Ximian Evolution Beta

Join the Ximian Evolution Team. Participate in the Evolution 1.2 Beta Program

Ximian Evolution is one of the most important and complex open source end user application development projects ever. As we approach our version 1.2 release date, we need your help to evaluate the product, put it through stress testing, suggest future enhancements, and most importantly: report bugs!

From now through the launch of Evolution of 1.2, we'll even reward you for it.

As you kick the tires and report anomalies, you can become eligible for:

• The "Natural Selection" Award: The person reporting the most verified, unique bugs prior to launch will win a BOSE QuietComfort® Acoustic Noise Cancelling® headset.
• The "Genetic Problem" Award: The person reporting the thorniest, most complex, bug will receive a $100 gift certificate from Amazon.com.
• The "Duckbilled Platypus" Award: Another $100 Amazon.com gift certificate goes to the person reporting the most bizarre bug.
• The "Monkey's Uncle" Award: The top 10 bug reporters will each win a Ximian t-shirt.

Installation, release notes and other information regarding Evolution 1.2 and this Beta can be found at: http://developer.ximian.com/evolution/.

• General
  • The toolbar now includes a "New" dropdown menu/button from which you can create messages, appointments, etc. from within any folder.
  • A new, integrated configuration dialog for all of Evolution is now provided.
  • When you use the folder selection dialog, you can now jump to a folder just by typing its name and hitting Enter (instead of using the arrows or the mouse).
  • You can now specify your default mail, calendar, tasks and contacts folders. The shortcuts in the shortcut bar will always point to the default folder; so for example if you have an IMAP account you can specify that the INBOX on the IMAP account is default and clicking on the Inbox icon on the shortcut bar will take you to the INBOX on the IMAP account.
  • Fonts for displaying of HTML mail can now be configured from within Evolution (instead of having to use GNOME Control Center).
  • You can now make Evolution play a sound, beep, or display a message when new mail arrives. It is also possible to trigger these actions based on a filter rule.
  • The behavior of the search bar has been improved, and the UI has been integrated better with the menu bar and the rest of the system.
  • For the table-based views, you can now define, save and reuse view settings using the "View" menu.
  • The Send/Receive button is now always accessible from any folder.
  • You now can drop objects (eg. mail messages, appointments) directly to the folders on the shortcut bar (in 1.0.x, you could only drop them in the folder folder bar).
• Calendar
  • Loading speed has been improved.
  • When you receive an appointment through email, you can choose which calendar to update, and if it's for an existing appointment the folder is automatically detected
  • Calendar importer now supports importing to remote folders.
  • Calendar GUI and alarm daemon now use listeners for the configuration.
  • Show status messages for all long calendar operations.
  • Included timezone information on vCalendars used in copy/paste.
  • Meeting scheduling improvements; sends replies when you update your attendance status, warnings if the user changes a meeting they didn't create.
  • Deleting a meeting with a right click will now offer to send a cancellation notice.
  • Can accept meeting replies from non-attendees (they become attendees).
  • Fixed task view to update completion status the same as the editor. - Set meetings to recur on "last day of the month" or "last Tuesday of the month," etc... .
• Contacts
  • It is now possible to specify which folders are used for autocompletion globally.
  • Improved address selection dialog (for sending mail and meeting requests).
  • Improved feedback for search results for all backends and the UI.
  • SSL/STARTTLS support for LDAP has been added.
  • Various performance improvements
  • Fixed crashes dealing with autocompletion; it should be much more stable now.
  • Added support for categories searches on categories in LDAP
  • Much improved LDAP backend responsiveness and performance.
• Mail
  • New, much faster indexing engine. This results in faster mail incorporation, faster mail display, and faster searches. Overall, the new engine should work much better for larger folders, and take considerably less space on the disk.
  • If you type multiple words in the search bar for the "... Contains" rules, Evolution will search messages that contain all of the words you specified, in any order.
  • More consistent search results for indexed, non-indexed and remote folders.
  • Better UTF8 (Unicode) support. Searches, folder names
  • It is now possible to mark messages for follow-up and other flags. It is also possible to change the color in which a specific message is displayed in the mail list.
  • When the message list is sorted by a certain field, it is possible to jump to the first item in the list that matches a certain string by just typing the first few characters.
  • You can now specify which folders get synced when switching to IMAP/offline mode.
  • All previously read messages are automatically downloaded for IMAP/offline use.
  • STARTTLS support for POP, SMTP and IMAP has been added.
  • You can have all of your mail Auto-Cc:ed or auto-Bcc:ed to a specified set of recipients.
  • SMTP error reporting has been improved.
  • Vastly improving body search vFolder performance with IMAP sources.
  • vFolders can now have an additional column which shows the original location of the message.
• Mail Composer
  • You can now edit a set of signatures within Evolution, and pick which signature you want when composing a message.
  • Handling of replies has been improved; in particular, you can now paste any text as a quotation, and quotation formatting is preserved when switching between HTML and non-HTML mode.
  • Evolution can now generate graphical smileys automatically as you type.
  • Quotation logic has been improved, rewrapping long lines in replies now preserves quotation marks.
  • Multiple simultaneous language support in the spell checker.
  • Cut & Paste support for HTML between netscape/mozilla/evolution.
  • Optimized rendering of long messages.
  • Improved HTML rendering, including support for the clear attribute in elements.
• Summary
  • Can have non-local mail folders displayed on the summary.
  • Improved Calendar and Tasks displayed. Displays overdue and today's tasks in colors.
  • Better folder selector.
  • Better Weather/News Feed selector.
  • Can delete user added news feeds.