body of your message. The tools are: Image This tool will prompt you to select an image file to insert into your HTML message. For text messages, this is the same as attaching an image file. Link Opens the link creation window, which lets you specify the URL and text description for a link in your message. This only works with HTML messages. Rule Opens the horizontal rule creation dialog, which lets you create an HTML horizontal rule. For more information, see . This tool only works with HTML messages. Text File Open a text file and insert it into the current message. This tool works with both plain text and HTML messages. The Main window of the calendar has the same menus as the main window of the mail client. However, their contents vary in a number of ways. The contents of the Edit menu are currently so borked that I refuse to document them right now. (That means FIXME). They should be: Item Description Item Description Item Description The Calendar's View menu contains the following items: Show Shortcut Bar Toggle the Shortcut Bar on and off with this item. Show Folder Bar Toggle the folder bar on and off with this item. See for more information about the folder bar. View By Day Switch to the day view for your calendar. View Five Days View five calendar days at once. View by Week Switch the calendar view to full week mode. View By Month Look at a month at a time. This menu is empty. The appointment editor has its own menus, to help you use its wide-ranging abilities. This menu contains several items, including a New submenu that is identical to that in the main window's file menu. Its other contents are: Send Opens a mail message with the appointment attached to it. Save Save this appointment in the existing location and name. If you have not yet chosen a location and name, this is the same as Save As. Save As Choose a location and name for this appointment, and save it. Delete Deletes the appointment. Move to Folder Chose a folder, and move the appointment into it. Copy to Folder Chose a folder, and put a copy of the appointment into it. Page Setup Submenu This menu contains two items: Memo Style — FIXME: What does this do? Define Print Styles — FIXME: What does this do? Print Preview Shows you what your appointment will look like if you print it. See for details on printing and the Print Preview function. Print Prints the appointment without preview. Properties FIXME: What does this do? Close Close the appointment editor window. FIXME: this menu is copied and pasted entirely from somewhere else. This menu allows you to look at different appointments, and set the way you look at them, without having to move back to the Main Window. It contains: Previous The items in this submenu will take you to appointments prior to the current one. (FIXME: describe). Next The items in this submenu will take you to appointments scheduled to occur after the current one. (FIXME: describe). Calendar FIXME: What does this item do? Toolbars The Toolbars submenu allows you to choose which toolbars are displayed in the Appointment Editor. They are: Standard — Toggle the standard toolbar on and off. Formatting — Toggle the formatting toolbar on and off. Customize — Select the contents of the formatting and standard toolbars. This menu contains: (FIXME: Insert Content Here) File Choose a file to append to your appointment or appointment request. Item FIXME: ? Object FIXME: ? This menu contains two items, neither of which have any functionality yet: Font FIXME: ? Paragraph FIXME: ? This menu contains four items, including the Forms submenu, which allows you to alter calendar forms and create your own entries. None of this works yet, though. Spelling Checks the spelling of your calendar entry. Check Names Checks the names listed here against those in your address book. Address Book FIXME: ? Forms Submenu The Forms submenu lets you alter the appearance of Calendar Forms. This menu contains: Schedule Meeting Brings up the Meeting Invitation window, described in . Cancel Invitation Cancels the event, notifying all attendees. You may be prompted to specify an invitation message. Forward as vCalendar Opens the message composer with the current event attached. Forward as Text Opens the message composer with a text description of the current event included in the message body. This menu is empty. The contact manager has six menus: File, Edit, View, Settings, Tools, and Help. This menu is empty. This menu contains the following items: Show Shortcut Bar Toggle the Shortcut Bar on and off with this item. Show Folder Bar Toggle the folder bar on and off with this item. See for more information about the folder bar. As Table / As Minicards View your contacts as a table. When in table-view mode, this menu item reads As Minicards, and changes the view back to the minicard format. This menu contains one item: Search for Contacts Brings up the in-depth search window. describes how to use this feature. This menu contains only one item: New Directory Server Brings up the in-depth search window. describes how to use this feature. This window has only one menu: the file menu. This menu contains five items: Save Save As Allows you to save the contact as an external file in the VCard format. Print Prints the current contact. Delete Deletes the current contact. Close Closes the Contact Editor without saving.