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 your personal information easier, so you can work and communicate with others. That is, it's a highly 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 General 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 on the Ximian GNOME bug report page at bugzilla.ximian.com. There are detailed bug reporting instructions in . 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. The Evolution project has four central goals: The application must be both powerful and easy to use. In other words, it needs a familiar and intuitive interface that users can customize to their liking, and users should have access to shortcuts for complex tasks. Evolution must meet and exceed the standards set by other groupware products. It must include support for 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 Virtual Folders, which let you save searches as though they were ordinary mail folders. This version of the Evolution User's Guide is a draft. Please send comments on the guide to aaron@ximian.com. The first person to send me some good constructive criticism wins a free Ximian t-shirt. Include preferred shirt size and postal address. If you would like to work on the guide please contact me or see the GNOME Documentation project web site. 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 section is 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 the . You might want to copy 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. Read if you would like a complete list of keyboard shortcuts for menu commands. 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 Enter a new Contact File New Contact or Ctrl Shift C Create a new Task File New Task or Ctrl Shift T Here are the most frequent email tasks, and shortcuts for navigating your mailbox with the keyboard instead of the mouse: Check Mail Click Get Mail in the toolbar. There is no keyboard shortcut for this task, but you can ask Evolution to check for new mail periodically in the Mail Settings dialog. Reply to a Message To reply to the sender of the message only: click Reply in the toolbar, or press Ctrl R To reply to the sender and all the other visible recipients of the message, click Reply to All or select the message and press Shift Ctrl R Forward a Message Select the message or messages you want to forward, and click Forward in the toolbar, or press Ctrl J Open a Message in a New Window Double-click the message you want to view, or select it and press Ctrl O Create Filters and Virtual Folders You can create filters and Virtual Folders based on specific message attributes from the message's right-click menu. Alternately, select a message, and then choose Settings Mail Filters or Settings Virtual Folder Editor . Filters are discussed in , and Virtual Folders in .