Fedora 11 User Guide - Chapter 9. Communications

Chapter 9. Communications

$9.99

Fedora can be used to send electronic mail and communicate in real time with people around the world through instant messaging and chat rooms. In GNOME, Evolution is used to send electronic mail (email) by default. Evolution can also be used as a personal information manager, or PIM. You can maintain a calendar, manage a list of tasks, and keep an address book of contacts.

In KDE, Kmail is used to send email by default. While Kmail does not include a calendar, a calendar application called KOrganizer is included as part of the KDE PIM suite. There is also an application called Kontact which groups KMail , Korganizer and other KDE PIM tools into a single interface (comparable with GNOME's Evolution ).

Thunderbird is an open-source mail client maintained by Mozilla. It is very extensible, with an online plug-in library akin to Mozilla Firefox . Claws Mail is a more lightweight email client and news reader, which is also extensible via additional plug-ins. Claws Mail only supports plaintext emails by default.

Pidgin and Kopete are both Instant Messaging (IM) programs that allow you to talk to people in real-time using chat networks like AIM, Yahoo! Messenger, or Gmail chat. XChat is Fedora's default graphical IRC client and Konversation is the default IRC client for KDE. ChatZilla is an IRC client installed and used via the FireFox web browser. These clients can all connect to IRC servers which provide chat rooms for people around the world to discuss specific topics.

9.1. Evolution

Evolution is a full featured email program. In addition to email, Evolution features a personal information manager (PIM), a calendar, task manager and an address book for your contacts. More documentation for Evolution is available at: https://www.gnome.org/projects/evolution/documentation.shtml

9.1.1. Configuring Evolution

To configure an email account:

Start Evolution
- in GNOME, click Applications > Office > Evolution on the top menu bar.
- in KDE, click Kickoff Application Launcher > Applications > Internet > Email menu entry.
Running the software for the first time displays the Evolution Setup Assistant wizard. Answer these questions using information provided by your ISP or email provider.
- The Identity screen relates to personal information about the account, including Name , Organization , and Address . There is also a Reply-To field, which will allow you to specify that recipients of mail from this account can reply to a different email address than the one that sent the email.
- The Receiving Email and Sending Email screens both require information from the e-mail provider.

To add a new account in the future, or to modify an existing account, launch the preferences dialog from the Edit > Preferences menu. In the dialog that appears, press the Add button to launch the Evolution Account Assistant again.

9.1.2. Using Evolution

Evolution allows you to create, store and send email by clicking the appropriate buttons located on the menu.

Send/Receive: Prompts Evolution to send and receive all email.
New: Opens a new email message dialog box.
Reply: Replies to the person who has sent you an email.
Reply to All: Replies to everyone who was included in the email that you have received.
Forward: Forwards the email message to another person.
Print: Prints the email.
Delete: Deletes the message.
Junk: Marks the email as junk.
Not Junk: If you accidentally set the email as Junk, pushing this button removes the Junk tag.
Cancel: Cancels whatever Evolution was doing.
Previous: Moves to the previous email in your folder.
Next: Moves to the next email in your folder.