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. Without all the hot air, that means 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 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 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. 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 . Tips and bits of extra information will look like this. This is what an example looks like. This is what a warning looks like.