A User's Guide to Evolution
<<< Previous | The Main Window: Evolution Basics | Next >>>

# The Menu Bar

The menu bar's contents will always provide all the possible actions for any given view of your data. That means that, depending on the context, menu bar items will change. If you're looking at your Inbox, most of the menu items will relate to mail; some will relate to other components of `Evolution` and some, especially those in the File Menu will relate to the application as a whole. The contents of the menu bar are described in the chapter called Menu Reference.

File Menu

  Anything even related to a file or to the operations of the application generally falls under this menu: creating things, saving them to disk, printing them, and quitting the program itself.

Edit Menu

  Although it doesn't contain anything at first, the Edit menu fills up with useful tools that help you edit text and move it around.

View Menu

  This menu lets you decide how `Evolution` should look. Some of the features control the appearance of `Evolution` as a whole, and others the way a particular kind of information appears.

Settings Menu

  Tools for configuring, changing, and setting up go here. For mail, that means things like Mail Configuration and the vFolder Editor. For the Calendar and the Contact Manager, it's color, network, and layout configuration.

Help Menu

  Select among these items to open the `Help Browser` and read the `Evolution` manual.

Other menus, like `Folder`, `Message`, and `Actions`, appear only occasionally. `Message` and `Folder`, for example, have commands that only relate to email, so they're only available when you're looking at email.

Once you've familiarized yourself with the main window you can start doing things with it. We'll start with your email inbox, since you've got a letter waiting for you already.

<<< Previous | Home | Next >>>
The Folder Bar | Up | Evolution Mail