Re: [Evolution] Evolution 2.0 UI proposal

[Ettore Perazzoli <ettore ximian com>]

> * I also support, a little more reluctantly, killing the summary page.
> I really like the idea, but never use it in practice. As mentioned
> previously, the calendar and task views aren't that useful. the email
> view doesn't do anything for me at all.  One thing that I would love
> to see, though, would be an embedded RSS viewer. I really dig the idea
> of doing RSS feed viewing in Evo (similar to how others used to use
> mail programs for news groups). However, for that feature to be
> useful, it wouldn't link to a web browser, but be an RSS program in
> its own right, similar to Straw. However, if Ximian is looking to
> reduce Evo's compexity, then I suspect this wouldn't be a desirable
> change.

For 2.0 we want to make a better effort at documenting the interfaces
needed to create components, and the architecture itself is going to be
much simpler.

So while we are probably not going to invest time into writing a nicely
integrated RSS feed viewer, other people could easily write one. 
(However, it might make more sense as a stand-alone application than as
part of Evolution.)

> * in the next UI design, would you consider being able to toggle
> between Evo's current 3 pane layout into one similar to the proposed
> Outlook 2003? 

Yeah, this has come up a number of times, and it's definitely something
that would be nice to have.  It's not too hard to implement either... 
Of course it depends on time and resources, as usual.

> * is it safe to assume that each of your new buttons will pull up full
> enumerations of each of the sources for each application? 

Yes.

> * the To: and CC: fields should be to search and auto-complete against
> the default Contact source, similar to Outlook (rather than always
> having to use the search 
> function). 

Hm, I think that's already supposed to work?

> * how viable would it be to create a Global Address Book browser for
> the 
> Ximian Connector?

We already support the Global Address List.

> * this is a more dramatic feature request than just UI (but I'm on a
> roll), have you considered DAV-enabling Evolution or Ximian Connector
> to be able to work w/ the forth-coming Sharepoint integration of
> Outlook/Exchange? 

At this time, we don't have any plans regarding Sharepoint.

> * Last, ensuring that Ximian Connector will continue to work w/
> Exchange 2003's 
> revised MAPI architecture and MS's own implementation of
> RPC-over-HTTP.

Yeah, Connector will work with the new Exchange.

-- Ettore