Original von beach_defender
Hi,
I am currently using RH8.0 with KDE. When I first moved to Linux I installed Ximain Evolution after losing all my mail settings through a Mozilla Profile confsion. Having moved to Konqueror (And happy Iam), I'm getting very sick of Evolution's inabiltiy to shutdown and restart smoothly, so I would be interested in hearing the trials and tribs of anyone that has tried to migrate from Evolution to the KDE tools.
Thanks in advance.
Barry
I've used both Kmail and Evolution. I really like some of the features in Evolution, but I also like some of the features in Kmail.
Presently, I am using Kmail due to some issues with Evolution that just don't work properly. Here's my list of benefits and complaints about both:
1. Vfolders - Evolution has a much better vFolder implementation than the latest version of Kmail (with Kontact). The latest Kmail beta does have vFolders of a sort, but they don't seem to work as well as Evolution.
2. Encryption and signing - this was probably the BIGGEST reason for me to switch to Kmail in the first place. Evolution insists on using ONLY PGP/MIME. This causes many problems when signing emails and also receiving encrypted email. For signatures, the signature is sent as a separate attachment which many email clients have problems with. As well, many lists won't accept attachments, therefore signing email to those lists is not an option when using Evolution.
Kmail on the other hand, uses inline implementation of signing and encryption. This is compatible with almost any other commonly used email app.
PGP/MIME DOES have advantages however, in that if you are sending an attachment, and encrypt your email, even the attachment is encrypted as well.
Kmail can do this as well with the use of plug-ins, but I've found the plug-ins to be a bit on the slow side and cause Kmail sometimes to fart a bit. As well, once the plug-ins are installed, it becomes the default for signing and encryption, and I have to manually change that with each email I send, which is a bit of a pain.
3. My second biggest reason for switching from Evolution to Kmail was that the latest version of Evo used GTKHTML (I THINK this was where the bug was....) in it's reader. I get tons of email that I have to copy from and paste to other applications - and this was broken. I could not copy from Evo - it would lose all the line breaks, and everything would be just on one huge line. An enormous pain in the butt. And it seemed there wasn't a whole lot of rush to get this fixed.
4. Other Issues:
Searches - Kmail has a far superior search function. It seemed to me that Evolution was able to search ONLY within one folder. I could never figure out how to get it to do one search through ALL folders.
Customization - In most ways, I prefer Evolution. I miss the ability to create a filter such that any email from a particular person would appear in a color that I choose. I really loved this feature in Evolution. Also wish I could do this manually with Kmail, (right click on a message, change the color) but I can't.
Kmail really needs to have the ability to show emails that have attachments in the message list. It doesn't do this, and it's a pain in the neck when you are looking for an attachment from one particular individual, but you can't see which emails have attachments - so you have to go through all of them.
HTML email - a contentious issue - Kmail is unable to compose HTML email, Evolution can. Not a big issue for me as I rarely use it, but there are times when I wish I could. Sometimes, clients will send me HTML email so they can change the color of some text that I need to change for them, and I can find it quickly. I'm unable to reply to those emails in HTML, using my own color when I have questions. In this regard, Evo is much better.
I'm also using the beta version of Kontact. I really like it, although there are a few bugs yet to be worked out with wierd crashes. But all in all, I have high hopes for Kmail, and I believe that the developers seem to take the comments and suggestions from users more seriously than the Evo guys do. But to give Ximian credit, they are often working on issues that they are getting paid for by corporate customers, so the corporate needs probably come first.
In Kontact, one feature that I've always wanted in Kmail has now been implemented - the ability to open a message in it's own window, and be able to click on a reply or forward button in that window to get a new compose window. In previous versions, this was not there. However.... it doesn't quite work for me in Kontact yet.. another bug, I guess. But it's getting there
Hope this is helpful to you. I don't really think Kmail or Evolution is 'better' than the other.. they both have their strengths, and their weaknesses. In the end it will come down to you using both for a while, and finding which one works best for you!
Laura