Start Evolution by selecting Evolution from the Applications of the Main Panel Menu, or by typing evolution at the command-line. After Evolution starts up, you will see the main window, with the Inbox open. It should look a lot like the picture in . On the left of the main window is the shortcut bar, with several buttons in it. Just underneath the title bar is a series of menus in the menu bar, and below that, the tool bar with buttons for different functions. The largest part of the main window is taken up by the actual Inbox, with a listing of messages you have recieved. If you're running the program for the first time, you'll just have one: a welcome message from Helix Code.

Evolution Main Window

The appearance of both Evolution and GNOME is very easy to customize, so your screen might not look like this picture. You might configure Evolution to start with a different view, or without the shortcut bar or folder view. Evolution's most important job is to give you access to your information, and help you use it quickly. One way it does that is through the shortcut bar, the column on the left hand side of the main window. The shortcut bar has two types of buttons: big ones with names like Inbox and Calendar, and small rectangular ones at the top and bottom, which are called category buttons. The category buttons are labelled Evolution Shortcuts Internet Directories. When you click on them, they'll slide up and down to give you access to different sorts of shortcuts. When you first start Evolution, you are looking at the Evolution Shortcuts category. If you click Internet Directories, it will slide up and you'll see buttons for the Bigfoot and Netcenter directories, as well as any others you or your system administrator might have added. Click on Evolution Shortcuts to look at the shortcuts again. They are: Inbox, which will show you all of your email. Your Inbox is also where you can access Evolution's tools to filter, sort, organize, and search your mail. The Calendar, which can store appointments for you. Connected to a network, you can use it to keep a group of people on schedule and up to date. The Contacts tool holds your addresses, phone numbers, and contact information. Like calendar information, contact data can be synchronized with hand-held devices and shared over a network. Notes is your catch-all notepad: write haiku, take down messages from phone conversations, or keep small things organized. This feature is not yet implemented, but will be soon. See for more information. If you prefer to use a keyboard shortcut, or hot key, you can use those instead. They're shown next to their equivalent menu items in the menu bar. You can also set your own hot keys for functions that don't have any; this is covered in . If you're using the keyboard shortcuts you may also want to hide the shortcut bar by selecting the Show Shortcut Bar toggle in the View menu. The folder view is a more comprehensive way to view the information you've stored with Evolution. It displays all your appointments, address cards, and email in a tree that's a lot like a file tree— it starts small at the top, and branches downwards. On my computer, I have only one: Local. When I click on the plus sign next to the label, I see the contents: Calendar, where I keep appointments and event listings. Contacts, where address cards are stored. Directories, for search directories, which have not been implemented yet. Inbox, for incoming mail, and all the rest of my mail folders. Outbox, which is for drafts of messages and mail that's already been sent. Trash, which is for trash. Right-clicking will bring up a menu for just about anything in GNOME, and Evolution is no exception. If you right-click on a folder, you'll have a menu with the following options: Something Something Something . GNOME 2.0 supports context-sensitive help, which means you can almost always get help on an item by right-clicking it. If you're not sure what something is, or don't know what you can do with it, choosing Help from the right-click menu is a good way to find out. If a folder has other folders inside it, there will be a plus sign next to it. Click on the plus sign, and the folder will open to let you see the other folders inside. This may change in the future to something more attractive, like triangles that drop down as you click on them to display the rest of the tree. Any time new information arrives in a folder, that folder will be highlighted, or its label displayed as bold text. You can learn more about customizing Evolution alerts and appearance in . Moving and deleting folders and other items works in one of two ways: using drag-and-drop or by right-clicking and selecting an item from the right-click menu. You can drag the folders inside the folder view to change their order or put one folder inside another. To delete a folder, drag it into the trash folder or right-click it and select Delete from the menu that pops up. The same goes for individual messages, appointments, and address cards, whether they're in the folder view or not: drag them where you want them, and they will go there. The menu bar's contents will always provide all the possible actions for any view of your data. That means that, depending on the context, menu bar items will change. If you're looking at your Inbox, most of the menu items will relate to mail; some will relate to other components of Evolution and some, especially those in the File Menu will relate to the application as a whole. You can probably guess that the Help Menu is where to go for help, and that the View menu controls the way that Evolution looks. Other menu items are a little less obvious, and change a little more, so we'll cover them later on as we discuss the things you can do with Evolution. Once you've familiarized yourself with the main window you can start doing things with it. We'll start with your email inbox: you've got a letter waiting for you already.