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Pine is an electronic mail program available on most central system (UNIX) computers at UMD. Pine is particularly easy for new electronic mail users due to its careful selection of features, one-character mnemonic commands, always-present command menu s, immediate user feedback, and high tolerance for user mistakes. For the most part, Pine can be learned by exploration rather than reading manuals. Much of the content of this document was taken directly from Pine's on-line help screens which are availab le by just entering the help command listed at the bottom of all Pine screens.
Pine Features
€Mail index showing a message summary which includes the
status, sender, size, date and subject of messages.
€View and process mail with the following commands: forward,
reply, save, export, print, delete, capture address and search.
€Address book for saving long complex addresses and personal
distribution lists under a nickname.
€Multiple folders and folder management screen for filing
messages.
€Message composer with easy-to-use editor and spelling checker.
The message composer also assists entering and formatting addresses
and provides direct access to the address book.
€Online help specific to each screen and context.
€Support for multipart mail conforming to emerging MIME
(RFC-1341) Internet standard. This allows attachments to mail
messages such as graphics (GIF, TIFF...), sounds, and other files
such as spread sheets and binary files.
Pico, Pine's easy-to-use editor
For editing electronic mail messages Pine incorporates an easy to
use text editor called Pico. Pico has many useful features,
including text justification, spell checking, and inserting text
files. A stand-alone version of Pico is also availabl e and can be
used for editing text at any % prompt. elm users can
also use the Pico editor by changing the editor in their elm
options screen to pico -t (most new accounts already have
elm set to use the pico edit or by default).
Pine vs. elm
Although UMD Information Services supports both elm and Pine for
electronic mail, we are encouraging people to use Pine. Advantages of
Pine include an editor (Pico) that is easier to use than vi
but that still has needed features than elm's def ault elmed
editor lacks; the ability to better deal with mail folders that elm
may have problems with; better ability to work with and view your
personal addressbook (elm aliases); file management features
including being able to rename, cop y, and delete files on your
account; and the ability to print to laser and dot-matrix printers
directly attached to IBM-compatibles (non-networked printers). One
disadvantage of Pine is that people who use Macintosh and Windows
communications programs can not scroll back in their windows to
select message text that has scrolled off the screen for copying or
printing. Since Pine, like elm, makes use of your regular mail spool
file (your inbox) you can easily switch back and forth between
using elm an d Pine.
.c.The Pine Main Menu
To start Pine, you must log in to your computer account, and then choose EMAIL from the main umenu screen or type pine at any % prompt.
The Pine Main Menu screen will look like this:
? Help: Displays information about these options. Help is available from all mail screens. Help will provide information for the particular screen you are on when you choose Help.
C Compose: Compose a message and send it. You will be prompted for the address, etc., and you may use your address book to select the recipient. You can send mail to an individual address or to a group of addresses.
I Folder Index: Display a one-line summary of each message in the current folder, including the sender and the subject of the message. This is the command to use to begin reading your mail. From the Folder Index you will be able to view and act on individual messages as well as compose and send new messages. If you run Pine from within umenu you will immediately see the Folder Index screen (next page) instead of the Main Menu screen. Note: if you do not use umenu you can have Pine go immediately to the Folder Index by using the command pine -i at the % prompt.
L Folder List: Go to, add, delete, and rename mail folders. All messages are kept in folders. All incoming messages appear in a special folder called inbox. Pine knows how to find the INBOX file for your account even though thi s file is not actually stored in your personal file area.
A Address: Maintain your address book. You can add, delete, and change entries in your address book. This is your personal address book where you can include convenient nicknames that refer to more complex electronic addresses or groups of a ddresses.
S Setup: Allows you to change a number of options include your account password and your current printer settings (see Printing your mail for more information on printing).
Q Quit: Quit Pine. When you do this, all messages marked for deletion in the current mailbox will be deleted.
.c.The Folder Index screen
The folder index displays the summary information of each message
in the current folder. This is useful if you want to quickly scan new
messages, or find a particular message without having to go through
the text of each message. If the list is too long t o fit on one
screen, you can page up and down in the list with the -
(minus) and Status The first column shows the status of the message. It
may be blank, or it may contain a D if the message is marked
for deletion, or it may contain an N if the message is new
(unread) and the text has never been looked at.
Number Messages in a folder are numbered, from one through
the number of messages in the folder, to help you know where you are
in the folder.
Date Sent The date the message was sent. Note that by
default, messages are ordered by the time they arrived, not by date
sent. (The Sort command can be used to change the order that messages
are presented.)
Sender The name of the person that sent the mail. This may
show the address of the sender rather than the full name. If you are
the sender of the message, such as when you Cc: yourself on a
message, rather than showing your name it will show the na me of the
recipient of the message.
Size The number in parentheses is the number of characters
in the message.
Subject As much of the message's Subject line as will fit
on the screen. If you want to be brought directly to the Mail Index screen when
you start Pine, use the command pine -i at any %
prompt. ? Get Help: Display help text for commands available from
the Index.
O Other: Change the menu of commands at the bottom of the
screen to the list of other commands, such as Export message,
Take Address, and Print. Give this command again to get back to the
original list of commands. All Mail Index commands ca n be used while
in the Mail Index, regardless of which subset of commands are
currently being displayed on the menu.
M Main Menu: Go back to the Main Menu.
V View Message: Display the text of the current message.
Once displayed, you can display other messages, go directly back to
the index, or go to the Main Menu. You may also press P Prev Msg: Move the cursor up to the previous message. If
the cursor is at the top of the page, the previous page of the mail
index will be displayed. You can also move to the previous message
with the N Next Msg: Move the cursor down to the next message. If
the cursor is at the bottom of the page, the next page of the mail
index will be displayed. You can also move to the previous message
with the - Prev Page: Show the previous page of the message index.
SPC Next Page: Show the next page of the message index by
pressing the D Delete: Mark the current message for deletion. A D
will appear on the Index line, but the message will not be deleted
until you give the eXpunge command, or exit Pine and confirm
that you want to delete all marked messages, or chang e folders and
confirm that you want to delete them. Until then, any marked message
may be undeleted using the Undelete command. When you delete a
message you will automatically be moved to the next message.
U Undelete: Remove the D mark for deletion. The
message will then not be deleted when you exit Pine or expunge the
folder.
R Reply: Reply to the current message. This command will
put you in the message composer with the To:, Cc:, and Subject: lines
filled in. If the original message was sent to more than one person
you will be asked if you want to reply to all recipie nts. If you say
no, your reply will go to only the originator of the message. If you
say yes, it will go to everyone listed in the To: field, as well as
the Cc: field. You will also be asked if you want to include the
original message. If you say no, the message text will be blank. If
you say yes, the original message will be put in the message body
when you go into the composer. You can then edit or delete parts of
it and combine it with your reply.
F Forward: Forward the current message to someone else.
This command will put you in the message composer where you can
address the message. You may also edit the text of the message.
.c.Other Commands for Mail Index L List Folders: Go to the Folder List screen. W Where is: Search the message headers as they are
displayed for a string of letters, and move to that message if it is
found. This is useful in large folders to get to a particular message
quickly. T Take Addr: Take the return address from the current
message and put it in your address book. This command saves you from
retyping complicated addresses. You will be asked for a nickname
(also called an alias) for the person/address being s aved.
You will have a chance to edit the full name and address. Use the
arrow and delete keys to edit the address, pressing S Save: Save the current message in a folder different from
your inbox. You will be prompted for the folder name. The
default name Pine displays for you is the user name of the person who
sent the message to you. Just press return to save it in that folder
(or create a folder with that name if it doesn't already exist). You
may also type the name of a folder of your choice or you may press
^T ( If you type in the name of a folder that does not already exist,
you will be asked if you want to create it. By default, Pine will
save this folder in the Mail subdirectory of your account
(indicated by ~/ in front of the file name). This is the di rectory
Pine displays when you have it display a list of your mail folders.
Also see the Export command below.
E Export: Copy the current message to a file in your home
directory. You'll be prompted for the file name. If the file already
exists you can add the message to the end of the file. You may use
any UNIX file system path name. $ Sort Index: This command controls the order in which
messages will be presented. The choices are: Subject, Arrival time,
From, Date, Message size, or Reverse arrival time (newest first). The
default is by arrival time (oldest first). Date means t he date/time
a message was sent, as opposed to arrival time. Sorting by Subject is
handy for grouping threads (messages related to the same
conversation) together.
J Jump: Jump to a specific message number. You will be
asked for the number of the message to jump to. The cursor will move
to that message number, going to a different page of the index if
necessary. This is a fast way to move around in a large fo lder.
Tab Next New: Selects the next new message (skipping any
messages that you may have already read).
The upper right corner of the message text screen displays status
information about the folder that is currently open and about the
current message. It shows the name of the folder, the number of
messages in it, the number of the current message and the p ercentage
of the current message that has been displayed on the screen. If the
message is marked for deletion DEL will appear in the upper
right as well.
.c.Commands for viewing your mail O Other: Change the menu of commands at the bottom of the
screen to the list of other commands, such as Export message,
Take Address, and Print. Give this command again to get back to the
original list of commands. All commands can be used w hile in the
message text screen, regardless of which subset of commands are
currently being displayed on the menu.
M Main Menu : Go back to the Main Menu.
V View Attachments: Allows you to view or save any attached
files. Only attached text files can be viewed on the screen with the
current version of Pine.
I Mail Index: View the index of all the messages in the
folder that is currently open. This will show the date, sender and
subject of each message. You may go to the index to select another
message and them return directly to view mail to see text of the
selected message.
P Prev Msg: Move to the previous message.
N Next Msg: Move to the next message.
- Prev Page: Show the previous page of the message text.
SPC Next Page: Show the next page of the message text by
pressing the D Delete: Mark the current message for deletion. A D
will appear on the Index line, but the message will not be deleted
until you give the eXpunge command, or exit Pine and confirm
that you want to delete all marked messages, or chang e folders and
confirm that you want to delete them. Until then, any marked message
may be undeleted using the Undelete command. When you delete a
message you will automatically be moved to the next message.
U Undelete: Remove the D mark for deletion. The
message will then not be deleted when you exit Pine or expunge the
folder.
R Reply: Reply to the current message. This command will
put you in the message composer with the To:, Cc:, and Subject: lines
filled in. If the original message was sent to more than one person
you will be asked if you want to reply to all recipie nts. If you say
no, your reply will go to only the originator of the message. If you
say yes, it will go to everyone listed in the To: field, as well as
the Cc: field. You will also be asked if you want to include the
original message. If you say no, the message text will be blank. If
you say yes, the original message will be put in the message body
when you go into the composer. You can then edit or delete parts of
it and combine it with your reply.
F Forward: Forward the current message to someone else.
This command will put you in the message composer where you can
address the message. You may also edit the text of the message.
Q Quit: Quit from the Pine program. L List Folders: Go to the Folder List screen. I Folder Index: Return to the Folder Index screen.
W Where is: Search the message headers as they are
displayed for a string of letters, and move to that message if it is
found. This is useful in large folders to get to a particular message
quickly. T Take Addr: Take the return address from the current
message and put it in your address book. This command saves you from
retyping complicated addresses. You will be asked for a nickname
(also called an alias) for the person/address being s aved.
You will have a chance to edit the full name and address. Use the
arrow and delete keys to edit the address, pressing S Save: Save the current message in a folder different from
your inbox. You will be prompted for the folder name. The
default name Pine displays for you is the user name of the person who
sent the message to you. Just press return to save it in that folder
(or create a folder with that name if it doesn't already exist). You
may also type the name of a folder of your choice or you may press
T to go into the folder screen where you can see a list of
your folders.
If you type in the name of a folder that does not already exist,
you will be asked if you want to create it. By default, Pine will
save this folder in the home (login) directory of your account
(indicated by ~/ in front of the file name). However, you wil l most
likely want to keep all your mail folders in the Mail
subdirectory on your account. This is the directory Pine displays
when you have it display a list of your mail folders. In order to
have Pine save a new folder in your Mail subdirectory y ou will need
to add ~/Mail/ to to the folder name. For example:
~/Mail/foldername. Also see the Export command below.
E Export: Copy the current message to a file in your home
directory. You'll be prompted for the file name. If the file already
exists you can add the message to the end of the file. You may use
any UNIX file system path name.
.c.Composing a message .c.Control characters .c.Header Fields Examples: Cc: The Cc: (Carbon Copy) field is just like the To: field,
except it is used for addressees that you wish to send a carbon copy
to (such as yourself). That is, the message is not directly addressed
to these recipients, but you wanted them to see t he message. The
only difference the recipients see is that their name is in the Cc:
field, rather than the To: field.
Attchmnt: This field shows the attachments or other
parts of the message you are composing.
The most common use for this field will be to attach a file to
your mail message. You can just type the file name here and if the
file is found and accessible it will be attached. You will
know it is attached when the size of the file is shown. You can also
add a description of the file between double-quote marks after the
file name. You can remove and edit attachments to your messages by
editing the items in this field. If you delete the line, the file
will not be included in your message. When yo u attach a file, it
will not actually be shown in your message, but the recipient will be
able to view and save the attachment(s).
Typing the file name here achieves the same result as using the
^J (Attach) command.
If someone sends you a message which contains attached files, you
may forward that message along with its attachments if you like. When
you do this the attachments (called parts) will show up in the
Attchmts field too, but they will be in sq uare brackets [ ].
These attachments can be images, files, other messages, sounds and
even video. The type will be shown. You can remove these attachments
if you like by deleting the line from the Attchmts field. This
is often something you might w ant to do because messages with
attachments can become very large.
MIME is a new standard for sending multipart and multimedia
e-mail. It is not widely used yet, but its use is growing and Pine is
one of the first mailers to have MIME capabilities. You can send
messages with attachments to other users that have MIME base d
mailers, not necessarily Pine and they will be able to read them. If
you send a message with an attachment to people that don't have a
MIME based mailer, they will be able to read the text of your message
and, if the file is plain text, see the attached file as part of the
your message. It may be difficult for them to extract the attached
file if the file was a binary file. There are two additional header fields that are normally not
shown. These are Bcc: (Blind Carbon Copy) and Fcc:
(File Carbon Copy). You can display these additional fields by using
the ^R (Rich Header) command while your cursor is in
the message header.
Bcc: Blind Carbon Copy is just the same as the To: and Cc:
fields in the way the addresses are entered. The recipients listed
here will receive a copy of the message, but there will be nothing in
the message header the that indicates a Bcc: was sen t. The To: and
Cc: recipients will not know a copy was sent to the Bcc: recipients.
As in the To: field you may type a full name and address, just a
local address, the nickname of someone in your address book, or a
local mail alias defined by your system administrator. When you move
the cursor out of the Bcc: field, the nicknames will be expanded to
the addresses in your address book, and the local names will be
expanded to include the actual user name. The To: field may be
several lines long, and have many addresses in it separated by
commas. You can move around the Bcc: field and/or th e header with
the arrow keys.
Fcc: File Carbon Copy specifies a folder name in which to
save a copy of the message for future reference. You may change this
to any folder you like, and may type ^T to get a list all your
folders. This is referred to as File Carbon Copy be cause electronic
mail folders are basically files.
.c.Editing the message body Delete key/Backspace key Erase character and move back one
character (also ^D).
^G Help: Display this help screen.
^X Send: Finish composing this message and send it off to
the addressees.
^C Cancel: Stop sending this message. Anything you have
composed is lost. You have a chance to confirm cancellation.
^J Justify (when cursor is in body of message): Reformat
the text in the paragraph the cursor is on. A paragraph is separated
by one blank line. This is useful when you have been editing a
paragraph and the lines become uneven. The text is left ali gned or
justified and the right is ragged. If the text is already justified
as typed with autowrap no justification will be done. ^R Read File (when cursor is in body of message): This will
allow you to copy in text from an existing file. You will be prompted
for the name of a file to be inserted into the message. The file name
is relative to your home directory or may begin with / if it
is to be an absolute path name. The file will be inserted where the
cursor is located. Note that files on PC and Macs must be first
transferred to the system Pine is running on before they can be
read. ^W Where is: Search the message for a word or part of a
word. Only the message part of your mail is searched, and the cursor
is put on the first occurrence appearing after the location of the
cursor. The search will wrap to the beginning of the mes sage when it
no longer finds matches in the remainder of the message. To search
for the same string a second time, press ^W to begin search
and then just press ^Y Prev Page: Go back one page in the message text.
^V Next Page: Go forward one page in the message text.
^K Cut Text: Delete the entire line the cursor is currently
on. The last batch of lines that were deleted one after another is
saved so they can be undeleted elsewhere. You can also "mark" a
series of lines by pressing ^6 and then using the up or down
arrow keys to extend the selection. Pressing ^K once will
delete the the entire marked selection.
^U UnCut Line: Undelete the last line or series of lines
you deleted. To delete a series of lines and "undelete" them in
another part of your message, be sure to delete all of the lines at
the same time. Using the Del Line and Undel Line commands i s a
convenient way to move text to a new location in your message. ^T To Spell (when cursor is in body of message): Check the
spelling in the message you are composing. You will be prompted at
the bottom of the screen with each misspelled word. You can correct
the word, then press return to actually change it in t he text. If
the word is not misspelled or is a name or such, don't change it and
just press return to continue the spell check. If a word is
misspelled more than once, then you will be prompted to confirm the
correction of each occurrence of it. Lines beg inning with
> (included mail messages) will not be checked. Other cursor positioning keys .c.Control keys not used by Pine Note: even though Pine does not use ^S or ^Q (sometimes known as
XOFF and XON), the system you are using may intercept those
characters. If you accidentally hit a ^S and your keyboard
mysteriously freezes up, try typing a ^Q and see if that puts things
ri ght.
.c.Working with your electronic mail file folders You may leave all your messages in inbox, but if you want
to save them for a long time your inbox folder will eventually
get too large to manage. Therefore, you may want save messages in
other folders. You may create as many other folders as you wish.
Usually they are given short one-word names that indicate the subject
of their contents. Just as you can save message from your
inbox to another folder, you can also move messages from one
folder to another by opening the folder that con tains the message
and then saving the message(s) into another folder.
The Folder List screen displays the names of all of your folders
and allows you to create, rename, and delete folders. To open a
folder from the main menu, use the L command to go into the
Folder List screen, move the cursor to the folder you want to open,
and use the V (View Folder) command. You can also press
From the Folder Index or when displaying a mail message you can
open another folder with the G command. You will be prompted
for the name of the folder to open. At the prompt you can give the
command ^T to display your Folder List.
.c.Folder List Commands O Other Commands: Display other commands such as Quit,
Compose, Go to Folder, Current Index screen, Where Is, and Print. All
commands can be used regardless of which subset of commands are
currently being displayed on the menu.
M Main Menu: Go back to the Main Menu.
V View Folder: Open up the folder the cursor is on in the
Folder Index screen so mail messages in it can be read, deleted,
answered, etc. When you do this, the folder that is currently open
will be closed, and mail in it marked for deletion can be expunged.
P Previous Folder: Selects the next folder (same as N Next Folder: Selects the next folder (same as left arrow
key). SPC Next Page: Scroll forward one page in the list of
folders.
D Delete: Remove a folder and all the messages in it. Once
deleted, the folder and all its messages cannot be recovered. If you
delete the folder that is currently open the folder will be closed,
then deleted and the inbox folder will be reo pened.
A Add: Create a new empty folder. This is not absolutely
necessary, because you may create a new folder by saving a message to
it.
R Rename: Change the name of a folder. You will be asked
for the new name.
G Go to Fldr: Open a folder by typing the name of the
folder. This is similar to V above but it prompts for the name
rather than opening the one the cursor is on. This is useful opening
folders that are not displayed because they are in othe r
directories. In order to open a folder not located in your
Mail subdirectory you will need to add ~/ to to the
file name. For example: ~/filename.
Y PrYnt: Print the list of folders on paper. You can select
the printer or the print command via the Setup command on the
Main menu.
W Where Is: Search for a folder of a particular name. You
will be prompted for the name of folder to search for. The name you
give does not have to be complete and the capitalization of the
letters in the name does not affect the search. (This feat ure is
most useful for very large lists of folders.)
.c.Using your Address Book Pine's distribution lists allow you to have one nickname that
refers to a list of addresses to send mail to. Each distribution list
has a nickname, a full name and a list of addresses. The addresses
may be actual addresses or they may be other nicknames i n your
address book. They may even refer to other distribution lists. The
command to create a distribution list is S and the command to
add entries to an existing list is Z. Use D to delete
entries, placing the cursor on the address i f an address is to be
deleted, or on the the nickname or full name of the list to delete
the whole list.
The distribution lists in Pine are private distribution lists as
is the rest of your Address Book and can't be shared among several
users.
Address Book Commands O Other Commands: Display other commands such as Quit,
Compose To, List Folders, Go to Folder, Index, Where Is, and Print.
All commands can be used regardless of which subset of commands are
currently being displayed on the menu.
M Main Menu: Go back to the Main Menu.
E Edit: Edit the name, nickname or address the cursor is
currently on. You will be prompted with the existing text to edit at
the bottom of the screen.
P Previous Field: Selects the previous field in the Address
Book lists (same as P Next Field: Selects the next field in the Address Book
lists (same as - Prev Page: Scroll back one page in the address book.
SPC Next Page: Use the D Delete: Delete an entry from the address book. You will
be asked to confirm the deletion since once deleted it can't be
brought back. To delete a single address from a distribution list put
the cursor on it and give this command. To delete a whol e list put
the cursor on the nickname or full name of the list and give this
command.
A Add: Add an entry to the address book. You will be
prompted for the full name, nickname, and the address. Use T
mentioned above to add an entry to a distribution list.
S Create List: Creates a new distribution list so you can
use one nickname for many addresses. First you'll be prompted for the
nickname for the entire list, then a description of the entire list,
and then for the addresses to add to the list. When you've added all
the addresses to the list that you want, enter a blank address by
just pressing Z Add To List: Use this to add a name to an already created
distribution list. Move the cursor to anywhere on the distribution
list you want to make the addition to before giving this command.
When you give this command you will be prompted for the address to
add. The address can be a nickname from your address book, or even
another distribution list in your address book.
C Compose To: Begin composing a message addressed to the
selected Address Book entry. I Index: Return to the Folder Index screen.
W Where is: Search the address book for a word or part of a
word. All parts of the address book entry are searched, and the
cursor is put on the first occurrence that is found.
Y PrYnt: Print your address book on paper. % elm2pine
Before you can print your mail for the first time you will need to
setup your Pine printing options. You can do this by using the
S command to choose the Setup functions from the Main
Menu and then press P to choose the printer options You can
set your printer to one of three selection:
1. attached-to-ansi Use this when you want to print to a
printer directly connected to an IBM PC-compatible, X-terminal, etc.
How well this works will depend on the emulation software you are
running. For example NCSA telnet, Kermit, WinQVT, WRQ Re flection and
VersaTerm Pro are known to work. NCSA telnet requires capfile =
PRN in the config.tel and does not work on the Mac. This kind of
printing works by sending a standard ANSI escape sequence that causes
output to be redirected from the scr een to the printer. A
corresponding escape is used when the printing is complete to reset
the output to the screen. If you've invoked this accidentally and the
printout spilled out all over your screen you can type ^L to
refresh your screen. The re ason this varies from one terminal
emulator to another is because this feature is not always implemented
properly.
2. Standard UNIX print command This prints the file using
the enscript command to the default printer for your account.
You will need to set a default printer in order to use this option.
The easiest way to set the default printer for your a ccount is to
use the umenu UNIX menu system.
3. Personally selected print command You may also select
your own print command independent of the usual system print command.
What you are printing will just be piped into the command in the
usual UNIX style. If you want to send your print output to a network
laser printer different than the default printer on your account you
could specify enscript -Pprintername here, or to not print a
banner page for each mail message you could specify enscript -h
-Pprintername, or just enscript -h to print without a
banner to your default printer. You can also have the print output
written to a file by having it set to something like Once you have specified how you want Pine to print your
mail you can print any message by using the Y command in the
Folder Index or Message Text screens.
1. Create a file in your login directory containing the
information you would like to appear in your signature. You can call
this file anything, but we recommend you use the filename "signature"
so you'll remember what the file is when you see it listed. You could
use the Pico editor to create the file. Entering the command 4. Add the name of your signature file ("signature") after
the signature-file= line. If you would prefer included text to be above your new text and
signature lines, add the word "yes" after the old-style-reply=
line.
Pine sorts your mail with the most recently received mail at the
bottom of the index list. When you switch to the mail index
Pine will select (highlight) the oldest of your new messages.
.c.Mail Index commands
These commands can be given any time even if the other
menu is not displayed.
Q Quit: Quit from the Pine program.
C Compose: Compose and send a message.
G Go to Folder : Close the current folder and open another one.
You can type the name of the folder to open, or you can press
T to see a list of your folders and then select one. Pine
looks for these folders in the Mail subdirectory of y our
account.
Y PrYnt: Print the current message on paper. You can select the
printer or the print command via the Setup command on the Main
menu.
X eXpunge: Remove all messages marked for deletion in the
currently open folder. This lets you "shorten up" your index list
without having to quit Pine and run it again. Once the messages are
expunged they cannot be recovered.
.c.Viewing your mail
? Get Help: Display help text for commands available from
View.
.c.Other Commands for view your messages
These commands can be given any time even if the other
menu is not displayed.
C Compose: Compose and send a message.
G Go to Folder : Close the current folder and open another one.
You can type the name of the folder to open, or you can press
T to see a list of your folders and then select one. Pine
looks for these folders in the Mail subdirectory of y our
account.
Y PrYnt: Print the current message on paper. You can select the
printer or the print command via the Setup command on the Main
menu.
To compose and send a message to someone, press c. You will
then see the following screen;
The Pine Message Composer, options available when cursor is in
body of message.
The composer is the only part of Pine where control
characters need to be used. Control characters are formed by
holding the
.c.Message elements.
Each message has a header and a body. The message
header includes destination addresses and the subject line; the body
of the message contains the essential text (or attachment) being
sent. Some composer commands are the same for both se ctions of the
message, but not all. You will see the menu at the bottom of the
screen change as the cursor moves from the message header into the
body or back. Basic cursor positioning and text editing keys are not
shown on the command menu. With the exce ption of page up/down, which
is not used in the header, all of these basic functions work while in
either the message header or message body.
To: Type in the electronic addresses you want to send mail to.
You may type a full name and address, just the local address, the
nickname of someone in your address book, or a local mail alias
defined by your system administrator. When you move the cu rsor out
of the To: field, the nicknames will be expanded to the addresses in
your address book, and the local names will be expanded to include
the addressee's full name. The To: field may be several lines long,
and have many addresses in it separated by commas. You can
move around the To: field and/or the header with the arrow keys.
Full address: banderso@ub.d.umn.edu
local address: banderso
address book nickname: bob (expands to
banderso@ub.d.umn.edu)
local (system-wide) alias: advisory-committee
Subject: This is simply a few words summarizing the message
that will show up in listings of the header when the recipient gets
the message. You can type any text here you like. It's nice to make
it as specific as possible; for example, if you're s ending a message
to pine-bugs, a subject of "bug in pine" doesn't help
the recipient sort out their mail.
Arrow keys Move the cursor around.
Attach (when cursor is in header): Allows you to type in the
name of a file you want to attach to the message (see the description
of the Attchmt: field on page 9).
Rich Header (when cursor is in body of message): Displays
additional header fields (see previous section).
^O Postpone: Temporarily stop working on the current message so
you may read other messages or compose another message. You can then
resume working on the postponed message by going back in to compose.
You will be asked if you want to continue the pos tponed message.
Only one message can be postponed at a time. When you are ready to
resume entering your message, choose Compose. At that point you will
be prompted with the question Continue work in progress?.
Choose yes and your existing message w ill appear. Choose no, and you
will be given a blank screen to compose a new message. You may resume
composing the previously postponed message later.
To Addressbook (when cursor is in To: or Cc: header
fields): Displays your Address Book (see Using your Address
Book).
To Files (when cursor is in Attchmnt: header fields):
Displays a listing of your files.
^A Beginning of line
^E End of line
^@ Next word (or Ctl-
^S Not used (Unix stop output)
^Q Not used (Unix resume output)
^] Not used (often Telnet escape)
^\\ Not used (often Unix abort)
ESC Not used (except by arrow keys)
Folders are places where messages are kept. Every message has to be
in a folder. Every folder has a name. When Pine starts up you are
automatically reading a folder called inbox, into which all
your new mail is delivered. inbox is Pine's nam e for your
regular system mail spool file, which is not actually located in your
account directories.
? Get Help: Display this screen of help text.
- Prev Page: Scroll back one page in the list of folders.
The Address Book helps you keep a list of addresses you send mail to
so you don't have to remember long or complex email addresses. Each
entry in the address book has three parts. The nickname is
short, usually less than eight letters, and easy to remember. You
type this nickname in as you are addressing a message in the composer
and Pine will then look up the email address in the Address Book. The
name is a longer field where you can put the full name of the
person and other information to clearly identify the address. Usually
the full names are put in last name first so they sort nicely in
alphabetical order. The third part is the address itself. The
Address Book is sorted alphabetically on the full name with
distribution lists sort ed to the end of the display.
The Pine Address Book screen.
? Help: Display this screen of help text.
L List Folders: Go to the Folder List screen.
G Go to Folder : Close the current folder and open another one.
You can type the name of the folder to open, or you can press
T to see a list of your folders and then select one. Pine
looks for these folders in the Mail subdirectory of y our
account.
Converting your elm aliases into a Pine addressbook
If you have used the elm electronic mail program you may
have used aliases, which are very similar to the entries in
your Pine address book.You can convert your elm alias file
into a Pine addressbook by entering the following comm and at any %
prompt.
cat >> filename.
Using a signature file
Pine, like elm and other mail programs, can automatically includes a
signature file in every message you send out. Your signature
file might include your name, email address, phone number, title,
etc. To have Pine include a signature file follow th ese steps:
pico signature
would create a file called signature and open it in the
Pico editor.
2. Enter the text of your signature and use the ^X (
3. Edit your ".pinerc" file so that it contains the location of your
signature file. To do this with the Pico editor you would enter the
command
pico .pinerc
(make sure to enter the period at the front of the ,pinerc
filename).
Towards the bottom of the file you will see the following lines:
# signature-file specifies the name or path of a file containing text
that
# will automatically be inserted in outgoing mail.
signature-file=
signature-file=signature
5. By default, Pine will put any text you have included from a
message you are forwarding or replying to at the bottom of your
message and places your cursor and signature at the top. Towards the
bottom of the .pinerc file you will see the followin g
lines:
# Use old style forward/reply with new text and signature below
included text
# Old-style-reply is obsolete, use signature-at-bottom in
feature-list
old-style-reply=
old-style-reply=yes
6. Use the ^X (
Now when you run Pine and enter Pine's Message Composer you should
see the text of your signature file copied into your message
automatically.
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The University of Minnesota is an equal opportunity educator and employer.
Last modified on 04/06/00
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