The idea of evolution as a process of improvement and development is a strong influence on the developers at Helix Code. We named our groupware suite "Evolution" because we knew that it would be able to survive in the wilderness of the software marketplace for one reason: it's better. Evolution is a suite of groupware applications within the GNOME desktop environment that you can use to send, receive, and organize email, manage address and other contact information, and maintain a calendar. It enables you to do those things on one or several computers, connected directly or over a network, for one person or for large groups. Evolution can handle almost all your communications tasks with the power and flexibility of the GNOME desktop environment. We built Evolution with three groups of people in mind: everyday users, system administrators, and developers. For everyday users, we made Evolution easy to use without sacrificing power. We made the interface familiar and intuitive, but also allowed users to customize it to their liking. We made the setup and configuration as easy as possible. For any confusion, we wrote a comprehensive manual and help system. For administrators, we made sure Evolution met and and exceeded the standards set by currently available groupware products, and we developed support for most major network protocols so that it can integrate seamlessly with existing hardware and network environments. All of our efforts have made Evolution both easy to use and easy to support. For developers, we built in support for open standards and protocols to turn Evolution into an advanced development platform. From the simplest scripting to the most complex network and component programming, Evolution offers developers the ideal environment for cutting-edge application development. For all three groups, we did our best to ensure the safety of data. In action, Evolution makes most daily tasks faster, because we built it to work with you instead of against you. For example, it takes only one or two clicks to enter an appointment or an address card sent to you by email, or to send email to a contact or appointment. Evolution makes displays faster and more efficient, so searches are faster and memory usage is lower. People who get lots of mail will appreciate advanced features like vFolders, which let you save searches as though they were ordinary mail folders.

This version of the Evolution User's Guide is a draft. It is missing huge chunks of information, and many of the features it describes are unimplemented. All the content is subject to change, especially if you help. Please send comments on the guide to aaron@helixcode.com. Items that are known to need action are indicated as such, often with notation like (INSERT CONTENT HERE). If you would like to work on the guide please contact me or see the GNOME Documentation project web site. This paragraph will be removed in later versions of the manual. This book is divided into three sections. The first section is a guided tour— it will explain how to use Evolution. If you are new to Evolution or to groupware in general, this is the section for you. The second section, covering configuration, is targeted at advanced users and administrators. If you are a network administrator, you may find yourself referring to this section frequently. The third section is a quick developer's guide, for power users and hackers. If you want to add advanced scripting to Evolution, write your own embeddable components, or simply want to find out just how powerful Evolution can be, this is the section for you. Throughout the book, you'll find examples, tips and warnings to help you along. Most of them are decent, hardworking pieces of information, and genuinely try to be helpful. Some of the tips, entitled Bad Ideas, are, in fact, out to trick you. Please don't follow their advice, no matter how appealing it may sound. Some kinds of words are marked off with special typography. It's listed below: Applications Commands typed at the command line Labels for menu items and buttons Other text treatments Other text treatments