Evolution "Prokaryote" 0.0 has been released

[Miguel de Icaza <miguel helixcode com>]

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.