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caspar_wrede
May 23rd, 2005, 10:54 PM
Sorry, this may not be very constructive, but I have to get this off my chest: I think evolution is a stone-age Email client. I am actually a KDE user but since using ububtu I decided to give gnome a try and was very impressed, until I migrated all my mail to evolution. I did this becaue I wanted a PIM solution that will allow me to sync with a mobile at some stage in the future.

Anyway, swicthing from KMail to Evolution really is taking several large steps backwards. Here's why:

a) Evolution is slow. There is a 3 second pause on my computer between clicking "New Mail" and the window appearing. This is not the case when the same machine is using KMail or Outlook.

b) There is no *simple* way of changing the date format (mm/dd/yy -> dd/mm/yy which europeans prefer). I believe it can be done via shell variables, but come on, Evo is supposed to be a proper GUI application.

c) There is no sensible simple mail notification. There is a "beep" option which is inaudible and some other useless / highly complex hacks. In Kmail you can specify whether new mail triggers a notification *per folder*, all via the GUI and without obscure shell scripts.

d) The junk mail filter is crap. I trained it on a folder of 1000 spams but still it doesn't seem to recognise half of them. And I have "external check" enabled. KMail uses external spam filters in a transparent way.

e) Spell checking: almost all modern spell-checking applications offer suggestions in a context menu when opened over a misspelt word. In Evo you have to open an extra window.

f) New Junk is not marked as unread. This would be nice so that you know what junk you've checked for false positives and which you haven't.

g) Sending a mail twice takes a whole load of inelegant cutting and pasting. See KMail for the elegant solution.

i) There is no way to automatically fetch mail immediately after startup. See KMail and Outlook.

j) You HAVE to specify a mail server in the Evo startup wizard. There is no way of getting around this. Very annoying.

k) The calenders feature is not too hot either. I only ever use the whole-month-view and when I scroll through the months it takes ages. Outlook was 10 times more responsive. And the default colour scheme means that looking for today's date is a real eye strainer.

These are just my views on evolution. I had always heard that it was such an excellent PIM suite and am dissapointed that it simply doesn't live up to the hype. Presumably there will be enough opposing views. I just thought I'de give my opinion.

angkor
May 23rd, 2005, 11:59 PM
Thanks for sharing. I feel lucky for never having touched the program. :)
I'm happily using thunderbird and it does perfectly what I want from it. It sends and receives my email swiftly and I do not wish for anything else.

Curlydave
May 24th, 2005, 12:08 AM
Agreed. Thunderbird as default, anyone?

Nano
May 24th, 2005, 12:16 AM
Agreed. Thunderbird as default, anyone?
Yes, here the same.
Every time I install an Ubuntu box the first thing I do is to remove Evolution.

minio
May 24th, 2005, 12:51 AM
a) on my computer it takes only 2 seconds (A64 3000+ 512MB ram)
b) do you have localization installed? I get dd/mm/yy format without any setup
c) agree
d) agree
e) agree
f) agree
g) agree
h) agree
i) agree
j) agree
k) agree

The question is: Why i am still using it?

tread
May 24th, 2005, 01:03 AM
I agree .. I used Evolution till I was forced to use Thunderbird, and haven't used Evolution since. Actually, now I use Opera for browing as well as email client .. once you get used to Opera its really hard to go back to something else.

Psquared
May 24th, 2005, 01:52 AM
Well, I sorta agree but most of your list are not biggies to me.

Evolution is pretty slow, but so is Outlook. Both are full-featured PIMs.

Thunderbird does not have a calendar or to do list.

Evolution syncs very nicely with my Sony Clie.

Mail-Notification is a little program you can download and install to flash a message about emails. It works well for me.

How does everyone feel about the Mozilla Suite as an alternative to Firefox and Evolution??

joele
May 24th, 2005, 04:02 AM
Evolution is more fully featured than thunderbird (in an outlook kind of way)... But if you just want an email program then evolution is not needed as suggested just use kmail (if KDE user) or use thunderbird....

caspar_wrede
May 24th, 2005, 07:40 AM
Well, I'm relieved to see that people generally agree. However what are the alernatives in Gnome if you want to do more than just email -- i.e. manage contacts and calendar info too?

royg1234
June 10th, 2005, 01:50 AM
I like Evolution because I need calendar, tasks, and contacts. I can't imagine not having a robust PIM capable of groupware stuff.

It does need improvement though. A few biggies off the top of my head:

Color-coded calendar items
Better mass import/export capabilities and compatibility w/ other PIMs. This should be true for all emails, contacts, tasks, and especially calendar.
May be asking a bit much, but the task list would be awesome if it were wiki-style like tomboy (and of course, still be able to contain attachments to emails, calendar appointments, files, etc.)
More greediness: tight integration with a Poject Management app like Imiendo Planner
More customizable views (I really like Outlook 2003's view of 3 vertical panes--good use of widescreen displays)
More powerful vFolders, e.g. while reading a message, just drag a vFolder onto it to "tag" it a la gmail or adobe photoshop album
Drag-and-drop everything!

sethmahoney
June 10th, 2005, 03:12 AM
Color-coded calendar items


Wait, it has color-coded calendar items! Well, sorta.

I want it to be faster and more responsive, have better junk mail processing, easier filters and vFolders (ie, apply filters via right-click menu), and autocomplete when entering email addresses in the To: field!

Or I want Sunbird to hurry up and mature and have Evolution's handy Gnome integration.

byen
June 10th, 2005, 03:23 AM
Totally agree !!! Evolution is good out of the box but as you keep using more functionalities it gets really heavy on the memory usage and gets cloggy! I like evolution as a package but would only use it if it did not take so much mem and proc space!
For now Im staying out!

PS- wish they were still developing pegasus mail! it would have rocked if not for the fall!

nocturn
June 10th, 2005, 08:12 AM
a) Evolution is slow. There is a 3 second pause on my computer between clicking "New Mail" and the window appearing. This is not the case when the same machine is using KMail or Outlook.


You're partially right, Kmail is faster (but is only a mail client). Outlook (not express) is way slower though (I have to use v2003 all day).



b) There is no *simple* way of changing the date format (mm/dd/yy -> dd/mm/yy which europeans prefer). I believe it can be done via shell variables, but come on, Evo is supposed to be a proper GUI application.


This is a design decision which you either like or not...
If you set up your locale correct, it will show date and time in the desired format (this can be done by choosing language from gdm).
My dates are set to ISO format (yyyy-mm-dd) and my times to 24h.



c) There is no sensible simple mail notification. There is a "beep" option which is inaudible and some other useless / highly complex hacks. In Kmail you can specify whether new mail triggers a notification *per folder*, all via the GUI and without obscure shell scripts.


Your are right about this one, I heard this is coming in the next version, but is a feature that is sorely missed by many users...



g) Sending a mail twice takes a whole load of inelegant cutting and pasting. See KMail for the elegant solution.


I'm rather sure there is a resend action (I remeber using it).



i) There is no way to automatically fetch mail immediately after startup. See KMail and Outlook.


You mean POP3 mail? I guess you are right (I use IMAP)



k) The calenders feature is not too hot either. I only ever use the whole-month-view and when I scroll through the months it takes ages. Outlook was 10 times more responsive. And the default colour scheme means that looking for today's date is a real eye strainer.
[/qoute]

Apart form the color scheme, I really like Evo's calendar. Again, I don't find Outlook more responsive.

[quote]
These are just my views on evolution. I had always heard that it was such an excellent PIM suite and am dissapointed that it simply doesn't live up to the hype. Presumably there will be enough opposing views. I just thought I'de give my opinion.

To each his own is the expression if I'm not mistaken. I switched to Evo from Kmail back when I was still using KDE. I really needed a full PIM client and Kmail couldn't hanlde big mbox files well (thousands of mails, 50-100 MB).
Later on, Evo gained even more points by supporting filtering on IMAP (Kmail didn't) and GSSAPI/Kerberos authentication.

You may like thunderbird though, as it is supposed to have very good SPAM filtering and seems one of the faster clients.
Another good one is sylpheed.

nocturn
June 10th, 2005, 08:14 AM
and autocomplete when entering email addresses in the To: field!


It does have this, but you need to set the address book to use in the preferences (it can autocomplete from LDAP too).

Sav
June 10th, 2005, 10:42 AM
Yes, here the same.
Every time I install an Ubuntu box the first thing I do is to remove Evolution.

How do you perform the uninstallation, without removing "ubuntu-desktop"?

nocturn
June 10th, 2005, 11:39 AM
How do you perform the uninstallation, without removing "ubuntu-desktop"?

AFAIK, you cannot. Evolution is part of ubuntu-desktop.
Bare in mind that Ubuntu-desktop is a meta-package to pull in many other packages, so removing it does not remove any programs.

royg1234
June 10th, 2005, 01:08 PM
AFAIK, you cannot. Evolution is part of ubuntu-desktop.
Bare in mind that Ubuntu-desktop is a meta-package to pull in many other packages, so removing it does not remove any programs.

Good to know, but not readily obvious to someone new to Linux, and definitely scary.

Sav
June 10th, 2005, 01:58 PM
Good to know, but not readily obvious to someone new to Linux, and definitely scary.

You're right.
I was afraid of the description of the ubuntu-desktop package:


This package depends on all of the packages in the Ubuntu desktop system

It is safe to remove this package if some of the desktop system
packages are not desired. However, it is recommended that you keep
it installed, because it is used to carry out certain upgrade
transitions (such as adding new packages to the system).

royg1234
June 10th, 2005, 08:08 PM
I don't know if this has been said yet, but IMHO not including Evolution in the default install is a bad idea, because I for one can't imagine living without a PIM running my life. (This is where Windows falls way short, in that a PIM isn't installed by default). Evolution is particularly attractive for Ubuntu gnome users because it can potentially be tightly integrated e.g. what we have now: calendar in the clock applet is the same one that's in Evolution. Of course, this can be said of the KDE PIM also.

I'm sure Evolution's on its way to becoming perfect, and all the above-mentioned gri... requests are being worked on :wink: .

sethmahoney
June 10th, 2005, 08:16 PM
It does have this, but you need to set the address book to use in the preferences (it can autocomplete from LDAP too).

Oh, hey, sweet! Thanks!

uc50_ic4more
June 10th, 2005, 11:04 PM
Am I the only one on earth (who has used Outlook in the past) who is bugged by the fact that no other e-mail client automatically places my replies into the same folder as the original e-mail?

Am I missing something? Not once in ten years of Outlooking, Outlooking Expressfully, iScribing, getting Thunderbirdular and Eudaoral and finally Evolutionizing have I ever heard anyone complain about this apparently Outlook-exclusive feature.

darkaudit
June 11th, 2005, 01:44 AM
What sort of replies? If I'm sending mailing list mail, all the folders filter on the mailing list header, and my replies are right where they should be, threaded and everything.

The BIG plus for Kmail is that I can filter the mailing list mail directly to their folders, and check just the remainder for spam. That's only about 10 messages a day, vs. Evolution wanting to check 400+.

uc50_ic4more
June 11th, 2005, 01:51 AM
What sort of replies? If I'm sending mailing list mail, all the folders filter on the mailing list header, and my replies are right where they should be, threaded and everything.

I am referring to mail that is unfiltered. From my Inbox, I might drag/ drop an e-mail into a folder called "Jim". I then click on the e-mail and Reply to Jim, but my *sent* e-mail, after being sent, winds up in the "Sent" folder rather than the "Jim" folder. In Outlook - filter independent - the replies I sent would end up in the folder in which the replied-to email was.

I am aware that I can set up "outgoing" e-mail filters, but Holy Smokes that would involve a lotta filters... In Outlook, it was a matter of checking *a* radio button!

Nimefurahi
June 11th, 2005, 02:25 AM
Bravo Nano!

I thought that I was the only one to blow away Evolution after installation of Ubuntu. For me, removing Evolution is a necessary setup procedure of ANY distro that includes it in their packaged release.

I had a falling out with Evolution some years ago, back in its Ximian days (that may have been about five years ago). Reading all of your comments, it seems as if nothing much has changed. I dare not look for myself.

I can't help you much with a PIM suite mail client, but I'm stuck on Sylpheed-claws for a simple mail client. It's simple, its quick, and its configurable.

Nimefurahi

grakhul
June 12th, 2005, 02:17 AM
Full Featured PIM solution:
Evolution = Micorosoft Outlook

Email Client:
Mozilla Thunderbird = Outlook Express

It is a shame that there are not any alternatives in Linux when it comes to a Full Featured PIM solution. If anyone knows of one, Please let me know.

afonic
June 12th, 2005, 02:50 AM
Mozilla Thunderbird is much better.

I suggest it becomes the default email client in the next major Ubuntu version (as firefox took Epiphany's place).

kjmorris
June 12th, 2005, 05:04 AM
I am referring to mail that is unfiltered. From my Inbox, I might drag/ drop an e-mail into a folder called "Jim". I then click on the e-mail and Reply to Jim, but my *sent* e-mail, after being sent, winds up in the "Sent" folder rather than the "Jim" folder. In Outlook - filter independent - the replies I sent would end up in the folder in which the replied-to email was.

I am aware that I can set up "outgoing" e-mail filters, but Holy Smokes that would involve a lotta filters... In Outlook, it was a matter of checking *a* radio button!

This is a big issue for me, too. My favorite PIM is PMMail for OS/2 Warp (there is a ******* version but no Linux version). It allowed me to set one filter for both incoming and outgoing mail, i.e. it allowed me to send a copy of each outgoing message to the same destination folder as the incoming filtered message. While this is not terribly necessary for list messages, it is a big help for personal and business correspondence, i.e. it allows me to track an e-mail converstion with a friend or client over a persiod of time. I gave feedback to Ximian on this feature over the last two years but this is apparently not on their priority list ... Having to set up separate outgoing filters is a real PITA.

kjmorris

neighborlee
June 12th, 2005, 11:34 AM
Full Featured PIM solution:
Evolution = Micorosoft Outlook

Email Client:
Mozilla Thunderbird = Outlook Express

It is a shame that there are not any alternatives in Linux when it comes to a Full Featured PIM solution. If anyone knows of one, Please let me know.

there is this :
----------------------
http://www.mozilla.org/projects/calendar/

cheers
nl

mrsad
June 12th, 2005, 02:51 PM
evolution is the only available option on linux if you have to connect to an MS Exchange server at work, that does not have IMAP access enabled. It allows me to sync mails, calendars and tasks.
never had any problems with evolution anyway, it does everything i want and the virtual folders are a neat feature.
i'm not saying there is no room for improvement, there certainly is and it seems like the last two versions have been more of step back then a step forward.

grakhul
June 13th, 2005, 08:14 AM
Hey guys, what do you think of this?
Aethera (http://www.thekompany.com/projects/aethera/)

Segovia
June 13th, 2005, 09:21 AM
I can't agree with the idea of having Thunderbird as default. It's fine for sending a couple emails a week to granny, but for hardcore use, it just doesn't make the grade. Evolution has it's problems too, but I definately prefer it to t-bird.

nocturn
June 13th, 2005, 09:32 AM
Hey guys, what do you think of this?
Aethera (http://www.thekompany.com/projects/aethera/)

It's KDE/Qt based so won't integrate as well as evo.
I tried it a year or so back, it crashed horribly and missed a lot of features, I don't know about the current state though.

oracle2025
June 13th, 2005, 09:55 AM
Well, I use Evolution as my preferred Email-Client, and I have no problem with it. It's a great Application.

BTW. I believe Spam-Filtering and Filtering in General should be done server-side. (I'm using IMAP)

royg1234
June 14th, 2005, 02:42 PM
Evolution should not be removed from the default installation. Many of you are confusing simple email clients with PIMs. I and probably many others require a PIM (and one that works decently with the Outlook-using work world).

I do agree though that if someone wants to remove Evolution, it should be less scary to do so (i.e. you don't have to remove the package "ubuntu desktop").

royg1234
June 14th, 2005, 02:47 PM
I can't agree with the idea of having Thunderbird as default. It's fine for sending a couple emails a week to granny, but for hardcore use, it just doesn't make the grade. Evolution has it's problems too, but I definately prefer it to t-bird.

Some overheated prose regarding emails to granny. I'm willing to bet that many out there happily use Thunderbird to manage 50+ emails a day; I can imagine myself doing it. But Evolution isn't a better option for some just because it's allegedly more robust as an email client, but because it's a PIM that's decently compatible with Outlook-generated appointments, meetings, and contacts.

Curlydave
June 14th, 2005, 04:09 PM
This is like comparing Outlook Express with Outlook. Evolution is more like Outlook, while Thunderbird is more like Outlook Express. I personally use Tbird, but office people probably like Evolution.

Segovia
June 14th, 2005, 09:10 PM
Some overheated prose regarding emails to granny. I'm willing to bet that many out there happily use Thunderbird to manage 50+ emails a day; I can imagine myself doing it. But Evolution isn't a better option for some just because it's allegedly more robust as an email client, but because it's a PIM that's decently compatible with Outlook-generated appointments, meetings, and contacts.
I didn't make that comment about sending emails to granny without some experience with thunderbird. Before scolding me, perhaps you should try it with a large volume of email first?

I receive around 30-100 emails a day, most with very large attachments (1-500 megs). My inbox alone is nearly 10 gigs. I can assure you Thunderbird has extreme difficulty dealing with this.

I just think that some people here are assuming because it suits their light personal emailing needs, that it should also be fine for serious use in a business environment. I disagree.

Stephen-I-M
June 14th, 2005, 10:55 PM
I've given up on using clients to filter email for spam. Even Thunderbird's filter I find not up to the task. I still use it, but my main filter is spamassassin run via cron using imapspambegone:

http://www.rogerbinns.com/isbg/

Stephen

afonic
June 14th, 2005, 11:06 PM
I can't agree with the idea of having Thunderbird as default. It's fine for sending a couple emails a week to granny, but for hardcore use, it just doesn't make the grade. Evolution has it's problems too, but I definately prefer it to t-bird.
I use Thunderbird and I am a hardcore user (more than 100 emails per day). It's very powerful, filters working fine, junk filter working 90% of the time (and I get more than 20 spam emails per day) and it's very stable. I personally think it's more user-friendly as well as it's getting updated more often.

Evolution has it good points, many extra features and I agree that TBird is more like Outlook Express while Evolution is like Outlook. However I didn't say to remove Evolution from the packages. As both of them are in the CD right now, I *think* it would be better to use TBird as the default mail app and leave Evolution there to install for office users.

desdinova
June 14th, 2005, 11:07 PM
Why not use procmail to run spamassassin and get it to filter mail as they come in?

Stephen-I-M
June 15th, 2005, 05:16 PM
Why not use procmail to run spamassassin and get it to filter mail as they come in?
I haven't really gotten my head around procmail. I'm using IMAP on a remote server, btw.

Stephen

tombeharrell
October 27th, 2005, 02:59 PM
Am I the only one on earth (who has used Outlook in the past) who is bugged by the fact that no other e-mail client automatically places my replies into the same folder as the original e-mail?

Am I missing something? Not once in ten years of Outlooking, Outlooking Expressfully, iScribing, getting Thunderbirdular and Eudaoral and finally Evolutionizing have I ever heard anyone complain about this apparently Outlook-exclusive feature.

A couple of times in the last couple of weeks, Evolution has lost my default Sent mail and Draft folders in my exchange account settings. This had exactly the effect of putting my replies in the current folder. Though I think this was a bug, I seem to be unable to remove this setting now I have another folder selected.

I've got another problem with Evolution that has started happening today. When I open an e-mail (well single click 'preview') it scrolls to the bottom of the message. It's getting really annoying, I have to wait until it's finished loading then I can scroll up, otherwise it keeps jumping to the bottom as it loads new images etc. :confused:

blueturtl
October 28th, 2005, 10:27 AM
i) There is no way to automatically fetch mail immediately after startup. See KMail and Outlook.

I could be wrong, but I think this is done by enabling "Automatically check mail every x minutes" setting in your account preferences. This way it should (if I remember correctly) prompt for you password (if you don't have it saved) at startup and fetch your mail for you.

As for spam filtering.. I think the damage is already done if you are receiving spam into your address. Filtering if necessary should be done so that the messages don't even reach your mail client! The most efficient way of blocking spam surprisingly is not to try to catch every possible would-be-spam-mail (which is what many clients do), but to disable incoming mail from all but those addresses you want to receive email from. I mean, practically if you have to waste any time at all thinking about spam, your solution obviously is not heightening your productivity or saving you any time. This is why I hate the idea of filters in the first place. If I used them I'd still receive every bit of the junk that I don't want, and then I'd have to go through it all just to see in case there are mails that might have been accidentally detected as spam. This is more of a "spam sucks generally" than an "spam filters suck" kind of opinion though.

Terrycymru
November 8th, 2005, 09:18 AM
there is this :
----------------------
http://www.mozilla.org/projects/calendar/

cheers
nl

Evolution is so buggy I'm looking for an alternative, simple organizer. (I already use Thunderbird for email.) Has anyone installed Sunbird on Ubuntu Breezy ? If so, what do you think of It.

Terry

rplantz
November 10th, 2005, 05:44 AM
Evolution is so buggy I'm looking for an alternative, simple organizer. (I already use Thunderbird for email.) Has anyone installed Sunbird on Ubuntu Breezy ? If so, what do you think of It.

Terry

I looked at it, but it doesn't sync with a pda yet.

I've been working with jpilot. (Can be installed with Synaptic.)

It's VERY simple.

I spent some time trying to figure out how to get info from Evolution to jpilot. Then it struck me. I synced my Palm Pilot with Evolution, then with jpilot. It worked. Well, sorta. For some reason, I ended up with work and mobile phone numbers, but no home numbers.

My Palm is an old m-100 that doesn't hold settings while changing batteries. I'm recharging some batteries now so I can play with trying to get home phone numbers transferred.

Bob

henriquemaia
November 10th, 2005, 07:11 AM
Here's another evolution quitter and a happy kmail user.

Anyway, I wasn't using 1/3 of evolution's features. For email only, avoid evolution. Nice for corporate environments, I suppose.

topcop
November 10th, 2005, 09:16 AM
Guys,
Hang onto your seats for Mozilla Lightening, it is going to integrate Thunderbird with the calender - a fully integrated PIM solution.

http://wiki.mozilla.org/Calendar:Lightning

Buffalo Soldier
November 10th, 2005, 09:52 AM
Evolution + Planner = "personal assistant for college student", especially if you're appointed as project group leader.

And my a$$ have been saved so many times by the Evolution + clock applet. Love the simplicity of viewing to do list thru the clock applet.

I don't mind if the Thunderbirds fans want to change the default email-client to Thunderbird. Just as long as Evolution is still in the repository.

doclivingston
November 10th, 2005, 09:53 AM
a) the window pops up almost instantly on my machine.

b) Evolution uses the date format that your locale specifies, the same as virtually every other application.

d) Works for me; do you have SpamAssasin installed? I don't know why it isn't installed by default, but without it the junk filters don't work.

e) I agree, using the dialog is annoying

f) I delete my junk mail once I've checked for false positives, which is fairly necessary if you get a lot of spam, so that doesn't really affect me.

g) Right click, "Edit As New Message", Send.

j) It's been a long time since I set evolution up, so I can't comment, but I agree that it would be very annoying if there was no way around it.


These are just my views on evolution. I had always heard that it was such an excellent PIM suite and am dissapointed that it simply doesn't live up to the hype. Presumably there will be enough opposing views. I just thought I'de give my opinion.

I agree that Evolution does have a lot of problems, but everything else I've tried lacks some functionality that I use, or has problems of it's own.

TravisNewman
November 10th, 2005, 05:12 PM
It's the only full featured open-source PIM out there so far for Gnome, and even Windows is lacking one. So it may not be the best, but it's all we have for Gnome. It seems like Free Software is full of countless programs to accomplish one task, except when it comes to this.

rplantz
November 10th, 2005, 06:58 PM
First, I don't need to interface with a workplace system. This is for my personal use.

The best system I've seen so far is Mail/iCal/Addressbook on the Macintosh. Each can be used separately, yet they are all integrated behind the scenes. In addition, the software exists that allows me to sync them with my Palm Pilot.

The main thing I don't like about Evolution is having to start it up when I only want to see my address book, or only my calendar. But this is strictly a personal preference. I'm sure that lots of people always want all three available simultaneously.

The main problem I have with using Thunderbird is that I didn't start out with it (since Evolution is the default). This is really another problem with Evolution: it does not have exporting capabilities.

Bob

dolny
November 10th, 2005, 07:03 PM
Can I export my mail from Evolution to Thunderbird? I'm also sick of Evolution (I installed it on KDE).

Stormy Eyes
November 10th, 2005, 08:02 PM
Agreed. Thunderbird as default, anyone?

Do what you like. I'll stick with sylpheed-claws-gtk2.

poptones
November 10th, 2005, 08:59 PM
I just removed evolution-exchange and installed spamassassin and it works just fine. It also seems to be easier to configure with gpg than thunderbird.

I used to use thunderbird with IMAP and then one day it crashed and burned and wiped out my entire mailbox in the process. No more, no more...

AudioBookDiety
January 14th, 2006, 11:43 PM
Thunderbird is my choice over Evoloution or Kmail.

I did not see it mentioned but if one is looking for a good notification program, install mail-notification. it is really good, has loads of features and works with mbox, MH, Maildir, POP3, IMAP, Gmail, Evolution and Sylpheed mailboxes.
It works very well with Thunderbird, however if you have Thunderbird set to leave messages on the server it will cause problems. MailNotify will continue to think that the mesasages left on the server are new, and keep telling you about um. If you absoloutley want to keep the messages, then make a filter to auto move um after being read or something.

It is easily installed as It is in the current 5.10 repositories.

here is homepage;
mailnotify (http://www.nongnu.org/mailnotify/)

I have used it in both Gnome and KDE, but it works best in Gnome...in KDE there is something called Korn..I think it's korn....that works better for KDE.

Stormy Eyes
January 15th, 2006, 03:18 AM
Agreed. Thunderbird as default, anyone?

Knock yourselves out. I'll just install Sylpheed. :)

majikstreet
January 15th, 2006, 03:38 AM
Evolution is my choice, though I do like thunderbird. going to have a look at sylpheed-claws-gtk2 soon... but I really do need the calendar function.

Malphas
January 15th, 2006, 03:54 AM
Knock yourselves out. I'll just install Sylpheed. :)
So you already said:


Do what you like. I'll stick with sylpheed-claws-gtk2.

DigitalDuality
January 15th, 2006, 04:04 AM
The only e-mail client program i use is Outlook on a Win box at my work. Being that it's Exchange network (pop3 and imap disabled) i really don't have much of a choice. Even MS Entourage on a Mac won't do it. For my other e-mail.. i use web based mail for everything.

If i had to pick one for pop3 or imap, it'd be Thunderbird hands down. I, for numerous reasons, some listed.. do not like Evolution one bit. And while Opera is slick.. i'd rather use open source software over free software.

briancurtin
January 15th, 2006, 04:29 AM
So you already said:
well it is a pretty old thread, and his first post was made in november so he probably forgot

i use sylpheed, actually because of Stormy Eyes' recommendation in a thread a little bit ago

Mr_Grieves
January 15th, 2006, 04:48 AM
I like evolution.. I guess I'm no power user of E-mail, I'm glad aslong as I have the most basic features and it looks ok. At work I ran Sylpheed at Solaris.. ehe.. for a while.. but it kept locking up so I switched to Mozilla.

Lovechild
January 15th, 2006, 04:55 AM
a) Evolution is slow. There is a 3 second pause on my computer between clicking "New Mail" and the window appearing. This is not the case when the same machine is using KMail or Outlook.


Performance is being worked on, hitting the optimal spot is kinda hard - but I'll grant you that there's plenty of room for improvement. What is needed is proper profiling of the applications to see where the bottlenecks are and what we can do to elminate/minimize them.



b) There is no *simple* way of changing the date format (mm/dd/yy -> dd/mm/yy which europeans prefer). I believe it can be done via shell variables, but come on, Evo is supposed to be a proper GUI application.


Setting your locale will elegantly ensure that this problem is avoided, I'm quite sure if you absolutely need to break your locale defaults then gconf has the proper key to do this



c) There is no sensible simple mail notification. There is a "beep" option which is inaudible and some other useless / highly complex hacks. In Kmail you can specify whether new mail triggers a notification *per folder*, all via the GUI and without obscure shell scripts.


Fedora currently ships a patch that enables the use of libnotify in Evolution, I don't know if it is upstream yet but this really does the trick nicely and without cluttering the interface with needless options.



d) The junk mail filter is crap. I trained it on a folder of 1000 spams but still it doesn't seem to recognise half of them. And I have "external check" enabled. KMail uses external spam filters in a transparent way.


The default spam filter seems to be spamassassin, and frankly it's both slow and ineffective - Evolution also ships a bogofilter spamprotection plugin which seems to do much better. I haven't played much with that one though. I'll grant you that the default one is crap though.



e) Spell checking: almost all modern spell-checking applications offer suggestions in a context menu when opened over a misspelt word. In Evo you have to open an extra window.


I recently blogged about the horrible stat of spellchecking in general in GNOME, we have 3 different systems and gtk upstream has as of yet not decided on a default for Project Ridley - highly disappointing. This absolutely must be fixed.



f) New Junk is not marked as unread. This would be nice so that you know what junk you've checked for false positives and which you haven't.


It's does that here it seems..



g) Sending a mail twice takes a whole load of inelegant cutting and pasting. See KMail for the elegant solution.


go to the sent folder, Edit as new the mail and voila.. Not extremely elegant but it does the job and having never tried this before I found the functionality instantly.



i) There is no way to automatically fetch mail immediately after startup. See KMail and Outlook.


It does that here, I don't know if this is a feature they somehow disabled in the version in Breezy but in Dapper this is the way it works by default.



j) You HAVE to specify a mail server in the Evo startup wizard. There is no way of getting around this. Very annoying.


A) what use is a mail program without account info to you or anyone
B) What did you expect it to do, not setting a mail server when setting up your account is an error, Evolution therefore informs you of its lacking.



k) The calenders feature is not too hot either. I only ever use the whole-month-view and when I scroll through the months it takes ages. Outlook was 10 times more responsive. And the default colour scheme means that looking for today's date is a real eye strainer.


Having never used Outlook I'll avoid that part, the default colour scheme is set by your metatheme in GNOME. This is a bog standard thing, if you don't like it then you have plenty of options to pick from. Nice right?
[/QUOTE]

I have lately been wondering if it might not be fun to implement a fairly minimal mail client in C#/GTK#, it would use network manager to detect connection status and only check for mail when a connection was available (to avoid those awful failure messages), I would want tight integration using evolution-data-server and dbus. Libnotify usage to tell the use in a nice way that he has new mail.

Basically move email to be a background service that starts up along with GNOME. A bulky groupware suit isn't needed by most people, evolution honestly while an excellent application seems very un GNOME'ish in it's design and implementation. In hindsight I think a best of breed application design for this job would have done the users more good, at least Evolution got us Evolution Data Server which is going to make it possible to at least get to that point in the future.

Oh and on the hate list for Evolution, my own personal favorite, why if it is a GNOME application does it register a .evolution dir in my homedir and could they have possibly found a less logical means of hidding it's data I counted evolution dirs in gconf, gnome2, gnome2_private and it's own .evolution dir.. not to mention the actual maildir. It's extremely hard to backup or keep synced between machines unless you dump the entire user dir, which I honestly don't always think is a good idea.

Another issue is palm syncing, it works rather erraticly. I assume the solution is something like the OpenSync framework, however this doesn't seem to want to get off the ground as far as I can tell.

And finally my absolute most hated Evolution malfeature, why are columns in always edit mode - I swing my cursor off by a little bit, click the wrong place by accident (and this happens a lot to me, I might just be clumsy though).. BOOM there goes this column.. it's just a pain to add it back everytime I accidently do this. Why do they absolutely need to be in edit mode by default.. look towards Epiphany's toolbar handling from the right way to do this. This also applies to GNOME-panel btw... always editiable is not sane in any way.

I have some many complains over Evolution.. and yet it's still the best email client I've ever used.

vayu
January 15th, 2006, 08:29 AM
Anyone know which email clients can import and export emails between each other?

shekhark
January 16th, 2006, 04:12 PM
Maybe I missed it, but I believe this thread began with someone asking about syncing address books with a mobile phone. My biggest gripes since migrating from Mac OSX to Ubuntu six months ago have mostly to do with Evolution. Its importing function for vcf files is buggy and crashes, its regular mail viewer is slow, copy and paste between mails often doesn't work, and there is no apparent way of syncing contacts between Evolution and anything but a Palm Pilot. I have a Nokia 6630 connected to my Ubuntu via Bluetooth and want a way of easily managing contacts on the phone and on my computer. Even Thunderbird doesn't have this level of integration. Any suggestions or comments?

RaiSuli
January 24th, 2006, 03:53 AM
Back on Windows I used The Bat, which I still think is the best email client I've ever used. On Ubuntu I've tried Evolution, Thunderbird, Opera Mail, Kmail, and even Mutt, but now I only use Sylpheed Claws. There are some bugs, but it works well with SpamAssassin, is highly configurable, can import address books from The Bat and is easy to use.

dcstar
January 24th, 2006, 04:25 AM
........
The default spam filter seems to be spamassassin, and frankly it's both slow and ineffective - Evolution also ships a bogofilter spamprotection plugin which seems to do much better. I haven't played much with that one though. I'll grant you that the default one is crap though.
.......
My Evolution/Spamassassin combo is now working 1,000% better than the default setup since I made the changes outlined in this thread:

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?p=676149

shekhark
January 24th, 2006, 02:39 PM
Well after three days of Evolution not displaying mails in many of my imap folders and also continuing to eat away my processor with EDS and generally frustrate my general productivity, I ditched it and moved to Thunderbird. What a relief! Customisable interface, fast performance, and the warm and loving Mozilla community to which I can address my issues and desires! With the help of this guide http://applications.linux.com/article.pl?sid=04/09/10/1446217&tid=37&tid=101 I was able to migrate with almost no pain to Thunderbird 1.5 on Breezy.

Lovechild
January 24th, 2006, 08:11 PM
My Evolution/Spamassassin combo is now working 1,000% better than the default setup since I made the changes outlined in this thread:

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?p=676149

I concern myself about defaults, and the default is horrible - I have yet to see it actually do a proper job. I used to have a customized bogofilter setup that worked nicely but it wasn't easy to integrate to Evolution at that point and I wanted the evolution filter to get better so I decided to rely on it.. big mistake.

Maupertus
January 25th, 2006, 03:49 AM
I almost feel horrible now how much I like Evolution.
My main beef at the moment is it speed, and since my attention was drawn to it, the permanent movable window frames, but otherwise I'm happy.

It has an easier lay out then Outlook, more readily tuned to your personal need although this maybe because of the lack of certain extra's, the fact that as a Outlook poweruser I haven't really missed them is gratifying.

Okay, the fact that you have to download a small program for mailnotification is annoying at first, but when you use it, what do you care and it's interaction with Evo is okay. And I'm very fond of the search function on it.

All other complaints I have are minor and pretty standerd when using Open Source, so I guess I'm imune to them ;)

Sirin
January 25th, 2006, 04:15 AM
Agreed. Thunderbird as default, anyone?

Sorry. Kontact for me. :)

oyvindaa
May 20th, 2006, 07:17 PM
Mozilla Thunderbird is by far the best e-mail client I've ever tried.

It has got every function I'd want from an e-mail client, plus it's very fast.

AND, it works very well together with Firefox.

RAV TUX
May 20th, 2006, 07:42 PM
Silly question but what are the benefits of using an email client in the first place?

I simply have found NO pratical use for them.

perhaps I am missing something?

FISHERMAN
May 20th, 2006, 08:01 PM
Silly question but what are the benefits of using an email client in the first place?

I simply have found NO pratical use for them.

perhaps I am missing something?
I find a mail-client handier than web based webmail.

RAV TUX
May 20th, 2006, 08:29 PM
I find a mail-client handier than web based webmail.

Could you expand a bit on the benefits?

aysiu
May 20th, 2006, 08:33 PM
Could you expand a bit on the benefits? Here are the benefits of an email client that I find:

1. Faster loading up of messages, as a new HTML page does not need to be rendered every time I go to my inbox or a new message. Sorting of messages is also faster.

2. More features--I can junk messages with a hotkey, go to the next new message with a hot key, easily switch from HTML to plain text view, detach attachments from messages (well, in Thunderbird).

3. I can sync up multiple email accounts (I have about five of them) and check them all at once and see right away if any of them have a message.

4. I can easily move messages from one email account to another and easily back up messages from the server to my local computer with drag-and-drop.

5. I can check email without having to have my web browser open.

That's all I can think of right now, but if you need more I can probably cook up more.

BarfBag
May 20th, 2006, 08:45 PM
I prefer Evolution. It seems cleaner then KMail and even Thunderbird. It looks HORRIBLE under KDE, though. Since I'm more of a KDE person, I use Thunderbird.

I hate how it doesn't have a "Show Images" button.

henriquemaia
May 21st, 2006, 07:40 AM
Here's another evolution quitter and a happy kmail user.

Anyway, I wasn't using 1/3 of evolution's features. For email only, avoid evolution. Nice for corporate environments, I suppose.
Answering myself. I'm now using Evolution again. Why? Because I started using Kontact a couple of months ago as I needed a PIM solution. Even though I like Kmail a lot, I wasn't satisfied with Kontack. Apart from that, Evolution is better integrated with Gnome in Ubuntu, so that looked a preety good reason to use it.

But I have to confess that I'm not trully satisfied with evolution as a mail client (It's great as PIM). If only Evolution had some of the features Kmail has.

exemples:
separate identities, with its own folders, signatures, etc.
Folders configurable to have its own identity associated and its own icons.
configurable shortcuts (KDE feature, I believe)
notification area icon, showing unread emails count (using mail-notification is not the same thing, and alltraying Evolution either).But Evolution is not a bad mail client at all. I think I'm just spoilled by Kmail.

Wolki
May 21st, 2006, 01:23 PM
But I have to confess that I'm not trully satisfied with evolution as a mail client (It's great as PIM).

Have to say I agree with that.


configurable shortcuts (KDE feature, I believe)

You mean, defining keyboard shortcuts for menu entries? Should be easy, Go System -> Settings -> Menus & Toolbars and enable editable keyboard shortcuts. Then hover over the menu entry you want to have a custom keyboard shortcut and press the shortcut you want.

(this is a bpowerful tool, so I'd recommend disabling it again afterwards so you don't change things by accident; you can leave it on of course if you can handle it :))

Kernel Sanders
May 21st, 2006, 02:08 PM
Why not use Thunderbird and Sunbird? :confused:

henriquemaia
May 21st, 2006, 02:46 PM
Have to say I agree with that.



You mean, defining keyboard shortcuts for menu entries? Should be easy, Go System -> Settings -> Menus & Toolbars and enable editable keyboard shortcuts. Then hover over the menu entry you want to have a custom keyboard shortcut and press the shortcut you want.

(this is a bpowerful tool, so I'd recommend disabling it again afterwards so you don't change things by accident; you can leave it on of course if you can handle it :))
Wow! Thanks, I didn't know that! One thing off that list, hehe.

Just a small note: It's System --> Preferences --> Menus & Toolbars . It's just a detail, but it's to make it easier for someone else looking for this.


Why not use Thunderbird and Sunbird?
Because Evolution is better integrated in Ubuntu's desktop.

Wolki
May 21st, 2006, 03:51 PM
Just a small note: It's System --> Preferences --> Menus & Toolbars . It's just a detail, but it's to make it easier for someone else looking for this.

Ah, sorry. Wrong translation from german back to english on my side. -_-


Because Evolution is better integrated in Ubuntu's desktop.

Exactly. This includes behavior, as Evolution at least tries to follow the HIG, and technology - Evo will use the same theme as the rest of your desktop, will respect your settings (like default browser) and uses desktop tech like evolution-data-server to allow other applications to access your info (say, the panel calendar to show you your appointments or instant messaging apps to sync with your adress book - i presume more good things will come)

fuscia
May 21st, 2006, 04:55 PM
i use sylpheed-claws. it opens quickly and doesn't hog a lot of resources. i'll use thunderbird if i'm sending pics (it's easier for me to arrange them in t'bird). waiting for t'bird to open, though, can be painful.

ssam
May 21st, 2006, 05:02 PM
It looks HORRIBLE under KDE, though.

you probably need gnome-settings-daemon running, then you will get you gnome theme in any other windowmanager.

RAV TUX
May 21st, 2006, 07:36 PM
Here are the benefits of an email client that I find:

1. Faster loading up of messages, as a new HTML page does not need to be rendered every time I go to my inbox or a new message. Sorting of messages is also faster.

2. More features--I can junk messages with a hotkey, go to the next new message with a hot key, easily switch from HTML to plain text view, detach attachments from messages (well, in Thunderbird).

3. I can sync up multiple email accounts (I have about five of them) and check them all at once and see right away if any of them have a message.

4. I can easily move messages from one email account to another and easily back up messages from the server to my local computer with drag-and-drop.

5. I can check email without having to have my web browser open.

That's all I can think of right now, but if you need more I can probably cook up more.

Thanks, aysiu.

Sheinar
May 21st, 2006, 09:14 PM
i use sylpheed-claws.
Same here. Haven't found an email client I like as much.

jason.b.c
May 21st, 2006, 09:23 PM
This thread has been going on for a long time..!;)

rado_london
May 22nd, 2006, 01:22 AM
Evolution all the way!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

graigsmith
May 22nd, 2006, 02:05 AM
i like evolution, especially now that junk mail filtering works in dapper. i mean, i diddn't have to do anything, except start marking things as junk, just like you do in thunderbird :)

henriquemaia
May 22nd, 2006, 02:07 AM
i like evolution, especially now that junk mail filtering works in dapper. i mean, i diddn't have to do anything, except start marking things as junk, just like you do in thunderbird :)

Yes, that is really nice. Great improvement since I last used it, where I had to create filters using spamassassin...

mdsmedia
May 22nd, 2006, 05:18 AM
I started using Evolution (with Hoary) when I first installed Ubuntu. I found it quite buggy, but I couldn't setup separate accounts etc. the way I could in Thunderbird on Windows.

So I went back to Thunderbird and I read an article about Korganizer (part of Kontact). So I installed it in Gnome, and have been using Kontact (except email) as my PIM and Thunderbird for email.

Kontact does some nifty things, but some bits need some work.

kim wally
May 22nd, 2006, 09:36 AM
Sorry, this may not be very constructive, but I have to get this off my chest: I think evolution is a stone-age Email client. I am actually a KDE user but since using ububtu I decided to give gnome a try and was very impressed, until I migrated all my mail to evolution. I did this becaue I wanted a PIM solution that will allow me to sync with a mobile at some stage in the future.

Anyway, swicthing from KMail to Evolution really is taking several large steps backwards. Here's why:

a) Evolution is slow. There is a 3 second pause on my computer between clicking "New Mail" and the window appearing. This is not the case when the same machine is using KMail or Outlook.

b) There is no *simple* way of changing the date format (mm/dd/yy -> dd/mm/yy which europeans prefer). I believe it can be done via shell variables, but come on, Evo is supposed to be a proper GUI application.

c) There is no sensible simple mail notification. There is a "beep" option which is inaudible and some other useless / highly complex hacks. In Kmail you can specify whether new mail triggers a notification *per folder*, all via the GUI and without obscure shell scripts.

d) The junk mail filter is crap. I trained it on a folder of 1000 spams but still it doesn't seem to recognise half of them. And I have "external check" enabled. KMail uses external spam filters in a transparent way.

e) Spell checking: almost all modern spell-checking applications offer suggestions in a context menu when opened over a misspelt word. In Evo you have to open an extra window.

f) New Junk is not marked as unread. This would be nice so that you know what junk you've checked for false positives and which you haven't.

g) Sending a mail twice takes a whole load of inelegant cutting and pasting. See KMail for the elegant solution.

i) There is no way to automatically fetch mail immediately after startup. See KMail and Outlook.

j) You HAVE to specify a mail server in the Evo startup wizard. There is no way of getting around this. Very annoying.

k) The calenders feature is not too hot either. I only ever use the whole-month-view and when I scroll through the months it takes ages. Outlook was 10 times more responsive. And the default colour scheme means that looking for today's date is a real eye strainer.

These are just my views on evolution. I had always heard that it was such an excellent PIM suite and am dissapointed that it simply doesn't live up to the hype. Presumably there will be enough opposing views. I just thought I'de give my opinion.
i have just installed ubuntu. i use thunderbird on all my other pcs (various distros)
i want a quick way to download and install tbird onto ubuntu, don't want to make a night of it if poss. evolution must go!

Sushi
May 22nd, 2006, 01:15 PM
I've given up on using clients to filter email for spam. Even Thunderbird's filter I find not up to the task. I still use it, but my main filter is spamassassin run via cron using imapspambegone:

Hmmmm, Kmail uses SpamAssassin (or some other tool, if you prefer) to do it's spam-filtering. Kmail doesn't try to filter the spam, it lets dedicated tools designed for the task to do it. That's the beauty of the UNIX-way: dedicated apps working together.

I don't know how Evolution handles spam, even though I'm currently using it ;).

henriquemaia
May 22nd, 2006, 06:09 PM
Hmmmm, Kmail uses SpamAssassin (or some other tool, if you prefer) to do it's spam-filtering. Kmail doesn't try to filter the spam, it lets dedicated tools designed for the task to do it. That's the beauty of the UNIX-way: dedicated apps working together.

I don't know how Evolution handles spam, even though I'm currently using it ;).

With bogofilter, it is enabled by default by one of its plugins. You can check in Edit --> Plugins --> Bogofilter Junk Plugin

airtonix
May 28th, 2006, 07:04 AM
Nimefurahi : Hey buddy, you wouldn't know how to export mail from evolution to slypheed by any chance?

preferrably without resending it all to myself.

i looked briefly in the menus, but nothing was there.

DigitalDuality
May 28th, 2006, 05:57 PM
d

ShanghaiTeej
May 28th, 2006, 11:36 PM
Nimefurahi : Hey buddy, you wouldn't know how to export mail from evolution to slypheed by any chance?

preferrably without resending it all to myself.

i looked briefly in the menus, but nothing was there.

Hey man.
1. Enable Hidden folders in Nautilus in your Home Folder (ctrl+H)
2. Navigate to .evolution->mail->local
3. Copy and past files like Inbox, Outbox, Sent and others to your desktop (so that they aren't hidden files anymore)
4. Use the importa function on Syhpleed client
5. Drink a Latte

el3ktro
June 5th, 2006, 12:29 PM
I finally made the switch from Thunderbird to Evolution. I just had to try it out a little better, and now I'm generally OK with it. I just think the contacts module has some quirks, you can't group contacts properly when you have multiple categories assigned to them, and the UI needs an general overhaul & simplification. On my 1280x1024 display, I can't even see my two e-mail adress folders, because those large buttons at the bottom of the sidebar takes up so much space - it's even worse on my gf iBook with only 1024x768. In all other modules except e-mail this sidebar is almost completely empty - it's just a waste of space! It's too Outlookish, generally it's okay, but I think it could be improved.

But guys, I've made a decision recently: When I don't like something about a program, I go to this damn bugzilla thing they have and file a suggestion for usability improvement or a feature request. The developers look THERE, in bugzilla, not here in the forum. It's so easy, sign up to bugzilla, file a feature request - everybody can do that!

Tom

JSchwage
June 5th, 2006, 04:22 PM
I've never used Evolution and don't plan to. I'm a diehard Thunderbird user.

lapsey
June 5th, 2006, 04:59 PM
sunbird + thunderbird + firefox, reagrdless of system requiremens, will alyas be the better draw than the native gnome suite of programs because of rate of speed of development :(

of course i'd rather rely on ajax apps for user settings (portability is key) but until someone other than an online advertising agency offers that I'll be sticking with thunderbird

dvarsam
June 8th, 2006, 12:45 PM
Evolution sucks when somebody decides to connect to an AOL account!

AOL is the only company (that I know of) that offers the people (incoming) IMAP instead of POP3 accounts & more importantly: for FREE!!!

That means that you do NOT have to wait for your E-mails to download to your PC, but just view them from AOL's Server.

IF you do NOT have to download, that means you can "faster" manage your E-mail accounts!

You can move/delete your E-mails...

However, try to create an E-mail & send it through your Evolution's (outgoing) SMTP to your AOL's account, to forward to the NET...

IT WILL NOT WORK!!!

Conclusion:
You can Setup your Evolution for incoming E-mail with AOL (superior IMAP), but
You can NOT Setup your Evolution for outgoing E-mail with AOL!!!

That makes an Evolution/AOL combination suck!!!

P.S.1> If I can take advantage of AOL's superior (incoming) IMAP account over a POP3 account, but at the same time can NOT send a single outgoing E-mail (because of a "faulty" SMTP), why on earth should I create/use an AOL e-mail account (& manage it with Evolution), in the first place???
Competitive advantage is what brings more people in & if AOL/Evolution can't make it work, scr*w them both!

bruce89
June 8th, 2006, 12:50 PM
Evolution is too complicated, it needs a serious bit of simplication. Thunderbird uses XUL, so it can't be GNOME default, just like why Firefox isn't the GNOME default, it is Epiphany.

doclivingston
June 8th, 2006, 12:59 PM
AOL is the only company (that I know of) that offers the people SMTP instead of POP3 accounts & more importantly: for FREE!!!

That means that you do NOT have to wait for your E-mails to download to your PC, but just view them from AOL's Server.

Do you mean IMAP?

SMTP is for sending mail to a mail server, and isn't used to receive mail. Virtually everyone who uses POP3 to receive mail will be using SMTP to send it.



However, try to create an E-mail & send it through your Evolution to your AOL's account, to forward to the NET...

IT WILL NOT WORK!!!

Conclusion:
You can Setup your Evolution for incoming E-mail with AOL, but
You can NOT Setup your Evolution for outgoing E-mail with AOL!!!

P.S.1> If I can't use AOL's superior SMTP account over a POP3 account, why on earth should I create&use an AOL e-mail account in the first place???
Competitive advantage is what brings more people in & if AOL/Evolution can't make it work, scr*w them both!

Here I'm even more confused. You are talking about using SMTP to send mail, but imply that you use something else to send it when you use your POP3 account. Unless you have shell access to the mail server, to directly talk to the MTA, you will be using SMTP.



If you mean IMAP instead of SMTP, then Evolution does have a few issues with it, but I haven't seen anything too major.

dvarsam
June 8th, 2006, 02:32 PM
Dear "doclivingston",

Sorry for the mistakes man. :D

You were right, I had mixed things up, but I just fixed it!

Thanks.

P.S.> You can now go back & read my original post, it should be OK now...:)

rniella
July 12th, 2006, 02:37 AM
Hi there, I read almost all the messages on this thread and did not see anywhere (maybe a missed it), the one thing I miss the most on Outlook/Outook Express and other clients... how do you set Evolution so that it removes messages from the (POP) server after x days ?? or after you erased the message ?? the only options I see are, either remove messages from the server or leave them (forever?).. thanks tou you all !!

RN

Compucore
July 12th, 2006, 03:13 AM
Casper_wrede There is a simple mail notification program if you were to go to add/remove programs. and go under inernet options take a look in there I had found it and it was easy to set up to let me know when mail has arrived at my Videotron account over here. You might have to click on unsupported applications and show commercial applications if your using apper drake. It is very similar to like using mailwasher in the windows environment. With the exception of being able to delete and bounce it back to teh sender. But it is there if you look carefully. I have it installed on bothmy Dapper drake and my breezu badger OS over here.

Compucore

Apostata
August 1st, 2006, 05:30 PM
If I may add my 2 cents...

I'm a long-time Kmail/Kontact user (using Kontact since it was officially "fused" with Kmail). Recently, for some unkown freaking reason (more here (http://www.ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=115221)), Kmail now freezes upon startup. I don't have the patience to figure it out anymore and I thought: right, let's switch to Evolution. It's mature, it's popular.

Man, is it ugly. And basic. It makes Kmail look like Lotus Notes.

I'm going to install Dapper-64, and if the Kmail problem isn't sorted out, I have no choice but to consider Thunderbird. I simply can't see another alternative (although I dream of The Bat (http://www.ritlabs.com/en/products/thebat/) being ported).

beniwtv
August 1st, 2006, 06:22 PM
a) Evolution is slow. There is a 3 second pause on my computer between clicking "New Mail" and the window appearing. This is not the case when the same machine is using KMail or Outlook.



Mine does take < 1 seconds.



b) There is no *simple* way of changing the date format (mm/dd/yy -> dd/mm/yy which europeans prefer). I believe it can be done via shell variables, but come on, Evo is supposed to be a proper GUI application.


Mine does. Hmmm. I live in Spain.



c) There is no sensible simple mail notification. There is a "beep" option which is inaudible and some other useless / highly complex hacks. In Kmail you can specify whether new mail triggers a notification *per folder*, all via the GUI and without obscure shell scripts.


You can establish a sound file as notification. Why would I need *per folder* sounds?



d) The junk mail filter is crap. I trained it on a folder of 1000 spams but still it doesn't seem to recognise half of them. And I have "external check" enabled. KMail uses external spam filters in a transparent way.


Neutral. But I haven't so much of it. Once a day 1 spam. So I can't really discuss.




e) Spell checking: almost all modern spell-checking applications offer suggestions in a context menu when opened over a misspelt word. In Evo you have to open an extra window.



Question of taste. Doesn't influence me.




f) New Junk is not marked as unread. This would be nice so that you know what junk you've checked for false positives and which you haven't.


Agree.



g) Sending a mail twice takes a whole load of inelegant cutting and pasting. See KMail for the elegant solution.


When I need to send a mail twice, I send it directly to both via Cco. Correct me if I misunderstood you.



i) There is no way to automatically fetch mail immediately after startup. See KMail and Outlook.


I don't like that. But an option for this would be nice for people that do.



j) You HAVE to specify a mail server in the Evo startup wizard. There is no way of getting around this. Very annoying.


Agree. It should let you cancel and then start Evolution. You could add accounts later on.



k) The calenders feature is not too hot either. I only ever use the whole-month-view and when I scroll through the months it takes ages. Outlook was 10 times more responsive. And the default colour scheme means that looking for today's date is a real eye strainer.


I don't have a problem with it. Hence, my PDA couldn't handle more data anyway. Regarding to the responsiveness, I don't have a problem. Mine runs smoothly.

I really like Evolution. It's fast and powerfull for me, and the best: I don't have to install another email client.

But that's a matter of taste. Use what suits you best.

I have to use thunderbird on my company's mac, but I find it really more unintuitive. Example: It defaults to use only ONE outgoing email server. You have to set up another
manually, what I don't like.

Just IMHO I think we should keep Evolution.

ngdias
August 16th, 2006, 12:29 AM
It's been more than a year since this thread was started and I, just starting to try Evolution, have to agree to most of the arguments posted here. The only reason I'm not moving back to Thunderbird right now is because of the calendar and other PIM capabilities.

Getting a spam filter to work was not as easy as I would expect, considering it's free software (Bogofilter) and the consern of the distro for having the most basic stuff ready to run (and a spamfilter is essential these days) 'out of the box'.

henriquemaia
October 11th, 2006, 06:02 PM
Does anyone knows how to shut down the notification sound in evolution when new junk mail arrives? It's so annoying to have it playing for nothing - I can't rely in it anymore. Most of the emails I receive are junk and the sound is always playing when they arrive.

Evolution really gets in my nerves as an email client, grrr.

Krakatos
October 11th, 2006, 06:13 PM
Evolution is the first thing that I uninstall after format, then i install Thunderbird anf Tomboy.

Works for me, I suppose not for those who need a real PIM. But anyway, evolution is sooo behind compared to Kontact. A pity I prefer gnome to kde....

henriquemaia
October 11th, 2006, 06:15 PM
[...]

Works for me, I suppose not for those who need a real PIM. But anyway, evolution is sooo behind compared to Kontact. A pity I prefer gnome to kde....

I agree. Pity is that Evolution is better integrated in gnome and ubuntu.

How I miss kmail (as email client)...

qalimas
October 11th, 2006, 06:37 PM
I agree, I'm much more of a KDE (and KMail) person. However at work, it seems KDE has problems connecting through the school system's MS proxy server (ISA I think) using a name and password. So I use GNOME, with Evolution. I tried thunderbird, but it doesn't support ther MS Exchange server our email works off of, and is not a PIM solution. I hate the MS server.. but at least I get to use Ubuntu on my work computer, even if it's not my first choice of applications, they are still ranked higher than their Windows counterparts ;)

scot524
October 11th, 2006, 07:36 PM
Agreed -- Thunderbird is the way to go. Dugg, oops wrong site.

darkhatter
October 11th, 2006, 08:34 PM
Kontact

its full pim that uses all of the various management programs found in kde, I just found it now. it has calender, and email, and RSS, and all that other Jazz. I thik I may start using it:-k .

I use thunderbird in windows and Linux

MrDigital1
November 27th, 2006, 08:14 PM
And still the thread lives on.

I try on and off to use Evolution but for the most part I can't stand it. I continue to use Outlook 2003 in VMWare for work email which is Exchange 2003 based.

When are we going to get another good client (Maybe Lightning?) to connect up to Exchange???

wantime
February 16th, 2007, 12:41 AM
Bring on Thunderbird as the default!

PartisanEntity
February 16th, 2007, 01:01 AM
I have never used Evolution, but judging from the thread it is not too hot, Thunderbird is good, but I too would like PIM syncing with my cell phone, a calendar and 'to-do' list, colour coding, multiple email accounts allowing multiple outgoing mail servers, at least.

I was a heavy Outlook user and I miss it, I don't think there exists a Linux alternative to Outlook yet.

Apostata
February 16th, 2007, 01:14 AM
I was a heavy Outlook user and I miss it, I don't think there exists a Linux alternative to Outlook yet.

There's certainly no Outlook killer yet. I use Kontact - it has some of the same functionality as Outlook (calendar/pim/etc.).

Mateo
February 16th, 2007, 01:20 AM
still use evolution and love it. love the fact that the clock applet will show the appointments you make in evolution.

PartisanEntity
February 16th, 2007, 01:25 AM
I have started to play around with Evolution, it appears to react slow to certain things, such as trying to start a new email?

tombeharrell
February 16th, 2007, 11:42 AM
Functionality-wise it works perfectly for me, it's just very unstable, sometimes moving between folders too fast bombs it, sometimes composing a message and selecting someone from the exchange address book does it.

PartisanEntity
February 18th, 2007, 04:36 PM
Funnily enough, now that I have been testing Evolution first hand, I must say I am beginning to prefer it above Thunderbird. I managed to syn my cell phone using bluetooth with Evolution (a feature I needed badly which Thunderbird didn't have) also I need the calendar and appointments feature and I like how it integrates into Gnome.

Unfortunately as some here have already mentioned, it does crash from time to time.

karellen
February 18th, 2007, 04:49 PM
I use evolution. I like the fact it integrates a calendar, address book, tasks and so on. It's not perfect, it has glitches, but overall I didn't have any problems with it...I might try thunderbird, I used thunderbird in windows a while some time ago, until I installed outlook 2007

235235
February 18th, 2007, 05:34 PM
b) do you have localization installed? I get dd/mm/yy format without any setup


Localization does change the date format, but the user still has no control over it (for example, no way to choose yyyy-mm-dd or any other variant). Changing locale also affects other configuration options for many other programs, so it is a blunt instrument at best.

wataboutbob
March 2nd, 2007, 03:44 PM
I've tried Evolution and Thunderbird. Granted, my installation of Edgy is only a week old, I've tried to use it as my primary OS. Everything works peachy after installation - Beryl included - except for the Quickbooks Pro I use for work and my Outlook 2003. There really isn't an alternative for those 2 applications in Ubuntu.

Thunderbird seems to handle my very large multiple email folders without slowdown better than Evo but Evo has better calendars and tasks. I should give sunbird a try. But I'm thinking I might as well just try VMWare and run my Outlook and Quickbooks.

In every other way, I love Ubuntu.

Kobalt
March 2nd, 2007, 03:48 PM
I use Evolution everyday and I really like it : it's Gnome style app. Simple and efficient I think.

OffHand
March 2nd, 2007, 03:49 PM
I've tried Evolution and Thunderbird. Granted, my installation of Edgy is only a week old, I've tried to use it as my primary OS. Everything works peachy after installation - Beryl included - except for the Quickbooks Pro I use for work and my Outlook 2003. There really isn't an alternative for those 2 applications in Ubuntu.

Thunderbird seems to handle my very large multiple email folders without slowdown better than Evo but Evo has better calendars and tasks. I should give sunbird a try. But I'm thinking I might as well just try VMWare and run my Outlook and Quickbooks.

In every other way, I love Ubuntu.

For those who are looking for calender integration in Thunderbird, install the Lightning plugin:

http://www.mozilla.org/projects/calendar/lightning/download.html

wataboutbob
March 4th, 2007, 01:40 AM
hey thanks for the tip. Lightning looks a lot more interesting than Evo.

Gargamella
March 4th, 2007, 10:51 AM
sincerly, I don't like very much, but i send and receive few mail, so i still use it...anyway I think it should be improved if it wants to be the default one.

Levitation
March 14th, 2007, 09:44 PM
I have Ubuntu 5.10 on a P2/333 mHz/11GB HD notebook. Enough to install Thunderbird?

Onyros
March 14th, 2007, 10:21 PM
Naaa... go Claws-Mail instead, much lighter and functional.

And it wouldn't hurt to learn how to use mutt, too, especially given the specs.

bastubis
August 8th, 2007, 09:03 PM
Hmm.

As an email client, Thunderbird is far more flexible than Evolution giving you far more options for handling mail, even before you add plugins. There's nothing Evolution does as an email client that Thunderbird + add-ons can't do but there's lots that Evolution doesn't do. Mind you, as an email client, Pegasus has always been my top email client, I missed it when I switched to Linux -- they're porting it to Linux but it's not stable yet.

The drawback with Thunderbird is that Lightening isn't fully developed and it's address book sux. Lightening doesn't co-exist particularly comfortably with Thunderbird. I can't see a way of giving the tasker a full page -- what you want are buttons to switch from contacts to calendar to email. The address book is pretty rudimentary too.

I tried out Evolution on Edgy, but found it too basic as an email client. I liked the integration of functions but not the lack of them. On Feisty Evolution is so buggy I gave up. It's unuseable with it's endless 'can't synch folders' error messages. Tried every fix I could find, nothing worked.

I dont' really like these 'all-in-one' and I don't like the integration with GNOME (I hate it when stuff pokes tentacles into GNOME and you have to force quit to back the wretched thing up and restoring it is unnecessarily fiddly) -- inevitably they're bloated and yet lack the range of features you get if you use a separate email client and PIM. I'm now using Thunderbird and looking for any halfway sensible PIM that isn't built on Java. I'll also have a look at the Pegasus port when it's ready.

Wiebelhaus
August 8th, 2007, 09:15 PM
I just decided to give it another try after the news that thunderbird will become a free agent , I use gmail to consolidate all my emails into one then access gmail with pop access with evolution , gmail filters the junk and provides an always available backup also in the event of a reinstall I can just re-download all my emails , but when I first tried evo i couldn't stand it , but with this configuration it's working just fine , we'll see after a few thousand emails collect in the inbox and other folders.

FuturePilot
August 8th, 2007, 10:31 PM
I've never touched Evolution. And I've heard tons of people complain about it. I've always used Thunderbird. Xubuntu has Thunderbird as the default.

FrancoNero
August 28th, 2007, 09:43 PM
the problem I have with evolution is, that it looks F**GLY, seriously, look at thunderbird, all the icons and everything look very professional and modern. evolution looks like Gnome looked like 3 years ago, and there doesn't seem to exist a Human/Ubuntu interface skin.

also, the mail performance is far behind thunderbird. it's just a bit antiquated. a huge push in development would make it the default choice again (lots of people need M$ Outlook replacement, thunderbird just is no PIM)....

jgrabham
August 28th, 2007, 10:40 PM
Agreed. Thunderbird as default, anyone?

YES, Why does evolution have to be so SLOW!!

FrancoNero
August 29th, 2007, 10:43 PM
but lots of people rely on Evolution's PIM capabilities....

forrestcupp
August 30th, 2007, 03:12 AM
I use and like Thunderbird, but the calendar plugin is total crap. It's no replacement for a PIM. Evolution wins in the calendar department. I still don't use it, though.

soldave
September 3rd, 2007, 11:55 AM
If I install Thunderbird on my system as my email client, should I uninstall Evolution?

Sorry if that's a dumb question - am just getting started with Linux.

gtdaqua
September 3rd, 2007, 12:22 PM
I hate Evolution - internet and linux users said it was great! Absolute crap!

I started Kubuntu with KMail - cant complain but the reply messages would simply go to bottom. So installed thunderbird and migrated my settings. Was ok but was not comfortable. Why all the crap again??

Removed it from my system and went to this thing called "Evolution". I really wanted to kill that thing on my machine. It was so painfully annoying that I wanted to start a thread and spread the word.

Contacts wouldnt simply display where it should. Send a 2nd email to the same person, evolution won't auto fill the address! How annoying? And contacts would not display the addresses when composing the message. Quit composing and check the contacts again, they will all be there!

Now I am back with KMail - able to edit templates in reply/forwarding messages. Not very flexible as Outlook but again I have to be ok with it.

gtdaqua
September 3rd, 2007, 12:24 PM
soldave,

uninstall Evolution anyway! Its a load of crap. see my post above.

type this in the terminal:

"sudo apt-get remove evolution"

Just to answer your question: No you can have as many email clients as you want. Nothing stops u there - but having many doesn't make sense, does it?

jeremy
September 3rd, 2007, 05:07 PM
If you think evolution is rubbish you should try outlook express!

karellen
September 3rd, 2007, 05:36 PM
imo the best e-mail client I've used was outlook 2007

tiger74
September 6th, 2007, 04:12 AM
I've been using Kmail from the very start of my 5 years Linux journey and never switch to anything else. I tried, but Kmail simply suits my need.

ricardisimo
September 6th, 2007, 04:56 AM
Evolution is just as endlessly frustrating as it is promising. Every time I start using it again, it feels great for all of about twenty minutes, then it all starts coming back to me... why I stopped using it previously, that is. The bit with the fonts is beyond bizarre, simply stupefying. I can set the fonts for emails I receive, but not my own compositions?! What's the logic behind that? [I can't believe not one of you has mentioned that one yet.]

Elsewhere (http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=371588) I've also complained about the backward limit on the calendar. Why do no calendars (other than MS Works calendar, I'm sorry to say) allow you to set recurring events from before the 1970s? If you can go back two years you should be able to go back 2,000,000. It's exactly the same, at least in terms of processor usage and/or RAM. Who the hell decided that the universe began in 1978? Weird.

DjBones
September 6th, 2007, 05:07 AM
well.. i use thunderbird occasionally, but its usually just easier to do it via the gmail box these days.
because kmail/evolution/thunderbird are pretty heavy just for checking mail (although sylpheed claws is very light)

blackhowling
September 6th, 2007, 05:51 AM
thunderbird here/ outlook 2003 till i decide to try 2007

bam1234567
September 6th, 2007, 05:55 AM
Thunderbird for the win!!! Of course, I can't have Hotmail because the damn thing is proprietary, so I switched to Gmail. I'm happy with it, though. It's much better than Hotmail.

karellen
September 6th, 2007, 09:26 AM
Thunderbird for the win!!! Of course, I can't have Hotmail because the damn thing is proprietary, so I switched to Gmail. I'm happy with it, though. It's much better than Hotmail.

so it's gmail. you probably meant that gmail supports pop3 and hotmail (the free version) does not

darrenm
September 6th, 2007, 12:40 PM
I have to use Evolution because its the only Linux mail client that supports Exchange.

My workplace is very windows-oriented and predictably there is an Exchange server here that everyone has to use.

I'm the only one who uses Linux for their main desktop machine, if I didn't use Evolution I would have to use Windows.

But Evolution does give me more stuff that Outlook 2003 can. Like being able to just select some text, click reply then it only quotes that bit of text. The LDAP address book lookup is far quicker and better than Outlook 2003 (realtime autocompletion) and Evolution formats mail correctly and in general feels nicer than OE.

1 thing that really bugs me. 2-3 times every day I get 'lost connection to exchange backend process'. I have to run evolution --force-shutdown then open it again and its fine.

This is the same as all Novells offerings. Lots of promise and some nice features but some showstopping bugs that will put off anyone apart from Linux sympathisers or Microsoft haters. No-one would use Evolution over Outlook purely for this reason. Without this bug Evolution would be nicer to use than Outlook. The calendar integrates into Gnome so your meetings show up in your main desktop calendar, all the normal things that exchange does work fine etc.

Just makes me wonder about Novell. Call me a conspiracy theorist if you like but it seems that Novell and Miguel de Icaza are doing everything they can to help Microsoft...

MS want .net to become popular - Miguel does Mono
MS want XP to be the main enterprise desktop - Novell make SLED slow and rubbish
MS want silverlight to take over Flash - Novell make Moonlight
MS want Exchange + Outlook to be dominant - Novell make Evolution not quite good enough. But they do give it Exchange support so Exchange can still be used.

The backend process bug has been around for years but they wont fix it. Then they do that dodgy deal and make their collaboration public. No-one else feeling this?

Jeff_From_VA
September 6th, 2007, 04:21 PM
I have to use Evolution because its the only Linux mail client that supports Exchange.

My workplace is very windows-oriented and predictably there is an Exchange server here that everyone has to use.

I'm the only one who uses Linux for their main desktop machine, if I didn't use Evolution I would have to use Windows.

But Evolution does give me more stuff that Outlook 2003 can. Like being able to just select some text, click reply then it only quotes that bit of text. The LDAP address book lookup is far quicker and better than Outlook 2003 (realtime autocompletion) and Evolution formats mail correctly and in general feels nicer than OE.

1 thing that really bugs me. 2-3 times every day I get 'lost connection to exchange backend process'. I have to run evolution --force-shutdown then open it again and its fine.

This is the same as all Novells offerings. Lots of promise and some nice features but some showstopping bugs that will put off anyone apart from Linux sympathisers or Microsoft haters. No-one would use Evolution over Outlook purely for this reason. Without this bug Evolution would be nicer to use than Outlook. The calendar integrates into Gnome so your meetings show up in your main desktop calendar, all the normal things that exchange does work fine etc.

Just makes me wonder about Novell. Call me a conspiracy theorist if you like but it seems that Novell and Miguel de Icaza are doing everything they can to help Microsoft...

MS want .net to become popular - Miguel does Mono
MS want XP to be the main enterprise desktop - Novell make SLED slow and rubbish
MS want silverlight to take over Flash - Novell make Moonlight
MS want Exchange + Outlook to be dominant - Novell make Evolution not quite good enough. But they do give it Exchange support so Exchange can still be used.

The backend process bug has been around for years but they wont fix it. Then they do that dodgy deal and make their collaboration public. No-one else feeling this?

Be glad you can get it to connect to exchange at all, I haven't gotten past the setup wizard yet.

darrenm
September 6th, 2007, 05:33 PM
are you using
http://exchange ?

LowSky
September 6th, 2007, 06:34 PM
i hated evolution, so i switched to Thunderbird..

Now i hear that mozilla isn't going to continue supporting it.. oh well maybe i should try Mozilla Seamonkey?

syxbit
September 16th, 2007, 12:04 AM
BAH!
evolution is in gnome, and therefore default in Ubuntu.
I like the liberties that linuxMint takes
they took ubuntu, and removed some STUPID default app choices

when on earth will we see common sense prevail.
VLC, Thunderbird, and something other than rythmnbox (i prefer listen, but others like exaile)

multifaceted
September 16th, 2007, 12:41 AM
.
Thunderbird does not have a calendar or to do list.


Actually, it does and has for several months now. It's called Lightning (http://www.mozilla.org/projects/calendar/lightning/) and is an extension that is easy to use and can export calnders and task to other devices such as and iPod.

Thunderbird is a superb email client, I switched from Outlook a year and a half ago and never looked back.

Oki
September 16th, 2007, 12:42 AM
GNOME 2.20 will have some updates for Evolution, you can check them out here; http://www.gnome.org/start/2.20/notes/en/ Looking forward to try it out:)

Nano Geek
September 16th, 2007, 02:18 AM
BAH!
evolution is in gnome, and therefore default in Ubuntu.
I like the liberties that linuxMint takes
they took ubuntu, and removed some STUPID default app choices

when on earth will we see common sense prevail.
VLC, Thunderbird, and something other than rythmnbox (i prefer listen, but others like exaile)I have tried all of those, and I still like the defaults better.

VLC is complicated for the new user and isn't great for watching a quick video.

Thunderbird doesn't have native support for a calender.

I don't know, but I just prefer Rhythmbox to all of the other choices.

Sayers
September 16th, 2007, 02:40 AM
Yea all KDE programs are nice out of the box :)

syxbit
September 16th, 2007, 03:20 PM
but few will argue that evolution isn't bloated, slow, and buggy

i haven't done this recently, but doesn't evolution have some dependencies that it tries to remove when you uninstall it?
i remember back with Dapper that I couldn't remove it

It's obvious what the ideal situation would be.....
like some distros do, during install, it would ask what programs you want installed.
obviously, to do this they'd have to remove lots of their dependencies, and release on a DVD

I think it would be a bring improvement :)

daverich
September 16th, 2007, 05:02 PM
I use evolution - yeah it's not ideal, but i had a nasty experience with thunderbird when it just lost all my email, apparently it's a known bug and can be avoided - but still, it was frightening.

Kind regards

Dave Rich

syxbit
September 16th, 2007, 07:50 PM
a known bug?
unlikely
surely that would be a top priority
having read the improvements to evolution, i'm tempted to try it again.
anyone know if there's an easy way to import to evolution from thunderbird?

daverich
September 16th, 2007, 08:09 PM
a known bug?
unlikely
surely that would be a top priority
having read the improvements to evolution, i'm tempted to try it again.
anyone know if there's an easy way to import to evolution from thunderbird?

aye it is I saw it on their forum, you can avoid it by not using their default user folder.

Kind regards

Dave Rich

Nano Geek
September 16th, 2007, 11:06 PM
but few will argue that evolution isn't bloated, slow, and buggyHave you had any problems with Evolution bugs?

caspar_wrede
February 16th, 2008, 06:51 PM
Wow! Just found this thread again. 160 replies! Cool.

Anyway, I have now made the switch to gnome (second attempt) and am a satisfied evolution user. Most of the issues I raised have been fixed or I found workarounds. Some issues remain, but I can live with them.

And just for the record I also tried Thunderbird and wasn't pleased with it either. But I think I'll put my thunderbird gripes in a new thread ;)

bouncingmolar
August 31st, 2008, 03:29 PM
Anyway, I have now made the switch to gnome (second attempt) and am a satisfied evolution user. Most of the issues I raised have been fixed or I found workarounds. Some issues remain, but I can live with them.

I know this is old but i've been switching btw outlook and kmail. I only tried evolution once but now i'm using nothing because I'm daunted by starting up a new pim that i'll dump because of stuff I don't like.

So you prefer evolution over kmail now? and did you end up using it to sync with something?

Mr. Picklesworth
August 31st, 2008, 05:24 PM
I like that Evolution uses a split front-end and back-end, so consider it a very worthy project.
The client, on the other hand, is still an ugly thing to work with for anyone not using it fully. Clumsy user interface on every front. (Particularly the Options dialog). Needs a full overhaul, maybe the old interface kept intact for those crazy business users who don't want to feel they are using something other than Outlook.
A trip to the Plugins dialog has given me a few improvements. They were originally all turned on, but I currently have no need for Exchange support for example.

For PIM stuff other than mail, the Pimlico suite uses Evolution. It is really targeted at PDAs and other small devices, but I find it quite satisfying on my full-blown laptop, too. You can get Pimlico Dates, Tasks and Contacts from the repository. It is REALLY fast, easy to use and unobtrusive. Of course, still has a nice two-way integration with the rest of GNOME (since it uses the Evolution data server). The only flaw is that since it's aimed at small devices many things are missing for desktop users in favour of simpler UI. Most of those things were useless anyway. You can still have a calendar on the web, all that fun stuff.

I definitely prefer a choice other than Thunderbird for mail, since that one does not use GTK. (Or a proper user interface toolkit at all, for that matter, judging by how buttons are not windows but just drawn over a canvas and how that canvas hoardes mouse events at all times).

Applications that target Windows, like Firefox and OpenOffice, are bad enough for limiting the possibilities of this operating system (The expected technologies are flexible). As long as applications are built to work on Windows, the underlying platform will never exceed it for fear of "compatibility". Alas, I have found a recent example of actual libraries building to the lesser competitor: Notification items in GTK are called Status Icons (must be noted that is not what the HIG wants us calling them) and are only icons because that is all Windows allows; never mind that the technologies on this end let those notifications be whatever widgets they please.
If the goal is to tidy, let's not add another mess.

alternatealias
September 2nd, 2008, 01:49 PM
Just makes me wonder about Novell. Call me a conspiracy theorist if you like but it seems that Novell and Miguel de Icaza are doing everything they can to help Microsoft...

MS want .net to become popular - Miguel does Mono
MS want XP to be the main enterprise desktop - Novell make SLED slow and rubbish
MS want silverlight to take over Flash - Novell make Moonlight
MS want Exchange + Outlook to be dominant - Novell make Evolution not quite good enough. But they do give it Exchange support so Exchange can still be used.

The backend process bug has been around for years but they wont fix it. Then they do that dodgy deal and make their collaboration public. No-one else feeling this?

Evolution is Free Software last time I checked (as are Mono and Moonlight and all the software in SLED), so you always have the option of fixing these bugs yourself or paying someone else to fix them - that's kinda the whole point of choosing Free Software over proprietary software, you don't have to be at the mercy of the vendor.

hoa3r
September 25th, 2008, 12:46 AM
Wow! Just found this thread again. 160 replies! Cool.

Anyway, I have now made the switch to gnome (second attempt) and am a satisfied evolution user. Most of the issues I raised have been fixed or I found workarounds. Some issues remain, but I can live with them.

And just for the record I also tried Thunderbird and wasn't pleased with it either. But I think I'll put my thunderbird gripes in a new thread ;)

I am a satisfied Evolution user too. It works great with the gnome desktop trough the evolution-data-server and looks more professional than Thunderbird. For notification i use the tool "Mail Notification" from Jean-Yves Lefort.

Evolution works well with the pimlico too (http://pimlico-project.org).

For Newsgroups and Google Mail i use Thunderbird 3.0 beta.

uberdonkey5
September 25th, 2008, 01:06 AM
never used evolution (I use gmail) but when I removed it from ubuntu I lost my gnome panels (some dependency I presume). I always get annoyed with useless software that takes up space but I don't use (surely that is windows speciality not linux)

macogw
September 25th, 2008, 03:09 AM
I love Evolution for Evolution Data Server. The integration with GNOME is fantastic. The actual client is trash, though, you're right.

newagelink
October 19th, 2008, 11:51 PM
I've actually gone from Thunderbird to Evolution ... The OP was three years ago -- d'you feel things have improved since then?

bash
October 20th, 2008, 12:04 AM
I love Evolution for Evolution Data Server. The integration with GNOME is fantastic. The actual client is trash, though, you're right.

I remember the days when everyone complained about EDS being the huge overbloated beast that always eats 100% of the CPU.

Zlatan
October 21st, 2008, 09:40 PM
Sorry, this may not be very constructive, but I have to get this off my chest: I think evolution is a stone-age Email client. I am actually a KDE user but since using ububtu I decided to give gnome a try and was very impressed, until I migrated all my mail to evolution. I did this becaue I wanted a PIM solution that will allow me to sync with a mobile at some stage in the future.

Anyway, swicthing from KMail to Evolution really is taking several large steps backwards. Here's why:

a) Evolution is slow. There is a 3 second pause on my computer between clicking "New Mail" and the window appearing. This is not the case when the same machine is using KMail or Outlook.

b) There is no *simple* way of changing the date format (mm/dd/yy -> dd/mm/yy which europeans prefer). I believe it can be done via shell variables, but come on, Evo is supposed to be a proper GUI application.

c) There is no sensible simple mail notification. There is a "beep" option which is inaudible and some other useless / highly complex hacks. In Kmail you can specify whether new mail triggers a notification *per folder*, all via the GUI and without obscure shell scripts.

d) The junk mail filter is crap. I trained it on a folder of 1000 spams but still it doesn't seem to recognise half of them. And I have "external check" enabled. KMail uses external spam filters in a transparent way.

e) Spell checking: almost all modern spell-checking applications offer suggestions in a context menu when opened over a misspelt word. In Evo you have to open an extra window.

f) New Junk is not marked as unread. This would be nice so that you know what junk you've checked for false positives and which you haven't.

g) Sending a mail twice takes a whole load of inelegant cutting and pasting. See KMail for the elegant solution.

i) There is no way to automatically fetch mail immediately after startup. See KMail and Outlook.

j) You HAVE to specify a mail server in the Evo startup wizard. There is no way of getting around this. Very annoying.

k) The calenders feature is not too hot either. I only ever use the whole-month-view and when I scroll through the months it takes ages. Outlook was 10 times more responsive. And the default colour scheme means that looking for today's date is a real eye strainer.

These are just my views on evolution. I had always heard that it was such an excellent PIM suite and am dissapointed that it simply doesn't live up to the hype. Presumably there will be enough opposing views. I just thought I'de give my opinion.

EVO has a VERY nice integration with gnome calendar;)
... and some other nice features- I am sure you found them, but just did not mention because of that thing on your chest;)

Oops, that was an old thread...

QwUo173Hy
February 18th, 2009, 04:47 AM
Last edited by Zlatan; October 21st, 2008 at 08:41 PM.. Reason: Guiness:)

You have Guinness in Lithuania? Cool.

Evolution is like that girl you love but get's too drunk every night - you're constantly carrying her home and you end up having to break up!

I love the GTK interface. Kmail is an excellent mail client but for the sake of consistency I stick with GTK.

If you want to improve Evolution, try disabling the plugins. They're all enabled by default. The one that checks if it's the default at startup for example can probably go.

The calendar is clunky, awkward to use and horrible to try and read. Google calendar looks better but also has room for improvement.

The main problem I have with evo is the constant "experimental" quality of the software. It's pretty embarrassing for Novell that they can't maintain a groupware product while Canonical are maintaining an entire operating system.

phaed
February 18th, 2009, 04:04 PM
I use Gmail. It makes all stand alone email clients look stone age with its threaded conversations, labels, multiple inboxes, themes, and a slew of other features available from Google Labs. You can manage contacts, manage a schedule with Google Calendar, and have mailto: links open a Gmail compose window. Plus it's availalbe on any platform with a browser, and from any computer.

I haven't used a stand alone email client in 10 years and I don't understand why other people still do.

newagelink
February 19th, 2009, 12:40 AM
I haven't used a stand alone email client in 10 years and I don't understand why other people still do.It gives me a feeling of security, a feeling of independence apart from Google's servers.

Tibuda
February 19th, 2009, 01:12 AM
I haven't used a stand alone email client in 10 years and I don't understand why other people still do.There are good reasons (http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1061808)

phaed
February 19th, 2009, 02:06 AM
Looking through that thread, a main concern seems to be having your email stored locally. Of course, Gmail offers offline access now. You can download all the emails to your computer.

Another concern was organizing emails from multiple accounts and filtering. That's what labels are for. I import my email from several accounts and have a filter automatically label them. I have labels for lots of other stuff too. Coupled with Gmail's excellent search functionality, I can't imagine a better way to organize my email.

Another one was that logging in and out of many accounts is cumbersome. Again, Gmail can do that for you.

Another one was that email clients have some functionality that Gmail doesn't have. Unfortunately the commenter didn't specify what this functionality is, but the stuff you can get now from Google Labs is pretty diverse. Again, threaded conversations, multiple inboxes, random signatures, advanced keybindings, mouse gestures, a built in tasks box, many different ways to star/mark emails, custom date formats, a forgotten attachment detector, etc.

Another was notifications. There are several Gmail notifiers. Some are Firefox add-ons, some are stand alone apps (even available for Ubuntu (http://www.ubuntugeek.com/gmail-notifier-for-your-ubuntu-desktop.html)).

Somebody else mentioned encryption of emails. There's FireGPG.

As for privacy and security, EVERY email comes off a mail server at some point. There will always be a nonzero threat to the security and privacy of your data.

So, I think all objections have been satisfied.

Now, the main benefit of Gmail (or any webmail service), especially if you use many different computers, is that you have instant access to your email, with all of your settings intact, from anywhere. No need to install or customize an email client each time.

Also, as far as the safety, security, and integrity of my data goes, I trust the redundant back up of Google's servers much more than my personal computer. If I downloaded all the emails and wiped them from a mail server, I would run a much higher risk of having that data destroyed at some point. YMMV.

Edit: Lastly, I should note that most of the features that I mention here have been added in just the last year, so you may not have been aware of them. As a web service, Gmail also benefits from the fact that it is in a constant rolling release, and will continue to deploy more features faster than the developers of your stand alone clients can release.

CarpKing
February 19th, 2009, 07:25 AM
Evolution is a tool for a corporate environment. What Gnome needs is something more akin to Thunderbird or Outlook Express. Tinymail could be the way to go, but that seems more aimed at mobile uses. Along with Dates and Contacts, such a program could form a separate but well-integrated part of the Gnome desktop.

Then I wouldn't have to keep installing Thunderbird ^_^

knuthf
February 22nd, 2009, 04:03 AM
I like Evolution to Thunderbird - because I can synchronize with my mobile from Evolution. I use a email notifier that pops up every time I receive an email - all this is possible due to the tight integration with the GNOME "server". Thanks for the tip on localization - that sorts out one annoying bug.

Now I need Tasks that I can connect to contacts and groups - and memo with a due-date. There is probably a way to do this - if not I have the openness to the GNOME server to rely on.

I also have Gmail - and use Evolution to download from this. That leaves a lot of options open related to sorting, searching and organizing my mail. I receive more mail than most - and need to organize or will loose track. So I am looking for a workflow manager, that will enable me to park the attachments where I can find them, trace what is done, and ensure that I reply to emails on time (and don't forget because a promise is lost in a thread on Gmail). So I need the openess - and have already proposed that Calendar and Address book is made standard components in Ubuntu - just like "Calculator" and "Text Editor". We interact with people in time - they have names and belong in groups and work in organizations. I am spoiled here - used to Documentum and OpenText's LiveLink - but this is very close.

whitelinux
February 22nd, 2009, 04:34 AM
Is there any other option apart from evolution or thunderbird that is any good

Zlatan
February 22nd, 2009, 01:47 PM
Is there any other option apart from evolution or thunderbird that is any good

KMail, Opera, some others, check Apps > Add/Remove

cb951303
February 22nd, 2009, 01:53 PM
Is there any other option apart from evolution or thunderbird that is any good

claws mail (fork of sylpheed but IMO better)
sylpheed

dragos240
February 22nd, 2009, 03:33 PM
Honestly, i like evolution, pretty straightforward, simple, and usable. I really don't care what features kmail has, evolution is enough for me.

QwUo173Hy
February 23rd, 2009, 06:17 PM
I like Evolution but the bugs just break my heart. At present:

The "make available for offline use" on calendar doesn't work with google.
The "remember my password" feature doesn't remember my password.
Sometimes messages get moved back from the Trash into the inbox.

God knows what other issues I haven't spotted yet but I'm becoming nervous using it in my business. If thunderbird could use GTK and Gnome standards, as well as be intergrated like Evolution then I'd use that.

I can't view my notes and tasks while in the Mail view - only in calendar. Not a bug but a workflow nuisance. I've reported the others as bugs but I think I'll hold off on the enhancement suggestions until they get on top of the other stuff.

chamber
February 23rd, 2009, 06:22 PM
I like evolution, the only thing that bugs me is that when typing a new e mail it doesn't let me pick a contact from my address book. Minor quibble though.

Foster Grant
February 24th, 2009, 12:57 AM
Is there any other option apart from evolution or thunderbird that is any good

Kontact is excellent, but it's very wedded to KDE.

thisllub
February 24th, 2009, 01:21 AM
If you are really serious about mail you could install Zimbra.
http://www.zimbra.com/

Why have a client you don't like when you can run your own server and use any interface at all.

The desktop looks pretty impressive too.

sites
December 10th, 2009, 11:39 PM
I like evolution, the only thing that bugs me is that when typing a new e mail it doesn't let me pick a contact from my address book. Minor quibble though.

Have you enabled it in the settings? It worked for me after i enabled Automatic Contact creation & selected an address book for it to create contacts when i send new emails. You must type at least three characters for it to kick in, though.

koleoptero
December 10th, 2009, 11:41 PM
What a contemporary thread!

I use evolution and have zero complaints.

jazzybob
December 11th, 2009, 02:05 AM
Evolution is as bad as everything else. KDE is not my flavor (Gnome is more accessible, IMHO).

I use web-based email - Google. Works with the my webserver, works with the college's ******* mailserver, allows me multiple profiles from my main account. Why not have your emails travel with you, unless you don't get out much . . Get the cloud. PC based mail clients are sooo 2008!!

witeshark17
December 11th, 2009, 02:52 AM
Agreed. Thunderbird as default, anyone? Yup agreed here as well. TB may even be a bit better at canning spam than the Mac mail client I have on OS X 10.4.11

DeusExM1
December 11th, 2009, 02:59 AM
i use evolution seems ok. Dont have too many gripes.

koleoptero
December 11th, 2009, 03:03 AM
Evolution is as bad as everything else. KDE is not my flavor (Gnome is more accessible, IMHO).

I use web-based email - Google. Works with the my webserver, works with the college's ******* mailserver, allows me multiple profiles from my main account. Why not have your emails travel with you, unless you don't get out much . . Get the cloud. PC based mail clients are sooo 2008!!

What does evolution have to do with KDE? :?

doublewitt
January 12th, 2010, 11:06 PM
For me, KMail is the best. It does everything I need, it's customizable, easy to use and setup, performs well and is reliable... what more could you ask for...?! KMail in Kontact gives me all those extra tools I need... Kontact + KOffice Workspace does the job just right. I've got everything I need... so... nevermind evolution...

KONTACT includes:
- summary page
- kmail
- contacts
- calendar
- todo list
- rss feeds
- usenet
- journal
- notebooks
- popup notes
- time tracker

It seems clear to me that Kontact is well beyond...

Krovas
January 17th, 2010, 02:16 PM
Get the cloud.


You've really gulped down the Koolaid, haven't you? F the cloud.

And nobody lives on Presque Isle.

continuous
June 17th, 2010, 04:15 AM
F the cloud.

Fully agree with your sentiment, but with the features google (and I'm sure many more to come) with little hassle, accessible anywhere on anything, calendar, blah blah blah, and so many people will be drawn to it, especially with products like Evolution around - it's enough to make you weep.

Have I contributed to the project, like a good open source boy? yes I have, and it's got us where?:


Takes forever still
Can't drag and drop text around in email composition still
Stupid "To", "Cc" "Bcc" process - hey what's wrong with just typing a name and having the thing complete it for you?

Also, the current version looses it's address book (need to re-select" source for it to appear), and seems to be suffering from a raft of other little bugs that have been reported, fixed and now it seems have re-appeared. (I'm running lucid with Evolution 2.28.3). Well, you know, enough is enough.

We are really serious now - f the security risk of google et al, - the bastards know everything about us anyway - (have you seen the Australian Gov's latest proposal to log every web site we visit, as well as filter out the 'bad' ones? Ideas they came up with in the Kremlin.) - we just need email that works and we'll be going for the cloud. Resistance is futile.

Mr. Picklesworth
June 17th, 2010, 04:49 AM
Fully agree with your sentiment, but with the features google (and I'm sure many more to come) with little hassle, accessible anywhere on anything, calendar, blah blah blah, and so many people will be drawn to it, especially with products like Evolution around - it's enough to make you weep.

Have I contributed to the project, like a good open source boy? yes I have, and it's got us where?:


Takes forever still
Can't drag and drop text around in email composition still
Stupid "To", "Cc" "Bcc" process - hey what's wrong with just typing a name and having the thing complete it for you?

Also, the current version looses it's address book (need to re-select" source for it to appear), and seems to be suffering from a raft of other little bugs that have been reported, fixed and now it seems have re-appeared. (I'm running lucid with Evolution 2.28.3). Well, you know, enough is enough.

We are really serious now - f the security risk of google et al, - the bastards know everything about us anyway - (have you seen the Australian Gov's latest proposal to log every web site we visit, as well as filter out the 'bad' ones? Ideas they came up with in the Kremlin.) - we just need email that works and we'll be going for the cloud. Resistance is futile.

I would suggest you give 2.30 a shot. It's the real current version. Lucid shipped with 2.28 because 2.30 had some really significant back-end changes scheduled. Turns out that 2.28 somehow became worse over the six months of not doing anything and 2.30 would have been a better choice (the scheduled cleanups did, in fact, clean it up), but there was no way of knowing.
I've been running 2.30 from this PPA and it has worked really well:
https://edge.launchpad.net/~jacob/+archive/evo230

Definitely quicker :)

What do you mean by “Stupid "To", "Cc" "Bcc" process?” I haven't seen anything do this differently. Just type a bunch of addresses in the appropriate fields, separated by commas. If you're lucky, it'll give you an auto-complete popup as you type.

Then again, if you're happy with Google's services, great! I use Gmail all the time; I only pop to Evolution's mail section if I don't want to be distracted, or to send a nice looking plain text or PGP signed message.

WinterRain
June 17th, 2010, 05:15 AM
PC based mail clients are sooo 2008!!

Ummm, not quite. I have 6 email accounts (5 are gmail) for various reasons and with thunderbird I can check all 6 instantaneously by pushing the email button on my keyboard. I need to check all 6 a few times a day, and logging in and out online is way too time consuming.

TheNessus
June 17th, 2010, 06:23 AM
Ummm, not quite. I have 6 email accounts (5 are gmail) for various reasons and with thunderbird I can check all 6 instantaneously by pushing the email button on my keyboard. I need to check all 6 a few times a day, and logging in and out online is way too time consuming.

You know, you can have ONE google account and have it under many different names; meaning, recieve all mail to one account, but send mail through x@gmail.com or y@gmail.com or z@gmail.com. Then, you can simply have folders in your single gmail account for different purposes...

Never heard of a real need for multiple gmail accounts...

philinux
June 17th, 2010, 11:28 AM
Seeing as this thread was started in 2005 I guess Evolution has evolved. :lolflag:

I switched to it last year. Calendar synced to google calendar, hotmail, yahoo mail all work really well.

WinterRain
June 17th, 2010, 06:07 PM
You know, you can have ONE google account and have it under many different names; meaning, recieve all mail to one account, but send mail through x@gmail.com or y@gmail.com or z@gmail.com. Then, you can simply have folders in your single gmail account for different purposes...

Never heard of a real need for multiple gmail accounts...

Yeah, I know. I have my reasons for doing this, is that OK with you?

philinux
June 17th, 2010, 06:11 PM
I think it's time for peeps to start a new support thread for any mail problems and let this 5 year old rest in peace.

Closed.