Default Ubuntu applications

[Graham Todd]

On Thu, 04 Mar 2010 13:15:10 +1100
Arthur Barton <arthurb at igniferous.net> uttered these words:

> > That's easy: there is no other open source desktop
> > mail/collaboration client that has all the features Evolution
> > has...  
> 
> If there were, I'd like to hear about them. I haven't found anything
> else that manages to integrate my (many) email accounts with my
> near-equal number of calendars so well. In fact I've swapped to
> evolution on windows now too.

How about Claws-Mail (yes I know I've gone on about it before)?  It
incorporates calendars as plug-ins, so you can have it or not, as you
wish.  There is a Windows version at:

http://www.claws-mail.org/win32/index.php

but you might like to try it.  It will have less bloat than Evolution...

> > And I'm not sure any other GNOME/Gtk mail client is easier to use?  
> 
> For simple email use I recommended Thunderbird, but I'm still not sold
> on the 3.0 redesign (the tabs are OK but the search feature doesn't
> suit my needs).

Try Claws-Mail.  It is both easier to use than any GNOME/Gtk MUA I
have come across IMHO and more malleable to my needs.  I don't like
Thunderbird, mainly because it uses an internal spam checker that
cannot be used with any other application, whereas Claws-Mail uses the
plugin approach and you can use the corpus of bogofilter, bsfilter, or
spamassassin that you may already have built up.  The search facility
meets all my needs; what do you require?
 
> > (And AFAIK Canonical would love to replace or redesign
> > Evolution--they hired some Evolution developers even--but that will
> > take time for sure.)  

Well, Claws-Mail (and the plugins) are already in the repos, but the
latest version is not supported other than in the PPA, so I advise
adding the links - and the key - as laid out in these instructions:

https://launchpad.net/~claws-mail/+archive/ppa

Claws-Mail is not a PIM (yet!), though, and this may well be what
Canonical want to provide in Ubuntu.  Its something KDE has, and I'm
sure that in GNOME the other applications are there (as in Gnome
Office) but they just have not been brought to the fore and integrated.
Since Claws-Mail is designed around a number of elements that could
make up a PIM, it must be a prime candidate for adoption as an
alternative PIM for GNOME.

-- 
Graham Todd