The Message Composer Menus

The message composition window has its own set of menus: File, which controls operations on files and data, Edit, for text editing, Format, which controls the file format of messages you send, View, to set how you view the message, and Insert, which holds tools for embedding files and other items in messages. Here's what's in them:

The Message Composer's File Menu

Open

Open a text file or a draft mail message.

Save

Save a mail message as a text file.

Save As

Choose a file name and location for a message you want to save as a text file.

Save in Folder

Save a message as a draft, rather than as a separate text file.

Insert Text File

Open a text file and insert it into the current message. (FIXME: belongs under "Insert").

Send Now

Sends the message immediately.

Send Later

Queue

Close

Closes the message composer. If you have not done so, Evolution will ask you if you want to save your message.

The Message Composer's Edit Menu

The Edit menu in the message composer contains the following items. Keyboard shortcuts are listed next to the items in the menus themselves.

Undo

Undoes the last action you performed.

Redo

If you change your mind about Undoing something, you can always use this item.

Cut

Removes the selected text from the text entry window and retains it in the system "clipboard" memory, ready for pasting.

Copy

Copies selected text to the system clipboard without deleting it. The text can then be inserted elsewhere with the Paste command.

Paste

Inserts the contents of the system clipboard at the location of the cursor.

Find

Enter a phrase and find your match in your message body. As with Find Regex, Find Again, and Replace, Evolution will offer you the option to search forwards or backwards.

Find Regex

If you are familiar with regular expressions, often called "regexes," you can search for something more complicated, using wildcards and boolean logic.

Find Again

Repeats your last search.

Replace

Enter a word or phrase and the word or phrase with which you'd like to replace it.

Properties

This item brings up the Message Composer Properties Capplet, a portion of the GNOME Control Center that determines the key bindings for the message composer. Help for this capplet is available directly from the Control Center. (FIXME: Write that help doc too) (FIXME: this is in the wrong place!)

The Message Composer's Format Menu

The Format menu has only one item:

HTML

Toggles HTML mode for the message composer. When selected, the message is displayed and sent in HTML. If you have written a message in HTML and turn HTML off, most formatting will be lost. Evolution will attempt to preserve spacing and to remove formatting gracefully, however.

The Message Composer's View Menu

The View menu controls the way messages are displayed, and how much of the message, its headers, and attachments appear. It contains:

Show Attachments

Toggles the display of attachments. When this item is selected, Evolution will create a separate pane of the composition window to show what attachments you are appending to the message.

The Message Composer's Insert Menu

The Insert menu holds tools that allow you to include images, horizontal rules, and other objects in the body of your message. The tools are:

Image

This tool will prompt you to select an image file to insert into your HTML message. For text messages, this is the same as attaching an image file.

Link

Opens the link creation window, which lets you specify the URL and text description for a link in your message. This only works with HTML messages.

Rule

Opens the horizontal rule creation dialog, which lets you create an HTML horizontal rule. For more information, see the section called Embellish your email with HTML in the chapter called Evolution Mail. This tool only works with HTML messages.

Text File

Open a text file and insert it into the current message. This tool works with both plain text and HTML messages.