Evolution (software)

Evolution

File:Evolution mail.png Evolution's e-mail client File:Evolution calendar.png Evolution's calendaring software
Developer(s)	Novell & GNOME
Stable release	Template:Latest stable software release/Novell Evolution
Preview release	Template:Latest preview software release/Novell Evolution
Operating system	Linux, Mac, Windows
Type	Personal information manager
License	Evolution: GNU General Public License, Anjal: GNU Lesser General Public License v2 or v3
Website	gnome.org/projects/evolution/

Evolution or Novell Evolution (formerly Ximian Evolution, prior to Novell's 2003 acquisition of Ximian) is the official personal information manager and workgroup information management tool for GNOME. It combines e-mail, calendar, address book, and task list management functions. It has been an official part of GNOME since version 2.8 in September 2004. Evolution development is sponsored primarily by Novell.

Its user interface and functionality are similar to Microsoft Outlook. Features include iCalendar support, full-text indexing of all incoming mail, powerful email filters writable in Scheme, and a "Search Folders" feature (i.e., saved searches that look like normal mail folders).

Evolution can be connected to all versions of Microsoft Exchange Server except Exchange 2007 using their web interfaces and an Evolution add-on formerly called Ximian Connector. Using gnome-pilot, it may be synchronized with Palm Pilot devices, and OpenSync enables it to be synchronized with mobile phones and other PDAs.

Licensed under the terms of the GNU General Public License, Evolution is Free software.

Evolution 2

Evolution 2, which has been available since September 2004, delivers these features:^{[citation needed]}

• integrated connectivity to Novell GroupWise
• integrated connectivity to Microsoft Exchange Server
• integrated support for GPG email encryption
• improved offline support for IMAP accounts
• numerous calendar improvements
• support for S/MIME, enhanced contact management
• Pidgin instant messaging integration
• improved desktop integration.
• improved compliance with GNOME's human interface guidelines
• integrated SpamAssassin functionality (with user-defined spam score and whitelist rules in ~/.spamassassin/)
• a connector for Scalix is available

Anjal

Anjal is a new user interface which is being built on top of Evolution, targeted for mobile and small-screen devices. It uses Webkit for rendering messages.

Distribution

Evolution 2.22 was released on 11 March 2008, together with GNOME 2.22 (March 2008). GNOME is the default desktop environment for several Linux distributions, most notably Debian, Fedora and Ubuntu. Foresight Linux showcases the latest releases of GNOME. Novell distributes Evolution with SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 10 and the openSUSE community project.

Evolution 2.22 is also available as source code. Some pre-built install packages are available for other operating systems, but only for older versions.

Evolution for Mac OS X

In 2006, Novell provided an installer for Evolution on Mac OS X. This outdated version is still downloadable.

Evolution for Windows

In January 2005, Novell's Nat Friedman announced in his blog that the company had hired Tor Lillqvist, the programmer who ported GIMP to Microsoft Windows, to do the same with Evolution.

As of Nov 11th 2009, 2.28.1-1 has been available for download from DIP Consultants, LLC. Evolution on Win32 This version runs on Windows XP and newer.

Before this announcement, several projects with the same goal had been started (Evolution for Windows being the most notable), but none of them reached alpha status.

See also

• List of personal information managers
• Comparison of e-mail clients

External links

• Official Evolution project page
• Novell Evolution page
• Evolution on Win32