Advanced Configuration
Perhaps your mail server has changed names. Perhaps you've
grown tired of a certain layout for your appointments.
Whatever the reason, you want to change your
Evolution settings. This chapter
will tell you how to do just that.
Mail Settings
To change your mail settings, select ToolsMail
Settings in the Inbox. This
will open the mail preferences window,
illustrated in . Mail
preferences are separated into several categories:
Accounts
This allows you to create and alter one or more
identities for your email.
Display
Allows you to edit how email appears.
Composer
Customizes the behavior of the email message composer.
Other
Configures miscellanious aspects of
Evolution such as character
set and encryption tools.
Account Editor WindowAccount Editor WindowWorking with the Accounts TabXimian Evolution allows you to
maintain multiple accounts, or identities. This is useful
want to keep personal and professional email separate, or if
you wear several hats at work. When you are writing an email
message, you can which account to use by selecting from the
drop-down list next to the From entry in
the message composer.
Clicking Get Mail will refresh any
IMAP, mh, or
mbox listings
and check and download mail from all POP servers. In other
words, Get Mail gets your mail, no
matter how many sources you have, or what types they are. If
you don't want to check mail for a given account, select it
in the Accounts tab and click the
Disable button.
To add a new account, simply click Add
to open the mail configuration assistant. To alter an
existing identity, select it in the
Preferences window, and then click
Edit to open the account editor
dialog.
The account editor dialog has six sections:
Identity:
Here, enter the name,
email address, and other identifying information for the
account.
Receiving Mail
Here, select the way you will be getting mail: you may
download mail from a server (POP), read and keep it on the
server (Microsoft Exchange or IMAP), or read it from files
that already exist on your desktop computer. If you use
a server, it may permit or require you to use a Secure
Socket Layer (SSL) connection. To turn SSL connections
on, just click the Use Secure Connection
(SSL) button.
Specifying Port Numbers
Your system administrator may ask you to connect to a specific port on
a mail server. To specify which port you use, just type a colon and
the port number after the server name. For example, to connect to port
143 on the server smtp.omniport.com, you would enter
as
smtp.omniport.com:143
as the server name.
Receiving Options
Here, decide whether you'd like to check for mail
automatically and how often.
If you chose POP:Checking for new mail: If you would
like Evolution
to check for new mail automatically,
check the box and select a frequency in
minutes.
Message Storage: If you'd like to store
copies of your mail on the server, check
this option.
If you chose Microsoft Exchange:Checking for new mail: If you would like
Evolution to check for new mail
automatically, check the box and select a frequency in
minutes.
Exchange Server: If your active directory user name
is different from your Exchange mail user name, check this
box and enter your mail username here.
Create a Global Address List folder: If you would
like to have a seperate folder for the Active Directory's
Global Address List, leave this box checked.
Active Directory Server Name: In most organizations,
the Active Directory server will be different from
the Exchange mail server. If so, check the box and
enter the Active Directory server name here.
Limit number of Responses: Select a maximum number
of results for an address search. A maximum number of
results limits the load on your system and on your network.
If you chose IMAP:Checking for new mail: If you would like
Evolution to check for new mail
automatically, check the box and select a frequency in
minutes.
If you want Evolution
to check for new messages in all your
IMAP folders, make sure the Check for new
messages in all folders box is selected.Show only subscribed folders: Check this box if you
have more folders in your IMAP view than you want to
read.
Override server-supplied namespace: If you like, enter a
specific directory where your server stores mail for
you. Typical values are "mail" and "Mail." For more
information about how to use IMAP mail, see .Apply filters to new messages in INBOX on this
server: If you'd like your filters to work on this account
as well as on locally downloaded mail, check this box.Sending Mail
In this section, you will choose and configure a method
for sending mail. You may choose SMTP, Microsoft Exchange (if
you have purchased the Ximian Connector for Microsoft
Exchange) or sendmail.
Special Folders
Here, you can decide where this account will store the
messages that it has sent, and the messages that you
save as drafts.
Security
In this section, you will set the security options for
this account. Enter your PGP Key ID and decide how
frequently to encrypt and sign your messages. You can
learn more about PGP and encryption in .
Mail Display Options
In this tab you can decide how you would like
Ximian Evolution to display your
mail: how to display citations, how long to wait before
marking a message as read, and so forth.
This is also where you can decide how you would like
Ximian Evolution to handle inline
images in HTML mail that you get. There is a detailed
discussion of the issues surrounding these options in .
To hange the font which Ximian
Evolution uses to display mail, do the
following:
Open the Control Center by selecting SystemSettings from
the menu panel.
Select the HTML Viewer settings tool.
Choose the font and font size you would like to use.
Alternately, open a terminal and run the
gtkhtml-properties-capplet command. This
will open the GNOME HTML Display Properties tool, and you can
select a font and other attributes of your HTML display,
including that in Ximian Evolution.
Message Composer Preferences
Mercifully, there are only four preferences you can prefer in
the message composer preferences dialog:
Send mail in HTML format by default
If you would like all email messages that you compose
to begin in HTML format, leave this box checked. You
can convert messages between HTML and plain text by
selecting the FormatHTML toggle
in the message composer.
Default Forward style
Select from:
Attachment: the
message you forward appended to the message you send
as a seperate file.Inline: The message
you forward is included at the end of the message
you send.Quoted: The message
you forward is included at the end of the message
you send, and a greater-than symbol (>) is
inserted at the beginning of each line to
indicate that it is quoted.
Prompt when sending messages with an empty subject
The composer will warn you if you try to send a
message without a subject.
Prompt when sending messages with only Bcc recipients defined
The composer will warn you if you try to send a
message that has only Bcc
recipients. This is important because some mail
servers will fail to honor blind carbon copy if you
do not have at least one recipient that is visible to
all readers.
Other Mail Preferences
Not everything fits neatly into categories. This tab
contains some miscellaneous configuration options that
didn't fit anywhere else.
PGP binary path
The complete path to your external encryption tool On
most Linux systems, this will be
/usr/bin/gpg.
Remember PGP Passphrase until Exit Check this box if you want Ximian
Evolution to remember your PGP
passphrase for as long as it is running. You will
still have to enter your passphrase again each time
you start Ximian Evolution.
Default Character Encoding Choose a default character encoding for
your messages.
Empty Trash Folders on Exit If you would like to expunge all deleted
mail when you quit Ximian
Evolution, check this box.
Log filter actions to: If you like, you can have
Ximian Evolution write all
its message filter actions to a log file. Select a log
file here.
Configuring the Calendar
To set your calendar preferences, select
SettingsCalendar
Settings from the Calendar
view. This will open up the
Preferences window. It contains four
tabs: General, Display, Task List, and Other. The calendar
preferences window is illustrated in .
Calendar Preferences DialogIf this worked on my job as well as my calendar...Calendar's General Settings
The Time display tab lets you set the
following:
Time zone
The city you're located in, to judge your time zone.
Time formatYou may choose between twelve-hour (AM/PM) and
twenty-four hour time formats here by clicking the
appropriate radio button.
Work Week
When does your work day start, and when does it end?
In the day and week views,
Evolution displays all the
hours in the range you select here, even if there are
no appointments for those times. Of course, you can
still schedule an appointment outside of these hours,
and if you do, the display will be extended to show
it.
First day of the weekYou can set weeks to start on Sunday or on Monday.Start of day
Says what time of the day your weekday starts. This will show all times till the end of the day, regardless of there is an appointment during the time period.
End of day
Sets the time the day ends at.
Display
The Display section lets you configure some visual properties of the calendar.
The display properties you can set are:
Time divisions
Sets the increments shown on the daily view in the calendar. You can set this to be:
5 minutes
10 minutes
15 minutes
30 minutes
60 minutes
Show appointment end times in week and month views
If there is space, Evolution will show the end times in the week and month views for each appointment.
Compress weekends in month view
If checked, your weekends will be shown in one box, instead of one for each day in the month view.
Show week numbers in date navigator
This will show the week numbers next to the respective weeks in the calendar.
Task List Settings
You can choose what information the To Do list displays and the
way it is displayed.
Tasks due today
Configures what color to set your tasks that are due today to.
Overdue tasks
Configures what color to set your overdue items to.
Other Calendar Settings
This configures miscellaneous items for the calendar and todo
list's functionality.
Ask for confirmation when deleting items
When you delete an item in either the Task List or the
Calendar, you will be prompted to confirm that you
want to delete the item.
Create new appointments with a default reminder
All your appointments will be created using a default
reminder enabled. You can still change what way you
are reminded though. If enabled, you can then set the
time before your appointment to be reminded.
Managing the Addressbook
The addressbook does not have a large list of configuration
settings, but those that are there can be found in the
Tools menu.
Adding Directory Servers
To add a new LDAP server
to your available contact folders:
Select
ToolsAddressbook Sources
from the menu.
Click the Add button on the right
side.
Enter the server information:
Account name
The name that you see on the screen. This could
be anything you wish.
Server name
Address of the server where the addressbook is located.
My server requires authentication
Select this if the server requires
Evolution to provide
a server in order to access the LDAP contacts.
Port
The internet port
Evolution connects to
in order to access the LDAP database. This is
normally 389.
Search base
The base entry to use for all your searches.
Contact your administrator for information about
the correct settings.
Search
scope
How broad the search is in the directory. The
following options are available:
Base
Searches just the Search Base. Most of the time,
not very useful.
One
Searches the Search Base and one entry
below it.
Sub
Searches the Search Base and all entries
below it.
Click OK.
Click OK to permanenty make
changes or Apply to temporarily
set the changes.
LDAP Configuration
Rich works at a large chip manufacturer. He needs to
access the company's LDAP server. Their LDAP address is
wemakechips.com.
His Account Name would be: We Make Chips Employees
His Server Name would be: ldap.wemakechips.com
He will need to talk to the adminstrator's at the
company to learn about the search scope or the search base.