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Outlook, Evolution and Kontact Side-by-Side
Posted by
Zonk
on Sat May 28, 2005 05:31 AM
from the looking-them-in-the-eye dept.
from the looking-them-in-the-eye dept.
gaijincory writes "Opensourceversus.com has put together a nice side-by-side comparison of Microsoft Outlook, Evolution and KDE's Kontact groupware programs. The screenshots delve in to the nitty gritty details and should help in making an informed choice, if nothing else. This is a follow up to their comparison of the Outlook Express and Thunderbird e-mail clients."
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Windows and Linux (Score:5, Informative)
A nice joke... (Score:3, Funny)
"I want a challenging computer game with lots of graphics. It should be
difficult, confusing and have plenty of contradictions to keep me busy".
The assistant replies "Have you tried Windows XP?"
Re:A nice joke... (Score:3, Insightful)
"Yes", the young man answered.
"Excellent", the assistant said. "Because without it there is no way you can play all the latest and coolest games out there."
Damn. Didn't realize Playstation 2 was running Windows XP...
Re:Windows and Linux (Score:5, Insightful)
For example, in the Calculator comparison, while the Linux ones are on scientific mode, it seems they didnt wanted to show that the Windows calc can also do it.
In the Instant Messenger comparision, what about opening a messenger windows (in the Windows version) and starting a video or audio conversation, and comparing it to the others (mmm I do not think it is possible to have an audio or video conversation with gaim).
The paint program comparison... WTF! comparing paintbrush with The Gimp?? if you tell me that it is because the Gimp is part of the OS, let me tell you that it is NOT, and you CAN install it on Windows too, so no, there is no point comparing them! that was the most biased comparison for me.
I know that the idea of making these comparisons is cool, but, again I would like to see them made by a non biased source, this seems a bit biased.
I do not want to deffend Windows, as I like Linux (I run Ubuntu in my house PC) but if we cry when we see those TCO studies that Microsoft pays... ok we can not make the same mistake.
P.d... so loooooooong (karma falling down to the bottom of the abyss...)
Parent
Re:Windows and Linux (Score:4, Informative)
But GIMP is already packaged on the compared Linux distributions. With Windows, the graphics tool packaged with the OS is Paint.
Same thing for text editors: you can install a bunch on Windows too, but the one that comes bundled with the OS is feature-lean Notepad.
At least the author didn't compare Word Processors: MS's WordPad would have looked equally lame vs. OpenOffice's Write, which, again, is bundled with just about every Linux distro out there. Yes, you can download and install OOo on Windows, but it's not part of the Windows Distribution.
Parent
Re:Windows and Linux (Score:3, Insightful)
Uhm, no. That was the basic mode. Have you seen the scientific mode??
In the Instant Messenger comparision, what about opening a messenger windows (in the Windows version) and starting a video or audio conversation, and comparing it to the others (mmm I do not think it is possible to have an audio or video conversation with gaim).
Yes, you can
Re:Windows and Linux (Score:4, Informative)
Or install The GIMP.
Actually it's much easier than that. Download and install two files from http://gimp-win.sourceforge.net/stable.html [sourceforge.net], one for GTK and one for The GIMP, and you're ready.
Parent
Re:Windows and Linux (Score:4, Insightful)
Open source is not Linux. Open source applications such as Firefox, Apache, GIMP, are applications, that happen to run on a variety of operating systems.
Parent
Re:Windows and Linux (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Windows and Linux (Score:4, Interesting)
And the Gimp is equally FULLY SUPPORTED in Windowze, I can see you are just flamebaiting... ask the people who made the Gimp how much "more" they support The Gimp for windows and for Linux
This isn't true. The GIMP's primary developers all work on *nix and they design the UI around the common X11 window managers. This actually causes lots of complaints by GIMP users on Windows, because the X11 window managers are more sophisticated and featureful than Windows' is, and the result makes the GIMP UI behave badly on Windows. Most of the common complaints about the GIMP UI are problems only on the Windows version.
The GIMP's developers don't care, though, because they develop for X11, and it works just fine there.
Parent
Re:Windows and Linux (Score:4, Informative)
From glancing at the forums, it's probably flaky as hell just now, and probably not entirely easy to set up, but at least progress is being made. If MSN webcams is your idea of progress, that is.
Parent
Original and counterfeit? (Score:2, Insightful)
How comes copying GUIs, look and feel and functionality of software is seen as a normal thing while people go mad about copied Ipods etc?
Re:Original and counterfeit? (Score:3, Interesting)
As for the marketplace, the iPod's interface was design genius, and is it's sole link to fame. Stealing the interface of an iPod is stealing the iPod. The same shouldn't be said for software; the interface and the application should be two very seperate tools. That way, you can use whatever interface you like, and nobody complains. Li
Re:Original and counterfeit? (Score:2)
I understand people coding a new email client might make it look like what they are used to, however Evolution used to ape the old version of Outlook but they have implemented outlook 2003 looks too (those mail etc.. "buttons" on the left side). Basically they are doing a poor job of copying and playing catch up. How about sitting down and trying to make the be
Re:Original and counterfeit? (Score:3, Interesting)
Frankly, the way that OSX does it works for me. Tightly coupled yet separate mail, calendar, address book, etc. Each app does what it does really really well.
Unfortunately I disagree. (Score:5, Insightful)
Stealing the interface of Outlook is stealing Outlook.
I have a lot more respect for Apple (for Address Book and iCal) and OSAF (for Chandler) for their attempts at an "Outlook Killer" than I do for these two examples.
In the late 1990s, I was using Day Timer Organizer. It was essentially an electronic version of their paper organizer. For what it was, I thought it rocked... I switched to Outlook because of the integration between contacts and email (and it was on my new computer). In other words, I switched for a functionality.
>>most Open Source coders look at something that already exists, and try to mirror its functionality.
I think your comment does a disservice to Open Source coders that _don't_ do that. The real heroes are the ones that create an entirely new take on an existing problem. They're the ones who are pushing the envelope and they get my respect, open or closed.
Parent
it's the law (Score:3, Insightful)
Having said that, it doesn't bother me in the least if other companies clone iPod in any way they like.
Choice? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Choice? (Score:3, Informative)
"In Outlook, you can do this, and it works just like this in Evolution. See, look at the screenshots, it's easy."
All of the other factors (security, spam filtering, etc) are in the comments at the end of the page.
Re:Choice? (Score:5, Insightful)
Compatibility is one thing, but design is entirely another. These apps were designed to be carbon copies, not to be Outlook compatible.
Parent
Re:Choice? (Score:2)
Re:Choice? (Score:5, Insightful)
It would be nice to see, for example, that Evolution or Thunderbird can NOT sync with some PDA's, and that Outlook do NOT have a learning anti SPAM algorithm, and all that.
You know, I think it is great, when comparing things to see all the bad side of them, or the features they do not have, that way you would be able to make a chose based thinking like "ok, so this software do not have all this, but I think these characteristics it has is enough for me to use it".
And it goes also for OS (Windows, OSX, Linux, *BSD), Office suites (OOo, MSOffice, WordPerfect,
As an example, I have read about 2 subjects, the first one was about a PhD, so I searched for information about "how to succesfully make a PhD", and of course I found a lot of tips etc, but almost all the pages where telling the same, but one friend of mine showed me a document that had this other approach "how NOT to make a PhD", and it was really useful, and funny.
The other example was with something quite similar, about publishing a paper, so if you look about "how to publish a paper" you will find tons and tons of information from the different publishing houses about the guidelines, in some other places you will find tips of how to "write" etc. But if you search something like "how NOT to publish a paper" you certainly find (I did) nice documents that with sarcasm, will tell you everything you need to do to get your paper rejected.
I know, it is not a usual way to see things, but I think it gives you more information that you wont have with the usual reviews.
Parent
Surprisingly similar (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Surprisingly similar (Score:2)
Re:Surprisingly similar (Score:2)
Pretty (Score:5, Interesting)
That said, I also want my software to work well. So in any comparison of groupware clients, I need two questions answered:
1) What is the speed like accessing mail on an Exchange server?
2) Does it fully integrate with Exchange's calendaring?
I ask 1) because my company uses Exchange, and in the past I've tried KMail and Mozilla Mail, and both were sluggish as hell accessing my mail. I'm impatient, I don't *want* to wait.
I ask 2) because several years ago, use of the Exchange calendaring feature was mandated. That's how you book meetings, that's how you're told you've been booked to attend a meeting (and some people don't bother speaking to you about it!), you're even supposed to mark time spent away from your desk on holiday or even at lunch, so people know you're not there. If the alternative groupware clients can't do all this with Exchange, then I can't use them.
Exchange is part of the reason I switched back to Windows. Sure, I could run Linux, but to access my mail (acceptably) and calendar (at all) I had to use Outlook, and that meant wasting resources running VMWare. (I also, personally, found XP more aesthetically pleasing than Mandrake 9, but that's purely subjective)
Evolution (Score:4, Informative)
Built-in Microsoft Exchange Support
Users can communicate directly with built-in WebDAV support, eliminating the need to maintain separate IMAP e-mail server access to support Linux and UNIX users.
From within Novell Evolution, users can view, edit and update e-mail, address books, calendars and task folders on the Exchange server.
Using existing global address lists, users can access names, addresses and contact information from the Exchange Global Address List.
Public folder support allows users to share documents and files in existing Exchange public folders. They can also create new public folders for collaboration.
Through the Manage Permissions feature, users can control access to personal and public folders, calendars and task lists.
With the proper authorization, users can open other users' calendars or shared folders.
The Out-of-Office Assistant helps users create custom vacation or notification messages that run on the Exchange server.
Through the Calendar Delegation feature, users can set permissions to allow others to view their calendars. Users can also delegate permission to a colleague (for example, an administrative assistant) to accept and schedule meetings in their calendars.
Direct resource booking reserves resources such as conference rooms or vehicles for your meetings and appointments.
The new mailbox- and folder-size features display Exchange server quota notifications to keep mailbox sizes down.
Taken from http://www.novell.com/products/desktop/features/e
As for question 1 & 2 I'm not quite sure, but a colleague uses it, and it looks like he accesses his mail without trouble (And accepts meeting requests, Accesses public folder, etc.).
Parent
Re:Evolution (Score:3, Informative)
It seems to work fine as long as I'm continually using it, but if I leave it alone for a while (say, at night) Evolution seems to forget what to do. It stops keeping my folders up-to-date and I have to switch to a different folder then back to my Inbox to get an accurate view.
I have not figured out how to access my public folders. I can see them but I can't do anything with them.
I don't unde
Evolution (Score:2)
Deleting a message takes you to the next message, it doesn't close the window.
This doesn't make any sense to me, and there is no option to fix it. The developers seem to think this is the correct behaviour.
Does anyone know of an equivalent mail program that solves that problem?
No information - what I would like to see is (Score:4, Insightful)
Can I connect to POP3 / IMAP / Exchange / Notes servers? If not, come back when I can. Integration with calendar requests from MS Exchange and Lotus Notes? I think that is very necessary.
This sort of eyecandy is very nice to look at, but utterly useless.
Re:No information - what I would like to see is (Score:2, Flamebait)
Actually, the only thing that's useless is your comment. You know full well that third party software cannot reliably connect with Exchange servers, and you also know full well that the reason is that Microsoft keeps them proprietary and non-interoperable.
Fortunately, increasingly, that doesn't matter because Microsoft's outdated, insecure, and proprietary protocols are being replaced by open standards.
So, why don't you crawl back into
Re:No information - what I would like to see is (Score:3, Informative)
Care to provide some evidence of this?
How about http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=288283 [microsoft.com]
Quote: "Offline files (.ost) are limited to approximately 2GB in size. The is the same limitation as a personal folders (.pst) file. "
Re:No information - what I would like to see is (Score:3, Insightful)
It always makes me wonder just how many people here actually have experience working at a corporate level when this attitude prevails. I bet
We need some sort of Godwin's law for this (Score:3, Insightful)
Evolution is for janitors (Score:2)
Possibly "with other janitors" (the user is a janitor), or at most managing them.
Re:Evolution is for janitors (Score:2)
A janitor and his blonde girlfriend. A janitor's badge. Evolution gives a janitor all he really needs.
Nitty Gritty! (Score:2, Insightful)
No the screenshots show some dude with one email account and one contact.
Even if this is to be just a UI comparison, there isn't much here to compare, really is there?
Given it (as advertised) only scratches the surface, and from the surface they all look pretty much the same... the screenshots hardly allow for an informed decision.
I've looked into all of these in some detail, although to b
Outlook 2003 and Thunderbird (Score:4, Interesting)
I've used applications such as Evolution when I used Linux in the past but in reality it felt to me just like a cheap clone of Outlook with fewer features.
Recently however, I have been using Thunderbird on one of my systems as I am loath to purchase two licenses for MS Office and I've come to like it quite a lot and for someone who isn't looking to spend any more or for whatever reason requires free (as in speech) software I think it's an ideal application. It has junk mail handling which while I haven't had to use it myself, have read it can be quite effective. My one gripe with it is that setting up rules and filtering doesn't seem to be as easy as with Outlook and the user has to enter in any filters manually - ie, I can't click a few buttons to have mail from a certain email address go into a specific folder the way I can in Outlook, or at least if you can I've not found it yet.
Evolution is rubbish (Score:5, Insightful)
Anyway, swicthing from KMail to Evolution really is taking several large steps backwards. Here's why:
a) Evolution is slow. There is a 3 second pause on my computer between clicking "New Mail" and the window appearing. This is not the case when the same machine is using KMail or Outlook.
b) There is no *simple* way of changing the date format (mm/dd/yy -> dd/mm/yy which europeans prefer). I believe it can be done via shell variables, but come on, Evo is supposed to be a proper GUI application.
c) There is no sensible simple mail notification. There is a "beep" option which is inaudible and some other useless / highly complex hacks. In Kmail you can specify whether new mail triggers a notification *per folder*, all via the GUI and without obscure shell scripts.
d) The junk mail filter is crap. I trained it on a folder of 1000 spams but still it doesn't seem to recognise half of them. And I have "external check" enabled. KMail uses external spam filters in a transparent way.
e) Spell checking: almost all modern spell-checking applications offer suggestions in a context menu when opened over a misspelt word. In Evo you have to open an extra window.
f) New Junk is not marked as unread. This would be nice so that you know what junk you've checked for false positives and which you haven't.
g) Sending a mail twice takes a whole load of inelegant cutting and pasting. See KMail for the elegant solution.
i) There is no way to automatically fetch mail immediately after startup. See KMail and Outlook.
j) You HAVE to specify a mail server in the Evo startup wizard. There is no way of getting around this. Very annoying.
k) The calenders feature is not too hot either. I only ever use the whole-month-view and when I scroll through the months it takes ages. Outlook was 10 times more responsive. And the default colour scheme means that looking for today's date is a real eye strainer.
These are just my views on evolution. I had always heard that it was such an excellent PIM suite and am dissapointed that it simply doesn't live up to the hype.
Re:Evolution is rubbish (Score:3, Informative)
"There is a 3 second pause on my computer between clicking "New Mail" and the window appearing."
Yes, the first time you click the new button, there can be a small pause. However, it is near instantaneous with every subsequent click.
"There is no *simple* way of changing the date format (mm/dd/yy -> dd/mm/yy which europeans prefer)"
I have it dd/mm/yy as default
Nitpicking (Score:3, Interesting)
On the surface, the screenshots look identical. But, being an Outlook user for over 5 years now, I can tell you a few things that appear to be missing from those competitors that are reasons I love Outlook.
1) I don't see Notes or Journal options in Evo.
2) I see no evidence that Evo or Kontact let you group your folder items by from/date/sender/subject/etc.
3) Can you automatically format items based on rules? What if I want emails from my boss to show up in red?
4) Is there a rules manager so I can also automatically do things with incoming emails? Delete them, send a reply, file in a folder, etc?
5) I don't see that you can just straight to a contact from anywhere in the program by typing their partial name in the toolbar.
6) I'm sure Kontact has HTML email editing, I just don't see the toolbar buttons.
7) Contacts don't appear to let you add your own fields (corporate users love this!). Nor do I see a gigantic Notes field or support for Journaling.
8) I cannot tell if, in Calendar, you can configure the times to display multiple time zones when you are travelling.
9) It does not look like you can assign colorful labels to your Calendar events. This feature is priceless!
10) Do the other programs let you view multiple Calendars (like that of another user) side-by-side?
11) Can you schedule appointments with other users at all? If you can, I don't see the field to do it, and I certainly don't see how you can see their schedule.
12) The implementation of Recurrening Appointments on Evo would drive business people insane.
13) It doesn't look like Evo has enough fields to support a proper ToDo list. I don't even see a Due Date field.
14) Can you assign Tasks to other users? Get progress reports?
15) None of the screenshots demonstrate how configurable either program is. Sure, you can edit the source, but I'm talking about the Average User. Outlook is right-click customizable like crazy.
Maybe these things are not missing, but I couldn't see them from the screenshots.
Further, the screenshots only show the things that are nearly identical in all three versions. That is pretty low. There isn't even any sample data to show how things like Contacts are formatted in the Contact View. It's as if the author knew of the shortcomings in those programs and didn't want to display them.
Re:Lack of Innovation (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Lack of Innovation (Score:2)
there is no problem (Score:2)
There are plenty of innovative user interfaces in open source in general, and open source mail readers in particular.
This particular article happens to focus on two open source systems that have a goal of being intuitive to Outlook users, but there are plenty of other systems.
Group A can get it's way when
Group A and Group B aren't in conflict. They both get their way whenever they want. Each group develops what they think is important and users ch
Re:Lack of Innovation (Score:3, Insightful)
Get out and look around, what you see might surprise you, but then don't start bitching that it doesn't have the interface you're used to.
In the meantime what the majority of users want is a Linux mirror of what they're already used to, not innovation.
Innovation itself is highly overated anyway. What you really want is what works, tweak it only when real improvement results and otherwise leave it the bloody hell alone, but you can't keep a reve
Re:Lack of Innovation (Score:4, Insightful)
iCal is another good example, even if it doesn't seem it. It's simple enough for anyone to pick up and understand in minutes, and is compatible enough to work with the open source programs out there that do the same thing. Plus it gives you a lot of room and leeway to do what you want to do with it, such as RSS-like calendar feeds, which was all defined in the standard it was written to project.
Calendaring and email systems in my opinion are the worst programs out there in interface, which is why I stay with separate, very down to earth solutions for both. If a calendaring program could do good group management, automatically set up my contact groups based on who emails me, build social nets, etc etc, I'd switch to it in a heart beat. But these carbon clones of Outlook aren't helping me as a software consumer, which means there is virtually no incentive for me to switch to Open Source.
God forbid anyone thing that Open Source authors learn something about design instead of functionality. That's the difference between Software Engineers and Code Monkeys.
Parent
Re:Lack of Innovation (Score:2, Interesting)
Gmail responds faster over my net connection than Thunderbird does and the UI is near perfect. and i am NEVER going to be happy without groups again. theyre a thin
you're kidding, right? (Score:2)
You're confused about the role of a software engineers; they don't know anything about (user interface) design.
But these carbon clones of Outlook aren't helping me as a software consumer, which means there is virtually no incentive for me to switch to Open Source.
What makes you think that anybody cares whether you use open source soft
Re:Lack of Innovation (Score:3, Insightful)
A software engineer spends his or her time researching as well as implementing. For most Open Source authors, researching encompasses a Google search coming up blank. Now I'm not saying all of them are. There are a lot of good authors out there, creating things that I could have never dreamed up. But the problem is, these people are good engineers, and often are gulped up into companies like Microsoft
Re:I always use Outlook... (Score:3, Funny)
You're not a VBS virus writer, by any chance?