Re: [Evolution] Evolution Editor needs serious attention

[Pete Biggs <pete biggs org uk>]

> I have been using Evolution for 10+ years on Ubuntu. I use it with
> Office365.
> The weekeast thing about Evolution is it's editor. It's a disaster.

So if you've been using it "for 10+ years", has it always been such a
"disaster" or is it a recent thing.  Have you submitted bug reports or
do you just want to be dramatic about it?

To be absolutely honest none of the things you highlight:

> 1) UNDO is a disaster
>
> 2) Copy-Paste is a disaster
>
> 3) Inserting Signatures
>
> 4) Using the built-in formating barely works. Again, the editor ends
> up mangling the text.

have been frequently brought up here.  There are issues around the
composer if you use HTML, but it is rock solid for plain text. If you
search in the list archives you'll find some hints.  The problems with
undo/redo seem to centre around fonts.

> If I have to type a serious, well thought, long response, I dare not
> use the Evolution editor. I usually use LibreOffice Write or a text
> editor because it is almost guarnteed the Evolution editor will
> mangle it. It's very frusting that such an important tool is not
> realiable.

If it really were as bad as you say then this list would be full of
people complaining about, some might possibly be constructive.

> Please dedicate some time and resources to addressing or replacing
> the editor.
I'm sure the devs would love to receive patches to try and fix the
issues you see.

If you don't want to submit patches to fix things, then there is a
facility to use an external editor with Evolution - it's a plugin, so
your distro may, or may not, package it. Do File->Compose in External
Editor in the composer to launch it.

You could also just use plain text instead of HTML.

Or, as Andre said, you could wait until 3.38 which will have a new
editor in it - you see the composer is not an Evolution thing, it is
part of the gui toolkit. There are shortcomings with the one that has
been used so the devs have been transitioning to a new one, and I
suspect it's not an easy thing.

P.