So far so good on the project. I have tried out several live disks, chosen Ubuntu 9.04 and successfully installed it. On top of this I have setup Evolution, an E-mail client with similar function to Outlook. Evolution arrived with my Ubuntu download. Its appearance is similar to Outlooks. However its function is subtly different. It would appear to me that most of the features are there, I have to admit though that this is going to be an application that I am not sure that I can live with.
Why? Well at the moment, Evolution supports the main features that make Outlook so important to me from an individuals point of view (notice I am excluding compatibility with mail servers like MS exchange). It has a:
- Mail client
- Contacts manager
- Calendar
- Task list
- Notes feature
Number one for me is that Evolution is not playing so good with the supersmall screen of my EeePC. With a restricted resolution of only 1024 x 600, layouts of software packages have to be a little flexible to accomodate this. I particularly find this an issue with the calender tool in Evolution. I may be doing something wrong, but the calendar refuses to offer me anything other than a single days appointments from it's toolbar buttons. When I try, the Evolution package just minimises. This is pretty annoying so far as a calendar is something I really rely upon both professionally and personally.
On the calendar point at least, I miss the flexabiltiy of Outlook. The only wish I ever had with Outlooks calendar was that I never managed to find a way to reliably integrate a cloud based calendar such as Google Calendar to Outlook. Regardless of screen size, Outlook always at least gave me the flexabilty to adjust the view to cope with any screen size.
So far not so good, better focus on some positives then... Well for one, any Outlook user at least initially will feel quite comfortable with the default layout of Evolution. Everyhing is roughly in the same places including a left handed navigation pane with buttons below to take you to each section of the program.
Tool bars are in a similar configuration to Outlook also. So right from the off I found that I could use Evolution without trawling a manual of forums for clues. This made life pretty easy for me to get up and runing. The toolbars do not seem quite as elegant as I am used to, I know that I am missing some settings here, but till I work them out the best analogy I can think of is if outlook's toolbars are lego, then Evolution is Duplo. So far I have not discovered how to customise the toolbars either. If you check out my article on optimising outlook for a netbook you can see just how easy it is for me to make the most of limited real estate in Outlook. Perhaps someone can offer some advice on how to do this in Evolution?
I have not explored all of the features yet, but the one that is really the problem for me is this. Evolution does not seem to support drag and drop between each of the different features. What I mean is, within outlook if you drag an e-mail from the inbox to the tasks folder, Outlook automatically converts it into a task, similarly it can be morphed into a contact or a calendar entry in a similar fashion. If I can't find a way to emulate this function I don't really see the point in supplying these tools.
In Evolution you certainly can right click on an e-mail and select "convert to task" but so far that's the closest I have found to the feature.
I know that I am possibly being premature in raising this as an issue, I have only been using the package for a few days and that is nowwhere enough time to get used to a new way of doing things. But that is my feeling right now. Hopefully I will find a way to achieve this simple but to my mind critical function.
It's going to sound like a miniscule point to raise, but I consider this drag and drop to be the glue that makes having an e-mail client, calendar, and task list in the same package.
I will however continue using Evolution for few more days to see if I can get over this or find a way around the absense of this feature. I'm already eyeing up the next program at the moment.
Also I have not found out how to import my backed up e-mail from outlook. Not a major problem for a few days, but I will need to sort this out for whatever e-mail client I decide on in the end.
If my comments are unfair towards Evolution, these are uneducated first impressions from a biased Microsoftie. Please accept my promise that I am keeping an open mind towards the package. I will report back in a few days how I am getting on. Technorati Tags: Evolution, Linux, Outlook, Email, Beginner
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