A User's Guide to Evolution
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# Advanced Configuration

Perhaps your mail server has changed names. Perhaps you've grown tired of a certain layout for your appointments. Whatever the reason, you want to change your `Evolution` settings. This chapter will tell you how to do just that.

# Mail Settings

To change your mail settings, select Settings->Mail configuration in the Inbox. This will open the mail preferences window, illustrated in Figure 1. Mail preferences are separated into several categories:

`Identities`

  This allows you to create and alter one or more identities for your email.

`Sources`

  This tab lets you tell `Evolution` where to get the mail sent to you, and how to get it.

`Mail Transport`

  This tab lets you tell `Evolution` how to send mail.

`News Servers`

  If you would like to use `Evolution` to read newsgroups, you can specify your news server preferences here.

`Other`

  Miscellaneous mail and news settings, such as HTML handling preferences, and how long `Evolution` should wait before marking message read.

Figure 1. Mail Preferences Dialog

## Identity Settings

If you have only one email account, or send email from only one address, you will only need to configure one identity. If you want, however, you can have multiple identities. This can be useful if you want to keep personal and professional email separate, or if you wear several hats at work.

To add a new identity, simply click Add. To alter an existing identity, click on it in the `Identity` tab of the Preferences window, and then click Edit.

`Evolution` will then present you with a dialog box containing four fields:

- `Full Name:` by default, this is the same name as the full name described in your user account on your computer. You can select another if you wish.

- `Email address:` Enter your email address in this space.

- `Organization:` If you send email as a representative of a company or other organization, enter its name here.

- `Signature file:` You may choose a small text file to be appended to every message that you send. Typically, signature files include address or other contact information, or a favorite quotation. It's good form to keep it to four lines at the maximum.

## Network Settings

In order to send mail with `Evolution`, you need to connect to your network. To do that, you'll need to know your user name and password, what sort of mail sending and receiving protocols your network uses, and the names of the servers you'll be using. If you're switching from another groupware or email program, you can almost certainly use the same settings as you did with that program. Network-related settings are in the `Mail Sources` and `Mail Transport` tabs.

### Mail Sources

The Mail Sources tab allows you to edit, add, or delete methods of retrieving mail from servers. Clicking on Add or Edit will bring up a dialog box to offer you the following options:

`Mail source type:`

  Select from IMAP or POP servers, or Unix-style `mbox` or `mh` files.

`Server:`

  Enter the name of the mail source server in this field. If you use an may or may not be the same as your SMTP server.

`Username:`

  Enter the user name for the account you have on the server-- this should the part of your email address before the @. If you use `mbox` or `mh` files as your mail source, you do not need to enter a username.

`Authentication:`

  Tell `Evolution` how to verify your identity with the server. Your options vary depending upon the type of server you are using, and the ways it is configured. Given the name of a server, `Evolution` can detect what sorts of authentication it offers.

`Test Settings`

  Click this button to have `Evolution` check to see if mail sources are configured correctly.

If you have several mail sources, clicking Get Mail will refresh any IMAP, `mh`, or `mbox` listings and check and download mail from all POP servers. In other words, Get Mail gets your mail, no matter how many sources you have, or what types they are.

### Mail Transports

The Mail Transports tab lets you set how you will send mail. Evolution currently supports two mail transport options: `SMTP`, which uses a remote mail server, and `sendmail`, which uses the `sendmail` program on your local system. `Sendmail` is more difficult to configure, but offers more flexibility than SMTP.

To use `SMTP`, you'll need to enter the name of your SMTP server. It may have the same name as your mail source server.

`Evolution` can attempt to determine if you have entered a valid server name. To have it do so, click the `Test Settings` button.

## News Servers

Newsgroups are so much like mailing lists that there's no reason not to keep them right next to your mail. When you first select the `News Servers` tab, you will see a blank box with the three familiar buttons on the right: Add, Edit, and Delete.

Click Add to add a news server; you will be prompted for its name. Enter the name, click OK, and you're done. You can have as many mail servers as you like, of course. News servers will appear next to your IMAP servers in the folder bar.

## Other Mail Preferences

Not everything fits neatly into categories. This tab contains some miscellaneous configurations that don't have too much to do with each other.

`Send messages in HTML format`

  If you check this box, you will send messages as HTML by default. If you leave it unchecked, your messages will be sent without HTML formatting unless you select Format->HTML in the message composer. See the section called Embellish your email with HTML in the chapter called Evolution Mail for more information about HTML mail.

`Mark Messages as Seen After`

  When you click on a message, `Evolution` will wait a moment before marking it as seen. You can set the delay, in milliseconds, here.

`Folder Format`

  By default, `Evolution` saves its mail in the `mbox` format. You can switch to the `mh` format if you like. Note that this is an advanced feature and may cause you to lose some messages, so you should probably make a backup of your `evolution` directory first. In addition, it will take quite some time if you have a large mailbox.

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