Start Evolution by selecting Evolution from your Programs menu, or by typing evolution at the command line. The first time you run the program, it will create a directory called evolution in your home directory, where it will keep all your Evolution-related files. At this point, it will also offer to import old messages from other mail clients, such as Netscape mail. After Evolution starts up, you will see the main window, with the Inbox open. It should look a lot like the picture in . On the left of the main window is the shortcut bar, with several buttons in it. Just underneath the title bar is a series of menus in the menu bar, and below that, the tool bar with buttons for different functions. The largest part of the main window is taken up by the actual Inbox, where messages are listed and displayed. If you're running the program for the first time, you'll have just one message: a welcome from Ximian.

Evolution Main Window

The appearance of both Evolution and GNOME is very easy to customize, so your screen might not look like this picture. Evolution's most important job is to give you access to your information and help you use it quickly. One way it does that is through the shortcut bar, the column on the left hand side of the main window. The large buttons with names like Inbox and Contacts are the shortcuts, and you can select different groups of shortcuts by clicking the rectangular group buttons. The shortcut group buttons are Evolution Shortcuts and Internet Directories. When you click on them, they'll slide up and down to give you access to different sorts of shortcuts. When you first start Evolution, you are looking at the Evolution Shortcuts category. If you click Internet Directories, it will slide up and you'll see buttons for the Bigfoot and Netcenter directories, as well as any others you or your system administrator may have added. You can add more groups by right-clicking on the background of the shortcut bar and selecting Menu Group. Internet directories behave a lot like the local contact manager, which is covered in . Take a look at the Evolution Shortcuts again. The shortcut buttons in that category are: Executive Summary: Start your day here. The Executive summary gives you lists of new or important messages, daily appointments and urgent tasks. You can customize its appearance and content, and use it to access Evolution services. Inbox: Click the Inbox button to start reading your mail. Your Inbox is also where you can access Evolution's tools to filter, sort, organize, and search your mail. Calendar: The Calendar can store your appointments and To do lists for you. Connected to a network, you can use it to keep a group of people on schedule and up to date. Tasks: A full-size view of your calendar's task pad. Contacts: The Contact Manager holds your addresses, phone numbers, and contact information. Like calendar information, contact data can be synchronized with hand-held devices and shared over a network. If you don't like the shortcut bar, you can use the folder bar or the menu bar to navigate the main window. Press Ctrl O to choose from a list of folders you'd like to visit, or use the drop-down folder bar. You can hide and show the folder bar and the shortcut bar by selecting those items in the View menu. To remove a shortcut from the shortcut bar, right-click on it and select Remove. To add one, select File New Evolution Bar Shortcut . To change the way the shortcut bar looks, right-click in an empty space on the shortcut bar. From the menu that appears, you can select icon sizes. The folder bar is a more comprehensive way to view the information you've stored with Evolution. It displays all your appointments, address cards, and email in a tree that's a lot like a file tree— it starts small at the top, and branches downwards. On most computers, there will be three or four folders at the base. First is the Local folder, which holds all the Evolution data that's stored on your computer. After that are Other Contacts, LDAP contact directories stored on a network, followed by any IMAP mail folders you may have available to you over your network. Lastly, there are Virtual Folders, discussed in , A typical Local folder contains the following folders: Calendar, for appointments and event listings. Contacts, for address cards. Drafts, for messages you started and didn't finish. Executive Summary, the quick guide to everything. Inbox, for incoming mail. Outbox, for messages you have written but not yet sent. This will be empty unless you use Evolution while offline. Sent, for sent mail. Trash, a virtual folder view of all the messages you have marked for deletion but not yet expunged. Note that once you have expunged a message, it is gone for good. You don't need the folder bar or the shortcut bar to move around the main window. You can use Tab to switch from one part of the window to another, and the folder menu on the right side of the window just below the toolbar to move about the folder tree, even with the folder and shortcut bars hidden. If you get any serious amount of mail, you'll want more folders than just your Inbox. To create a new folder, select File New Folder. You'll be asked where you want to put it, and what kind of folder it should be. You can choose from three types: Mail, for storing mail, Calendar for storing calendars, and Contacts for storing contacts. Calendars must go in calendar folders, mail in mail folders, and contacts in contact folders. Right-clicking will bring up a menu for just about anything in GNOME, and Evolution is no exception. If you right-click on a folder, you'll have a menu with the following options: View, to view the folder. Open in New Window, to see it in a new Evolution window. Move, to move the folder to another location. Copy, to duplicate the folder. Delete, to delete the folder and all its contents. Rename, to change its name. Create New Folder, to create another folder in the same location. Add to Shortcut Bar, to add the folder to your shortcut bar. Properties, to view or change the folder properties. You can also rearrange folders and messages with by dragging and dropping them. Any time new information arrives in a folder, that folder label is displayed in bold text. The menu bar's contents will always provide all the possible actions for any given view of your data. That means that, depending on the context, menu bar items will change. If you're looking at your Inbox, most of the menu items will relate to mail; some will relate to other components of Evolution and some, especially those in the File Menu will relate to the application as a whole. The contents of the menu bar are described in . File Menu Anything even related to a file or to the operations of the application generally falls under this menu: creating things, saving them to disk, printing them, and quitting the program itself. Edit Menu The Edit menu holds useful tools that help you edit text and move it around. View Menu This menu lets you decide how Evolution should look. Some of the features control the appearance of Evolution as a whole, and others the way a particular kind of information appears. Actions Menu If you've got a direct object in mind, look for the verb here. Tools Menu Tools for configuring, changing, and setting up go here. For mail, that means things like Mail Configuration and the Virtual Folder Editor. For the Calendar and the Contact Manager, it's color, network, and layout configuration. Help Menu Select among these items to open the Help Browser and read the Evolution manual. Once you've familiarized yourself with the main window you can start doing things with it. We'll start with your executive summary.