Cannot copy files from file system to Evolution folders

[David]

Binary package hint: evolution

Using:
    Ubuntu Feisty
    Evolution 2.10.1
    Nautilus 2.18.1 File Browser

It appears that folders in Evolution are valid destinations to drop the files, but they never actually get there.

[C de-Avillez (hggdh2)]

Thank you for your bug report. Can you please expand on what you are trying to do? I am unsure if you are using Nautilus to copy the files under the Evolution folder (default of ~/.evolution), or using Evolution to save files there.

[David (david-kahn)]

There exists a PDF file in /home/david that I would like to drag and drop into an Evolution folder using Ubuntu Feisty's default Nautilas file browser. The cursor changes to a plus sign to indicate that the Evolution folder is a valid location to drop the file. However, the file does not get copied into the folder. Using the same procedure to copy files between two Evolution folders works perfectly.

Thanks,

David

[C de-Avillez (hggdh2)]

Thank you. I am resetting the package to Nautilus, then.

[C de-Avillez (hggdh2)]

and I am now curious: why would you want to drag & drop a file into Evolution? Evolution will not do anything with it...

[David (david-kahn)]

Storing documents in Evolution is a habit acquired from my days as a Windows programmer where we used Exchange Server as the document management system. It provided more access control options, and since e-mails between programmers often referred to documents, it was convenient to have both in the same data store.

[C de-Avillez (hggdh2)]

ah, OK. Just please keep in mind that Evolution is not a mail *server*, but just a mail *client*. General rule, copying extraneous files into the Evolution work directory for an user is really not a good idea.

For the record, I am talking about copying any files not related to Evolution itself into ~/.evolution.

[wvengen (wvengen)]

I'd like to second this bug: dragging a file from Nautilus into the Evolution window is possible. Drag any file onto either a folder in the folder list (but not a search folder, junk or deleted items), and you see that it is accepted (a plus-sign appears on the dragged file and the folder is (kind of) selected (dotted rectangle around it).

This action only does something (ok, I didn't look in the source, so there may be exceptions) when the dragged file is an mbox. In that case, the email messages inside are copied into the folder. (This also works the other way around: dragging an email message from evolution into Nautilus creates an mbox for that message.)

When the dragged file is not an mbox, nothing happens. This is confusing: either it should not be possible to drag a not-accepted file into Evolution, or a message should be displayed that it is not a supported file type (or something like that).

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

Not a nautilus bug, you can start a dnd from nautilus which is expected, evolution should not accept it if it doesn't what to do with the file though. I've sent the bug to bugzilla, http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=465032