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Date: Wed, 10 May 2000 22:23:46 -0400
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From: Miguel de Icaza <miguel@helixcode.com>
To: gnome-announce-list@gnome.org, gnome-list@gnome.org,
evolution@helixcode.com, evolution-hackers@helixcode.com
Subject: Evolution "Prokaryote" 0.0 has been released
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Hello party people!
The overworked gang of hackers that makes up the Evolution team is
proud to introduce the Evolution "Prokaryote" 0.0 release: for the
curious and brave, a first glimpse at the ultimate groupware solution
for free software users. Evolution will act as a personal information
hub for your system. Prepare your crania for some seriously deep
integration of mail, addressbook, instant messaging and calendaring
systems in one application. All designed for heavy Internet users and
available at your fingertips. Boom! Pow! Bang! Kapow!
The Evolution team has worked hard to make Evolution as robust,
extensible, pretty, fast and well-suited to heavy internet users as
possible. And we're very tired. But we're not done -- not yet.
As you explore Evolution, please understand that most of our work
has been focused on the backend engine which drives the entire system
and not on the user interface. We are just cresting the hill now,
though, and will be pouring most of our love and attention into the UI
from here out. But at least you know that you're not using demoware.
So, time for the nerdy disclaimer. Evolution will: crash, lose
your mail, leave stray processes running, consume 100% CPU, race,
lock, send HTML mail to random mailing lists, and embarass you in
front of your friends and co-workers. Use at your own risk.
We hope that you enjoy the results of our hard work, and we eagerly
await your contributions!
The Evolution team
* Evolution: What is in this release.
Making heavy use of the latest technologies developed as a part of
the GNOME project, Evolution is far-and-away the most
technologically advanced GNOME application ever devised.
For starters, Evolution is based on the Bonobo component model,
meaning that each individual "module" that makes up the system is a
Bonobo component. The components are all tightly integrated
together through the Evolution shell. This means that new sources
of personal information can be added to Evolution and integrated
into the system.
Evolution is split in two parts: a data backend (the Wombat server)
and the GNOME-based Evolution user interface. Both of these are
exposed as Bonobo components.
** The Wombat
The Wombat holds the user's backend information and serializes its
access, so synchronization tools can operate without the presence
of the user interface.
The Wombat also acts as a front end to remote resources. For
example, your contact information can come from a local database or
it can come from your company's LDAP server or a public LDAP
server. And the existence of the Wombat means that multiple
front-ends can be created for the data stored in Evolution: imagine
a text-based frontend, a web-based frontend, an emacs-based
frontend, a vi-based fr... wait.. no, that would be silly.
** The Mail component
The Mail component is designed on top of the Camel library
initially implemented and designed by Bertrand Guiheneuf and
inspired by the JavaMail specification and the IMAP protocol, with
a few changes to enable the development of an NNTP backend.
Currently the Mail component has support for POP mail retrieval and
the mbox file format as well as sendmail delivery. The
architecture is designed to allow the integration of other mail
sources and mail targets (Jeff Stedfast of Spruce fame has
contributed an SMTP delivery backend and Chris Toshok did a NNTP
backend).
We will soon start work on the IMAP provider. Happily, Camel has
been designed to support all the advanced features in IMAP and make
the user experience very smooth.
The Evolution mail component contains the beginning of the
vFoldering interface: vFolders are virtual folders constructed on
the fly from a search query. For example, you could have a
"parents" virtual folder whose contents are dynamically created
from searching all of your mail for messages from your father or
mother. Or the "recent food mails" folder can contain all messages
received in the last six hours containing the word "food" in their
bodies. Or almost anything you can dream up. Web search on your
mailbox. The vFolder user interface it currently limited to common
cases, and not all of it is exposed to the world. But for now you
can create folders that execute simple queries (this is mostly a
user interface limitation).
Basic support for mail composition, sending and forwarding is
included in this release. Keybindings are far from complete for
now.
It also can render properly your text and HTML messages, so at
least I will stop complaining about receiving HTML mail myself.
** The Calendar
The Calendar code has been based on the existing GnomeCal code, and
it has got an improved user interface, but the new user interface
is still in its infancy.
Multiple backends are supported, currently the vCalendar file
format is supported, and substancial iCalendar support exists.
** The AddressBook
The addressbook contains many nice user interface tricks, and has
support for LDAP. We are pretty excited about this one. There are
a number of views for it (MiniCard, Table-based view and the Card
editing dialog).
The Table widget needs a lot of work before it can be considered
production quality, and various other view "modes" can be easily
added to the various Table users in Evolution.
** The Shell
The Evolution Shell ("evolution") is the glue that binds all the
different Evolution pieces together into an integrated application.
This shell is extensible, and new Bonobo modules, new providers and
new backends can be added to it.
* The Team
* The Evolution team consists of:
Calendar team:
Seth Alves, Damon Chaplin, Russel Steinthal, Federico Mena,
Eskil Olsen, Clifford R. Conover.
Support widgets:
Damon Chaplin, Miguel de Icaza, Chris Lahey, Ettore Perazzoli
Mail reading, indexing, filtering, kick assing:
Dan Winship, Michael Zucchi, Bertrand Guiheneuf, Matt Loper
Camel:
Bertrand Guiheneuf, Dan Winship, Michael Zucchi, Jeff
Stedfast, Chris Toshok.
Addressbook:
Chris Lahey, Chris Toshok, Nat Friedman.
GktHTML:
Anders Carlson, Radek Doulik, Larry Ewing, Ettore Perazzoli.
Mail composer and GtkHTML Bonobo Component:
Ettore Perazzoli, and Radek Doulik.
Documentation:
Aaron Weber.
Artwork:
Tuomas Kuosmanen.
Bonobo work:
Nat Friedman, Michael Meeks, Dan Winship, Miguel de Icaza.
The Shell:
Ettore Perazzoli, Matt Loper, Miguel de Icaza.
Matt Loper, Ettore Perazzoli and Dan Winship are managing the
Evolution development.
* Contacting us
Evolution has a mailing list for users:
evolution@helixcode.com
And one for people interested in the developing process:
evolution-hackers@helixcode.com
Send mail to evolution-request@helixcode.com or
evolution-hackers-request@helixcode.com to subscribe, or use one of
these web pages:
http://lists.helixcode.com/mailman/listinfo/evolution
http://lists.helixcode.com/mailman/listinfo/evolution-hackers
If you find problems in Evolution (we know you will), please tell
us about it, so that it can be fixed (either send us mail, or use
the "bug-buddy" application, available in your desktop). Please,
do not assume we know about the problem, because many times we just
do not. Better to be safe than sorry.
* Cooperation with other projects.
We are interested in working with other teams of hackers working on
Mail and News programs for GNOME to integrate their work into
Evolution, as we believe strongly that working together we can
produce a better product for the end user and unify the mailer/news
scene for free systems.
* Downloading and Compiling
You can find detailed instructions for building Evolution 0.0 here:
http://www.helixcode.com/apps/evolution-preview
To compile Evolution you need the latest and greatest development
libraries that the GNOME team has produced. These packages are
available at ftp://ftp.helixcode.com/pub/evolution, or you can pick
the original files from the official GNOME site.
The README in the package includes the order in which you have to
compile this, but it goes like this: XML, ORBit, libunicode,
gdk-pixbuf, gnome-print, bonobo, gtk-html, gnome-vfs and finally
evolution itself.
This is simplified if you run Helix GNOME, as GNOME-XML, ORBit,
gdk-pixbuf and gnome-print are included with Helix GNOME. You will
have to do a lot less work in that case. To install Helix GNOME,
go to:
http://www.helixcode.com/desktop/download.php3
* Detailed list of packages.
* Unicode manipulation library (libunicode):
ftp://ftp.gnome.org/pub/GNOME/unstable/sources/libunicode/libunicode-0.4.tar.gz
* GtkHTML 0.2, The WYSIWYG HTML editor and rendering engine
(Bonobo based):
ftp://ftp.gnome.org/pub/GNOME/unstable/sources/gtkhtml/gtkhtml-0.2.tar.gz
* Bonobo 0.12:
ftp://ftp.gnome.org/pub/GNOME/unstable/sources/bonobo/bonobo-0.12.tar.gz
* Gnome XML, 1.8.7. Earlier versions wont work, the 2.0
version wont work either.
ftp://ftp.gnome.org/pub/GNOME/stable/sources/libxml/libxml-1.8.7.tar.gz
* Gnome Print 0.19
ftp://ftp.gnome.org/pub/GNOME/stable/sources/gnome-print/gnome-print-0.19.tar.gz
* Gdk Pixbuf
ftp://ftp.gnome.org/pub/GNOME/unstable/sources/gdk-pixbuf/gdk-pixbuf-0.7.0.tar.gz
* ORBit 0.5.1:
ftp://ftp.gnome.org/pub/GNOME/stable/sources/ORBit/ORBit-0.5.1.tar.gz
* GNOME VFS 0.1:
ftp://ftp.gnome.org/pub/GNOME/unstable/sources/gnome-vfs/gnome-vfs-0.1.tar.gz
* Finally, Evolution:
ftp://ftp.helixcode.com/pub/evolution/evolution-0.0.tar.gz
Enjoy!
The Evolution Team.