External Editor plugin does not open external editor

[Dan Kortschak]

Installing evolution-plugins-experimental, which contains the external editor plugin does nothing when opening a new message (with or without the "Automatically launch when a new mail is edited" check box being set. The Gnome wiki says "If Automatically launch when a new mail is edited is not set, you need to select File ▸ Compose in External Editor in the mail composer." This File option does not exist.

As an aside, the contacts-map plugin, claimed to exist in this package does not exist at all.

~ $ dpkg -L evolution-plugins-experimental
/.
/usr
/usr/lib
/usr/lib/evolution
/usr/lib/evolution/plugins
/usr/lib/evolution/plugins/liborg-gnome-external-editor.so
/usr/lib/evolution/plugins/org-gnome-external-editor.eplug
/usr/share
/usr/share/doc
/usr/share/doc/evolution-plugins-experimental
/usr/share/doc/evolution-plugins-experimental/copyright
/usr/share/doc/evolution-plugins-experimental/changelog.Debian.gz
~ $ dpkg -s evolution-plugins-experimental
Package: evolution-plugins-experimental
Status: install ok installed
Priority: optional
Section: gnome
Installed-Size: 69
Maintainer: Ubuntu Developers <email address hidden>
Architecture: amd64
Source: evolution
Version: 3.28.5-0ubuntu0.18.04.1
Depends: libc6 (>= 2.4), libcamel-1.2-61 (>= 3.28.5), libevolution (>= 3.28.5), libevolution (<< 3.29), libglib2.0-0 (>= 2.46.0), libgtk-3-0 (>= 3.0.0), evolution (= 3.28.5-0ubuntu0.18.04.1)
Description: experimental plugins for Evolution
 Evolution is a groupware suite which integrates mail, calendar,
 address book, to-do list and memo tools.
 .
 This package includes plugins for Evolution. The plugins belong
 to the set of "experimental" plugins, which are unsupported, have
 undergone little testing, and might cause problems to the rest of
 Evolution. Use with care.
 .
 The following plugins are included.
  - external-editor
  - contacts-map
Original-Maintainer: Debian GNOME Maintainers <email address hidden>
Homepage: https://wiki.gnome.org/Apps/Evolution

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 18.04
Package: evolution-plugins-experimental 3.28.5-0ubuntu0.18.04.1
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 5.3.0-26.28~18.04.1-generic 5.3.13
Uname: Linux 5.3.0-26-generic x86_64
ApportVersion: 2.20.9-0ubuntu7.9
Architecture: amd64
CurrentDesktop: ubuntu:GNOME
Date: Tue Jan 21 07:40:34 2020
InstallationDate: Installed on 2019-05-22 (243 days ago)
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 18.04.2 LTS "Bionic Beaver" - Release amd64 (20190210)
SourcePackage: evolution
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)

[Dan Kortschak (dan-kortschak)]

The deficit here is not the action, but rather that the action is not documented in any way except in the source.

From the source there are two ways to open the editor, either by setting the "Automatically launch when a new mail is edited" option and then pressing any key in the Evolution editor, or by pressing Shift-Ctrl-E with or without that option set.