Re: [Evolution] Performance Issues

[Milan Crha <mcrha redhat com>]

On Thu, 2016-05-26 at 09:09 +0100, Pete Biggs wrote:
> Evolution is working in it's designed environment.

        Hi,
the Evolution is not designed for the GNOME3 environment these days
that much as it used to be, notably it doesn't follow the look and feel
of the GNOME Shell applications. It might even look "old school" to
someone (consider unsupported header bars, kept menu bar and so on).

The Evolution doesn't need GNOME (I have built 3.18.something under
Win32 too, and it is able to fetch my IMAPx account mails and show
them). The Evolution "only" uses the technology (aka libraries)
provided within the GNOME stack. It relies on GTK+ more than on GNOME
itself. Current Evolution (even the development version 3.21.2)
requires gtk+ 3.10.0, which is pretty old. There used to be versions
which required latest gtk+/glib/..., but it was usually during the gtk3
migration and such. Of course, we'll get back to that times with the
WebKit2 port, as the Evolution will require the latest WebKit2. It will
be for good, I believe.

There are some modules for integration with other GNOME parts, like
GNOME Online Accounts (GOA), but it can be disabled, the same as the
support for Ubuntu Online Accounts, if needed (did you know that
Evolution has any such module? :) It resides in the Evolution-Data-
Server). Even the connection to GNOME Keyring is indirect, the
Evolution doesn't use GNOME Keyring directly, it uses libsecret
library, which is a "wrapper" for password storage. Where it connects
is out of the Evolution hands.

The main "issue" for the Evolution is the dependency on the Evolution-
Data-Server, which provides access to all but the Mail parts not only
for the Evolution, but to any other client which connects to it. The
Evolution-Data-Server is a core component for GNOME, because (not only)
even GNOME Shell talks to it.

I wanted to say, the Evolution is not that much tight to the current
GNOME as it used to be. The need for GOA is more to "workaround" Google
Contacts connection. The Evolution 3.20.0+ can do OAuth2 against Google
on its own, when the Evolution-Data-Server is built with that part of
the code.
        Bye,
        Milan