A User's Guide to Evolution
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# The Message Composer Menus

The message composition window has its own set of menus: File, which controls operations on files and data, Edit, for text editing, Format, which controls the file format of messages you send, View, to set how you view the message, and Insert, which holds tools for embedding files and other items in messages. Here's what's in them:

## The Message Composer's File Menu

Open

  Open a text file or a draft mail message.

Save

  Save a mail message as a text file.

Save As

  Choose a file name and location for a message you want to save as a text file.

Save in Folder

  Save a message as a draft, rather than as a separate text file.

Insert Text File

  Open a text file and insert it into the current message. (FIXME: belongs under "Insert").

Send Now

  Sends the message immediately.

Send Later

  Queue

Close

  Closes the message composer. If you have not done so, `Evolution` will ask you if you want to save your message.

## The Message Composer's Edit Menu

The Edit menu in the message composer contains the following items. Keyboard shortcuts are listed next to the items in the menus themselves.

Undo

  Undoes the last action you performed.

Redo

  If you change your mind about Undoing something, you can always use this item.

Cut

  Removes the selected text from the text entry window and retains it in the system "clipboard" memory, ready for pasting.

Copy

  Copies selected text to the system clipboard without deleting it. The text can then be inserted elsewhere with the Paste command.

Paste

  Inserts the contents of the system clipboard at the location of the cursor.

Find

  Enter a phrase and find your match in your message body. As with Find Regex, Find Again, and Replace, `Evolution` will offer you the option to search forwards or backwards.

Find Regex

  If you are familiar with regular expressions, often called "regexes," you can search for something more complicated, using wildcards and boolean logic.

Find Again

  Repeats your last search.

Replace

  Enter a word or phrase and the word or phrase with which you'd like to replace it.

Properties

  This item brings up the Message Composer Properties Capplet, a portion of the GNOME Control Center that determines the key bindings for the message composer. Help for this capplet is available directly from the Control Center. (FIXME: Write that help doc too) (FIXME: this is in the wrong place!)

## The Message Composer's Format Menu

The Format menu has only one item:

HTML

  Toggles HTML mode for the message composer. When selected, the message is displayed and sent in HTML. If you have written a message in HTML and turn HTML off, most formatting will be lost. `Evolution` will attempt to preserve spacing and to remove formatting gracefully, however.

## The Message Composer's View Menu

The View menu controls the way messages are displayed, and how much of the message, its headers, and attachments appear. It contains:

Show Attachments

  Toggles the display of attachments. When this item is selected, `Evolution` will create a separate pane of the composition window to show what attachments you are appending to the message.

## The Message Composer's Insert Menu

The Insert menu holds tools that allow you to include images, horizontal rules, and other objects in the body of your message. The tools are:

Image

  This tool will prompt you to select an image file to insert into your HTML message. For text messages, this is the same as attaching an image file.

Link

  Opens the link creation window, which lets you specify the URL and text description for a link in your message. This only works with HTML messages.

Rule

  Opens the horizontal rule creation dialog, which lets you create an HTML horizontal rule. For more information, see the section called Embellish your email with HTML in the chapter called Evolution Mail. This tool only works with HTML messages.

Text File

  Open a text file and insert it into the current message. This tool works with both plain text and HTML messages.

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