Ubuntu
evolution package

evolution face plugin

Asked by bobloblian

I noted since my upgrade from 12.04 to 14.04 when using evolution that faces/avatars/images started showing up from some mailing list senders in the header summary. I did some investigating which led me to the face plugin, which as I understand implements the face/xface header.

As per https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/evolution/+question/26770 I constructed my image but when I send myself a message, the face doesn't appear. So I messed with it for a few hours, and I can verify that the header is being sent in the mail, but the image does not seem to render.

I started poking at the mails that do have a face, and I note that there is no "face:" or "xface:" header in those mails, so I turned the face plugin off and restarted evolution. But the faces still show up in the header summary even with it turned off.

So now I am not sure what those faces are, they are not coming from my contacts and they don't seem to be embedded in the headers, and the face plugin seems to be not responsible for displaying the faces and not sending them properly either. I can find no comments on the plugin since 2010 - ubuntu related or otherwise.

can someone enlighten me with regard to this feature??

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bobloblian
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actionparsnip (andrew-woodhead666) said : 		#1

Was Precise working ok for you without issue?

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bobloblian (bob-computerisms) said : 		#2

yes.

that is to say I never noticed the faces before and that I never knew the feature existed, so I could not say that it was broken.

I am led to believe this feature was just recently (re)added in 13.10, which was a version of ubuntu I skipped over:

http://www.ubuntuupdates.org/package/gnome_3/saucy/main/base/evolution-plugins

However, as per my observations, disabling this plugin does not disable the display, only the sending of the header (as far as I can tell).

I really just want to know more about it as my investigation has led to more questions than answers. ie; is it really the xface header I am seeing from other senders? If so why do I not find the header when I view all, and if not what is it? Does the face header work for other people and I am just failing at the directions I found, or are those directions no longer relevant? things like that...

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actionparsnip (andrew-woodhead666) said : 		#3

Then why did you upgrade? Precise is LTS and supported til April 2017. Why did you fix something that wasn't broken?

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bobloblian (bob-computerisms) said : 		#4

umm... because I can??

to be clear, nothing is "broken". my mail is working just fine.

I am simply asking about a new feature I observed - I just want to know what it is and how it is supposed to work...

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bobloblian (bob-computerisms) said : 		#5

For the benefit of anyone else casting about with this question;

it seems evolution added a gravatar module, and this image is a result of that:

https://mail.gnome.org/archives/commits-list/2013-April/msg08136.html

not finding much info about it, but at least that seems to explain what it is...

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bobloblian (bob-computerisms) said : 		#7

bah, sorry, replied to the wrong mail...