Has any heavy Outlook user tried Evolution yet?
Fairfax
M$ apps, in particular things like Outlook. Though OpenOffice lacks a
lot of the functionality present in M$ Office, I've so far been able
to adapt and live with them so far. Outlook I'm finding not so easy
to replace at all. In last 2 years I must have tried about 50 email
clients and nothing satisifes, though Thunderbird at least has
mimicked _some_ of the functionality by the heavy use of extensions.
So I've switched over my message store to Thunderbird since it's also
available in Linux. But quite frankly, even with the extensions, it's
still a weak replacement at this stage.
I don't care about Outlook, I care about the heavy artillery it
represents - right out-of-the box. I've spent considerable time over
last few months searching out and trialing extensions and that's a lot
of work without getting something powerful enough at the end.
e.g., you can easily edit subject lines in Outlook. Various uses for
that but the TB edit-header extension is several mouse clicks and then
to top it off, it still hasn't been able to save the message with new
subject line.
Also, the flag with reminder that has been around forever in Outlook
hasn't a counterpart in Thunderbird, at least, that I've been able to
find yet. You don't clutter up your tasks or calendars in OL yet
reminders don't go forgotten.
Anti-OL users then might come back, BUT THE FLAGS ARE ONLY AVAILABLE
IN INBOX UNLESS YOU HAVE EXPENSIVE SHAREWARE ... well, not true
actually. There's a fantastic standalone freeware out there that lets
you choose any other folder in Outlook to support flags. No such
feature in TB that I can find.
Last even bigger one to mention is the lack of built-in calendar, I
had to go with yet another extension; this one called Lightning. And
after setting a few test reminders, I found it to be very clunky to
work with. Recurring reminders also may be buggy if the reports are
true.
So, all in all, TB not so very good yet even though I'm only giving 3
examples. There are many more items that I haven't successfully found
workarounds for yet. So Thunderbird stilll just isn't a real
competitor yet when it comes to functionality.
As I said, I'm no M$ fan and I'm no Outlook fan - it's all about
robustness/functionality which I'd like to find an app to emulate. I
know there's now a java-based Outlook available that would also
probalby work in Linux but my goal is to move completely away from M$
products.
I believe that Evolution has many more features that are Outlook-like.
But has any heavy Outlook user tried it yet and can they report any of
their findings?
The only real power we have as consumers is the power of boycott. I
intend to exercise that power with regards to M$! They'd ruled too
long as of a long time ago! ::g::
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Duddits
(24000bps)" <toylet...@gmail.com> wrote:
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I wouldn't advise cross posting anything in this group as 99% of them
in this group are troll related and are blocked by many.
regards
Dud
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<rev20091101>
Craig
> I believe that Evolution has many more features that are Outlook-like.
> But has any heavy Outlook user tried it yet and can they report any of
> their findings?
I trialed Evolution (GNOME) & KPIM (KDE) last year. Of the two,
Evolution's components were better integrated and in general Evolution
was more polished. In KPIM's favor was the modularity. Want an rss?
Bolt it on. Don't need a notepad, drop it. For the way I work, KPIM was
more my style.
But...
I stuck with TBird because it's OS-agnostic *and* the IMAP
implementation is (was?) much more robust. If you use POP3 for your
email accounts, this won't matter much. But, as of last year, both
KPIM's Kmail & Evolution's mail fell over when I attempted to manage my
~5 or so IMAP accounts. One last thing: don't expect much in the way of
documentation for either.
TBird 3 & Lightning have both been very stable across a lot of
platforms. This includes Windows 2k & 7, Solaris 10, Debian, etc.
TBird's a klutz but it just works.
fwiw,
--
-Craig
D. Brown
>I believe that Evolution has many more features that are Outlook-like.
>But has any heavy Outlook user tried it yet and can they report any of
>their findings?
>
From what little I've used it, I'd have to say that Evolution can hardly be
considered a direct replacement to Outlook. (anyway, I thought Kontact was a
more polished client than Evolution)
Lotus Notes might come closest. I can't say if the standalone Linux version has
the features of the groupware package, which is all I've used . But for someone
who has already tested out 50 diferent applications in search of the ultimate
replacement, it's probably worth investigating.
Dave
Fairfax
wrote:
Thanks but I'm not happy with Thunderbird at all. I've given it so
many chances over the last two years but it just falls short
_on_functionality_. To me, and this is a very personal opinion, it's
a clunker because in order to get it to perform to 75% what came out
of Outlook out-of-the-box, it probably took me 6 months of looking
for, testing extensions, and such to get some of the more advanced
functions in. I even had to hack one of the skins since you couldn't
tell read mail from not read mail in many of the themes since the
icons didn't change! Sure, I believe in Mozilla products, I'm a
Firefox fan from many years back, but TBird is just too lacking in
basic abilities you have to hunt down extensions for and, even then, I
don't have the ease and speed of use that Outlook gave me.
I'm NOT an M$ fan. I'm not an Outlook fan. I just have come to rely
on its powerfully robust features.
Oh, I did find _one_ thing better in TBird = the filters (in Outlook
called "Rules"). The interface is clunky, yes, but I can set
rules/filters in _one_ entry with keywords and by sender. But one
slightly better feature does not a good email client make ::sigh::.
Also, even with Lightning, the reminders just aren't as good and they
don't work nearly as well. Something that one would do in a moment in
Outlook took several tries in Lightning (which doesn't come with
TBird, btw, you have to know about it, dl it and install it) and they
still don't work as they should.
I'm not saying TBird won't be really good ... one day. But that day
isn't here yet. I get the feeling that it's like Linux. Sure you can
customize it like hell, but you spend a lot of work, pain and effort
doing that. That's fine re Linux because the large quantity of
LiveCDs made it easy to get something that does quite a bit
out-of-the-box, I'll only have to tweak Linux a bit. TBird doesn't go
much beyond very basic without many extensions, though.
I suspect that the email issue is going to be one that will last once
I get onboard with Linux. But it won't stop me. I'm going with Linux
and that's the end of Window$. TBird is certainly not chopped liver.
That's not what this is about. It's just hard to dumb-down, to go
with less than what you were used to, vs. going to something more
powerful. More is always easy to get used to! ::g::
So the hype that Evolution puts out about being comparable to Outlook
is just that ... hype. Figures.
Thanks.
Craig
> On Fri, 11 Dec 2009 12:18:27 -0800, Craig<netbu...@REMOVEgmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> On 12/11/2009 03:25 AM, Fairfax wrote:
>>> I believe that Evolution has many more features that are Outlook-like.
>>> But has any heavy Outlook user tried it yet and can they report any of
>>> their findings?
>>
>> Evolution's components were better integrated and in general Evolution
>> was more polished. In KPIM's favor was the modularity. Want an rss?
>> Bolt it on. Don't need a notepad, drop it. For the way I work, KPIM was
>> more my style.
>>
>> But...
>>
>> I stuck with TBird because it's OS-agnostic *and* the IMAP
>> implementation is (was?) much more robust. If you use POP3 for your
>> email accounts, this won't matter much. But, as of last year, both
>> ~5 or so IMAP accounts. One last thing: don't expect much in the way of
>> documentation for either.
>>
>> platforms. This includes Windows 2k& 7, Solaris 10, Debian, etc.
>> TBird's a klutz but it just works.
>>
>> fwiw,
>
> Thanks but I'm not happy with Thunderbird at all. I've given it so
> many chances over the last two years but it just falls short
> _on_functionality_. To me, and this is a very personal opinion, it's
> a clunker because in order to get it to perform to 75% what came out
I think we're pretty close to agreement on TBird ("klutz" vs "clunker").
> So the hype that Evolution puts out about being comparable to Outlook
> is just that ... hype. Figures.
>
Don't get me wrong about Evolution. Evolution is pretty darned
polished. By that, I mean, it's well-integrated and it truly is a PIM.
Back when I used Evolution in a corporate setting, I found it worked
really well. But back then, I was using POP3 & had exactly one email
account. The issues I wanted to flag were:
- IMAP support (as of last year & on Linux) was pretty dodgy
- Evo-on-Win crashed (for me) on Win2k & XP
- Evo-on-Win has no support (DIP Consulting offers it as favor)
- Evolution doc was very spotty below the surface.
Now, in its defense, Evolution has had ~2 minor releases since I had
problems w/the IMAP config. Also, DIP Consulting does say that it runs
fine for them on WinXP & Win7. And finally, who reads doc anyway? <grin>
I've win7 on another box. If I get the time, I'll give Evo a spin &
post back.
hth,
--
-Craig
Craig
>
> I've win7 on another box. If I get the time, I'll give Evo a spin &
> post back.
Installed the latest Evo for Windows on Win7. It worked, after a fact.
Not-so-good stuff:
- screen rendering, inc fonts, isn't as clear as other apps in win7
- though app didn't crashed, Win7 repeatedly said it, or modules, had
- the 4-function navigator box disappeared
- few-second episodes of non-responsiveness
Not disastrous. And, who knows? Maybe with some fiddling and searching
the net, those problems might've disappeared.
On the bright side, it seems to handle IMAP well enough now. Also, I
tried Evo-on-Ubuntu 9.10. It worked very nicely... smooth, responsive,
integrated. If I admin'd nothing but gnome-based platforms, I'd be more
than happy with the current Evolution.
fwiw,
--
-Craig
Samuel Luter
> Thanks but I'm not happy with Thunderbird at all. I've given it so
> many chances over the last two years but it just falls short
> _on_functionality_. To me, and this is a very personal opinion, it's
> a clunker because in order to get it to perform to 75% what came out
> of Outlook out-of-the-box, it probably took me 6 months of looking
> for, testing extensions, and such to get some of the more advanced
> functions in. I even had to hack one of the skins since you couldn't
> tell read mail from not read mail in many of the themes since the
> icons didn't change! Sure, I believe in Mozilla products, I'm a
> Firefox fan from many years back, but TBird is just too lacking in
> basic abilities you have to hunt down extensions for and, even then, I
> don't have the ease and speed of use that Outlook gave me.
user problem not app problem