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. You can reach the Evolution settings window by choosing Tools Settings, no matter where you are in Evolution. On the left half of the settings window is a column, similar to the Evolution shortcut bar, which lets you choose which portion of Evolution to customize. The right half of the window is where you'll make your actual changes.

Changing Mail Settings

There are six items you can customize. From top to bottom, they are: Mail Accounts Add or change information about your email accounts: the servers to which you connect, the way you download mail, your password authentication mode, and so forth. This is the most complex item in the list, and is covered in . Autocompletion Set the contact groups to be used when completing email addresses in the message composer. Mail Preferences These are overall mail reading preferences: display settings, notification options, security, and so forth. Settings that vary per-account are in the Mail Accounts tool, described in , but most of the mail settings are here. Composer Preferences Settings for the way that you use the mail composer: shortcuts, signatures, spelling, and so forth. One fun feature here is the ability to substitute graphical smiley-faces for "emoticons" such as :) that many people use in email. This tool is covered in . Calendar and Tasks Here, you can set the way the calendar behaves, including your time zone and the length of your work-week. Certificates Certificate handling for S/MIME security systems. Previous versions of Evolution included directory servers, folder settings, and Exchange delegation in the settings tool. Directory servers can now be set up as contacts groups in the Contacts tool, you can change folder settings in the folder right-click menu, and Exchange delegation is available in the Actions menu of the Exchange tool. Evolution allows you to maintain multiple accounts, or identities. 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 Send/Receive will check all mail sources that are not disabled. If you don't want to check mail for a given account, select it in the Mail Accounts tab and click the Disable button. To add a new account, 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 and email address for this account. You may also choose a default signature to insert into messages sent from this account. Receiving Mail 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, Novell GroupWise, or IMAP), or read it from files that already exist on your desktop computer. Your server require you to use a Secure Socket Layer (SSL) connection. You may select Always, Whenever Possible, or Never as your SSL choice. If one doesn't work, try another. 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, as well as other message retrieval options. 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. Leave messages on server: If you'd like to store copies of your mail on the server, check this option. Disable support for all POP3 extensions: Some email servers refuse to work with the extended POP3 command set; select this item to have Evolution use a more limited set of interactions with the server. If your server periodically drops your connection, this option may help. 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. Global Catalog server name: enter the name of your Global Catalog server to create a folder for your organization's Global Address List. Limit number of Responses: Select a maximum number of results for an address search. Lowering the maximum number the load on your system and on your network. Most servers will not send more than 1000 results, regardless of the value you select here. Mailbox Name: Enter your mailbox name. OWA Path: Enter the path used with Outlook Web Access on your server. Public Folder Server: Enter the name of your public folder server, if it differs from your Exchange server. Apply Filters to new messages in Inbox on this server: check this box if you wish to apply filters to this account. 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, check this box. If you chose GroupWise: 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 GroupWise folders, make sure the Check for new messages in all folders box is selected. Apply filters to new messages in INBOX on this server: If you'd like your filters to work on this account, check this box. Automatically synchronize remote mail locally: Download all mail immediately, instead of waiting until you try to open the message to check it. This setting will make Evolution slower at first, but faster after the download. Leaving it unchecked means that Evolution will take longer to display each additional message, but will not waste time trying to download every single message if you can tell from the subjects that you do not need to read them all. Address Book and Calendar: Post Office Agent SOAP Port: If your post office agent uses a SOAP port other than the default, enter it here. The SOAP port is what allows Evolution to access the GroupWise address book and calendar. Your system administrator will know the port. If there are not many Linux users in your organization, you may also need to request that the SOAP service be enabled. Sending Mail In this section, you will choose and configure a method for sending mail. You may choose SMTP, Microsoft Exchange (if you have installed the Evolution Connector for Microsoft Exchange) or sendmail. If you choose Exchange or Sendmail, you're done with this tab. SMTP offers you a choice of hostname, connection security level, and authentication type, which you will recognize as similar to those for IMAP and POP servers in the Receiving Mail tab. Defaults Here, you can decide where this account will store the messages that it has sent, and the messages that you save as drafts. If you wish to revert to the "factory" settings, click the Restore Defaults button. If you wish to send someone a copy of every message from this account, check the box labeled Always carbon-copy (Cc) to: or Always blind carbon-copy (Bcc) to:, and enter one or more addresses. Security In this section, you will set the security options for this account. If you use encryption, enter your PGP key id (see for more information) and select among the four options below to determine key and signature handling. The Mail Preferences tool lets you choose how to display citations, how long to wait before marking a message as read, and other mail display settings. There are three categories of settings: General, HTML Mail, and Colors. For information on individual email account settings, see . In the General tab, your options are: Message Fonts Normally, Evolution will use the same fonts as other GNOME applications. To choose different fonts, uncheck the box Use the same fonts as other applications and select one font for standard typefaces and a second for monospace, or terminal, display. Message Display These three settings handle the way messages appear to you. Mark Messages as Read... Normally, Evolution will mark a message as read as soon as it is displayed. If you prefer, you may set this to happen only after a delay, or disable it entirely and mark messages as read only when you choose to do so. Default Character Encoding This setting allows you to select character interpretation sets so that Evolution can display different alphabets. If you are not sure, pick Unicode (UTF-8), which will work for a large number of languages and character sets. Highlight Quotations Choose a color to highlight quotations from other messages. Deleting Mail Here, choose whether to delete messages automatically when quitting Evolution, and whether you wish to explicitly confirm the final deletion of messages. New Mail Notification Evolution can alert you to the arrival of new mail with a beep or by playing a sound file. Choose your alert noise, or select none, as you wish. The options in the HTML Mail tab are: Show animated images Turn animation on or off here. Prompt when sending HTML messages to contacts that don't want them Some people do not like HTML mail, and you can set Evolution to warn you. This warning will appear only when you send HTML mail to people in your contacts who are listed as disliking HTML. Loading Image You can embed a image in an email and have it load only when the message arrives. However, spammers can use image loading patterns to confirm "live" addresses and invade your privacy. You may elect never to load images automatically, to load images only if the sender is in your contacts, or always load images. If you have chosen not to load images automatically, you can choose to see the images in one message at a time by selecting ViewMessage Display Load Images. The Colors tab lets you select different color labels for individual messages. You can return to the default settings by clicking the Restore Defaults button. The Mail Color preferences tool lets you select color labels for different kinds of messages. Click a color to change the color, or change the label associated with that color. The headers on an incoming message are the information about the message that isn't the content of the message itself: the sender, the time it was sent, and so forth. Check the boxes here to show or hide different amounts of information about the messages you read. There are only two items here: Check Incoming Mail for Junk and Include Remote Tests. Checking for junk mail uses the SpamAssassin tool with trainable bayesian filters. It also includes online tests, like checking for blacklisted message senders and ISPs. Online tests can make filtering slower, but more accurate. Check the boxes here to choose your mail filtering method. There are three tabs of settings you can change for the message composer. The General tab covers shortcuts and assorted behavior, and the other two control signatures and spell checking. In the General tab, you can set: Default Behavior Choose how you will normally forward and reply messages, what character set they will use, whether they will be in HTML, and whether that HTML can contain smiley face images. Alerts There are two optional alerts here: Prompt when sending messages with an empty subject line 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. The signature editor allows you to create several different signatures in plain text or in HTML, and to specify which of them will be added to emails you create in the message composer. If you prefer to use an alternate signature or none at all, you can select it from the mail composer itself. To choose a spell-checking language, select it here. Note that you must install the gnome-spell package, available through Red Carpet, for spell-checking to be available in Evolution. Alternate dictionaries are also available through Red Carpet and are detected automatically if you have installed them. To have the composer automatically check your spelling while you type, check the box labeled Check spelling while I type. You can check the spelling of messages by selecting EditSpell Check Document. The calendar configuration tool has two tabs General and Display, and is illustrated in .

Calendar Configuration

The General tab lets you set the following: Time zone The city you're located in, to judge your time zone. Time format You may choose between twelve-hour (AM/PM) and twenty-four hour time formats here by clicking the appropriate radio button. Week Starts Select the day you wish to be displayed as the first in each week. Day Begins For Evolution, a normal work day begins at 9 AM and ends at 5PM. You can select your preferred hours to make sure that all your events are displayed properly. Day Ends Set the end of a normal workday. Alerts If you'd like to be warned before you delete any appointment, or to have a reminder automatically appear for each event, select the check boxes here. The Display tab lets you choose how your appointments and tasks will appear in your calendar. The display properties you can set are: Time divisions Sets the time increments shown as fine lines on the daily view in the calendar. 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. Tasks due today Select the color for tasks due today. Overdue tasks Choose the color for overdue tasks. Hide Completed Tasks Check this box to have completed tasks hidden after a period of time measured in days, hours, or minutes. If you leave the box unchecked, completed tasks will remain in your task list, marked as complete. Autocompletion is available in the main settings tool. The other major contact configuration task is creating new directory servers or remote contacts groups. To add a new group of contacts, either local or remote, do the following: Go to the contacts tool by clicking the Contacts button. Select New Contacts Group. Select a name and location for the contact group. The name is for display only. Click Forward. If the contact group is stored locally, then you don't have to provide any more information. Click OK and you are done. If you are creating an LDAP server, enter the server information as requested by the assistant: Server name Internet address of the contact server you'll be using. Login Method Specify whether your login is anonymous, using an email address, or a "distinguished name." If the login is not anonymous, enter the email address or distinguished name (DN) required by the server. Port The internet port Evolution connects to in order to access the LDAP database. This is normally 389. Use SSL/TLS SSL and TLS are security mechanisms. If you select Always, Evolution will not connect unless secure connections are available. The default value is Whenever Possible, which uses secure connections if they are available, but does not cause failure if they are not. Search base The search base is the starting point for a directory search. Contact your network administrator for information about the correct settings. Search scope The search scope is the breadth of a given search. The following options are available: One Searches the Search Base and one entry below it. Sub Searches the Search Base and all entries below it. Timeout (minutes) This is the maximum time Evolution will attempt to download data from the server before giving up. Download Limit Set the maximum number of results for a given search. Most servers refuse to send more than 500, but you can set the number lower if you want to shorten downloads for very broad searches. Display name This is the name you will use to label this folder, and may be any name you choose. Click Apply. Editing a directory server account means changing that same information, although it is displayed in a slightly different order.