Information is useless unless it's organized and accessible; it's hardly even worth the name if you can't look at it and be informed. Evolution's goal is to make the tasks of storing, organizing, and retrieving information easier, so you can work and communicate with others. That is, it's a more evolved groupware program, an integral part of the Internet-connected desktop. On the inside, it's a powerful database; on the outside, it's a tool to help you get your work done. Because it's part of the GNOME project, Evolution is free software. The program and its source code are released under the terms of the GNU Public License (GPL), and the documentation falls under the Free Documentation License (FDL). For more information about the GPL and the FDL, visit the Free Software Foundation's website at http://www.fsf.org. Evolution is not complete, and still has a lot of flaws. Please help improve it by letting us know about them. You should do this by submitting bug reports with the GNOME Bug Report Tool (known as bug-buddy at the command line). Evolution can help you work in a group, by handling email, address and other contact information, and one or more calendars. It can do that 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 and information management tasks with the power and flexibility of the GNOME desktop environment. The developers of Evolution had four major goals for their project: The application must be both powerful and easy to use. That means a familiar and intuitive interface that users could customize to their liking, and the development of shortcuts for complex tasks. Evolution must meet and exceed the standards set by other groupware products. It must include support for most major network protocols so that it can integrate seamlessly with existing hardware and network environments. The project must support open standards and be open to expansion, so that it can become a development platform as well as an application. From the simplest scripting to the most complex network and component programming, Evolution must offer developers an environment for cutting-edge application development. Data must be safe: Evolution must not lose mail, corrupt mailbox files or other data, execute arbitrary scripts, or delete files from your hard disk. Evolution is designed to make most daily tasks faster. 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 describes version 0.5.1 of the software. 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. 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 two parts, with several appendices. The first part 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 more advanced users, but anyone who wants to change the way Evolution looks or acts can benefit from reading it. In addition, there is a comprehensive menu reference which describes nearly every capability that Evolution has to offer. Some kinds of words are marked off with special typography: Applications Commands typed at the command line Labels for interface items Menu selections look like this: Menu Submenu Menu Item Buttons you can click Anything you type in Text output from a computer Words that are defined in . You might want to get a copy of this section and tape it to the wall next to your computer: it's a very short summary of most of the things you'll want to do with Evolution, and pointers to the sections of the book where you'll find more in-depth description of those tasks. Here are the keyboard shortcuts and menu items you're most likely to use: (Please note that the shortcuts listed are probably wrong at this point). Create a new folder FileNew Folder or Ctrl Shift F Create a new Shortcut in the Evolution Bar File New Evolution Bar Shortcut or Ctrl Shift S Create a new email message: Use FileNewMail Message or Ctrl Shift M Create a new Appointment File New Appointment or Ctrl Shift A Create a new Task File New Task or Ctrl Shift T Enter a new Contact File New Contact or Ctrl Shift C Here are the most frequent email tasks: Check Mail Click Get Mail in the toolbar, or press FIXME FIXME FIXME Reply to a Message Select the message to which you want to reply, and click Reply in the toolbar, or press FIXME FIXME FIXME Forward a Message Select the message you want to forward, and click Forward in the toolbar, or press FIXME FIXME FIXME Open a Message in a New Window Double-click the message you want to view, or press Ctrl O Create Filters and vFolders You can create filters and vFolders based on specific message attributes by right-clicking on a message or by selecting Tools Mail Filters or Tools vFolder Editor . Filters are discussed in , and vFolders in .