Pine

VU Math: Intro to Our Computer Systems
Email in our department
by Eric Schechter

A Brief Introduction to PINE
(with newsgroups mentioned in the last paragraph at the bottom)

For most members of our department, I don't recommend that you read mail on Atlas at all. Instead, get your email forwarded to your VUmail account, and read it with Thunderbird. At least, that's what I do.

However, if you really want to read email on Atlas, I recommend using Pine. Old-timers and unix fanatics may prefer to use plain old Berkeley "mail", because it can be command-driven from shell scripts; but for anyone else it is simply too arcane. Moreover, I believe that plain old Berkeley "mail" has difficulty with some kinds of attachments, which have become a basic part of modern email.

At the time of this document's latest update (August 2005), our computer has Version 4.44 of Pine. (Most of the instructions written below are several years old, and were written for an older version of Pine. Let me know if you find anything that needs updating for newer versions of Pine.)

Pine (Program for Internet News and Email) was developed at the University of Washington. It is text-based, so it will run even on old and slow computers and over slow internet connections. It is menu-driven, so it is easy to learn to use. It works well for receiving and sending mail. It has many convenient options and features. Unlike the older "mail" program (Berkeley Mail), Pine can handle all kinds of attachments, both in receiving and sending mail -- Pine can't display the attachment contents, but can save or load such files conveniently.

To start the program, type "pine" at the Unix prompt. That will yield a screen display something like this:

  PINE 4.30   MAIN MENU              Folder: INBOX  2 Messages

     ?   HELP            -  Get help using Pine
     C   COMPOSE MESSAGE -  Compose and send/post a message
     I   FOLDER INDEX    -  View messages in current folder
     L   FOLDER LIST     -  Select a folder OR news group to view
     A   ADDRESS BOOK    -  Update address book
     S   SETUP           -  Configure or update Pine
     Q   QUIT            -  Exit the Pine program

   Copyright 1989-2000.  PINE is a trademark 
   of the University of Washington.

? Help                         P PrevCmd             R RelNotes
O OTHER CMDS   L [ListFldrs]   N NextCmd             K KBLock

The commands at the bottom of the page are available at any time. Additional available commands can be displayed by typing "O" (for "other commands"). However, if you happen to remember the one-keystroke abbreviation for one of those other commands, you don't have to type "O" first; they're already available even when they're not displayed. When you get into one of the submenus during your use of Pine, remember that you can get back to the main menu with the "M" command.

More information about Pine is available through the help screens inside Pine. The "?" command on the Main Menu will give you lots of basic information, but remember that every Pine screen also has its own separate Help text. If you prefer to get your documentation through Netscape, you can read about Pine at the University of Washington's Pine Information Center, but perhaps Nancy McGough's brief introduction to Pine is more readable. There is also a newsgroup, at comp.mail.pine.

If you have mail waiting for you, the first thing you'll probably want to do after starting Pine is to type "I", to get to the folder index. This will display one-line summaries of all the messages that are waiting for you. Here is a typical display:

  PINE 4.30   FOLDER INDEX                   Folder: INBOX  Message 1 of 2 NEW

  N   1 Jun 28 To: schectex@athen    (782) Sample message
  N   2 Jun 28 To: schectex@artem    (569) another sample message


? Help       M Main Menu  P PrevMsg     - PrevPage    D Delete      R Reply
O OTHER CMDS V [ViewMsg]  N NextMsg   Spc NextPage    U Undelete    F Forward

The up- or down- arrow key will move the highlight up or down the page. Pressing ENTER will read the message that is currently highlighted. You can deal with the messages one by one -- read, save, delete, whatever.

From Pine's main menu, you can type "A" to get to Pine's addressbook. This subsystem will keep track of email addresses for you. It also permits you to assign each person a "nickname" -- i.e., a short name that is easy to remember and to type. When you're in the addressbook, you can type "A" to add a new person to your list; you'll be prompted for appropriate information. Or, you can highlight someone who is already in your addressbook and then type "C" (for "compose-to") to send an email to that person. ... Best of all, you can add someone to your address book very easily when you're reading an email message you've received from that person. Just type "T" (for "take address"), when you're reading the message or when you're displaying your list of messages. Pine will extract the email address and prompt you for other relevant information; you won't have to retype the email address.

When you're composing a message and the cursor is in any header field, you can enter addressees automatically in this fashion: Press control-T, and you'll be taken to your address book. Scroll through it until you find the address you want. Press RETURN and you'll be taken back to your message with the addressee entered. To enter several addressees at once, use the "list mode" when you're in the address book. If there are several (or many) addressees that you frequently write to in one mass mailing list, you can create a "distribution list" as a single entry in the addressbook.

When you use Pine, it creates a subdirectory called "mail" under your main directory. Within that directory are further subdirectories, called "inbox" and "sent-mail." If you save a message from inside Pine, it will be saved as a file in the "mail" directory; you'll be prompted for the filename. You can create more subdirectories within the "mail" directory, and store messages on different subjects in appropriate subdirectories. If you save a message to a filename that already exists, Pine will append the message to that file, so you can organize several messages in one file. You can also use unix commands (such as "mkdir", "mv", "rm") to make subdirectories, move message files, rename message files, delete (remove) message files, etc. (but don't do that while Pine is running, or it will get confused).

After you start using Pine, you'll want to change some of the configuration options. At the initial screen, press "S" for setup; then "C" for configure; then press the space bar or downarrow until you see some of the items you want to change or want to learn about. The configuration options are not self-explanatory, but each one has its own Help text, accessible by pressing "?" after you've highlighted the option or feature of interest. ... When you've made all the changes you want to make, press "E" to exit from configuration. Here are some things you might want to change:

The built-in editor, "Pico", is not bad, but you may already be maccustomed to some other unix editor such as Emacs or Vi. To change which editor Pine uses, you'll have to change your configuration in two places. First, activate the feature called enable-alternate-editor-implicitly. Second, for the variable editor = type in the unix command for your favorite editor -- e.g., type in "emacs" or "vi".
In the "Advanced Command Preferences" section of the configuration list, there are a couple of very powerful commands that it took me a while to discover:
- enable-aggregate-command-set -- When you turn this on, it enables you to select many messages at one time, to perform a single operation on all of them simultaneously.
- enable-bounce-cmd -- If you turn this on, then "bounce" will be one of the commands that you can apply to a message (or to a collection of messages, if you've enabled aggregate command). "Bounce" (in Pine or in any email program that offers bounce) is a sort of "resend" command -- you can send the message(s) to any recipient you choose. But, unlike forwarding, bouncing will not put your email address in the "From" field of the message. It will preserve the "From" field, just the way it was when you received the message. The message will look as though it had originally been sent to the new address -- except that the header will also indicate that it passed through your hands. Bounce is a good thing to use if you want to redirect some misaddressed mail; it is also useful if you want to transfer some messages from one of your own email addresses to another.

I mentioned this a few paragraphs ago, but it's subtle and important, so I'll mention it again: Pine can handle non-text documents as attachments.

To send such a document, first store the file somewhere in your unix directories. Then go into Pine's "compose message" mode, and move the cursor down to the heading line that says "Attchmnt:". Press control-T to get to your list of files. Scroll up or down one line at a time with the arrow keys, or one screenful at a time with the space bar or minus (-) key. To go to a subdirectory, press ENTER when the subdirectory you want is highlighted. To go to a parent (higher) directory, press ENTER when the ".." is highlighted at the top of the list.
On the other hand, if you receive an email with a non-text attachment, Pine will prompt you with instructions that enable you to save that attachment as a file in one of your unix directories. After you've saved the file, you can view it with an appropriate other program.

Pine can't be used to create the non-text documents, nor to view them when you receive them; you'll have to use other programs for that. If you're viewing Pine remotely -- i.e., through a Telnet connection from a personal computer -- then you may want to move the non-text documents between your unix directory and your personal computer, since your personal computer may have more convenient tools for creating or viewing the non-text documents. You can use any ftp ("file transfer protocol") program to move documents between personal comuter and unix computer. Some Telnet programs and some web browsers have an ftp capability built in, or you can use a separate ftp program.

In November 1998 our department's computers were upgraded to Pine version 4.05. Among other features, this version has the ability to read HTML files in email, and automatically launch a text-based web browser. The first time you try to use it, though, it will say that you haven't yet selected a web browser (or more precisely, an "url-viewer"). You should type in "/l/bin/lynx" (without the quote marks); that url-viewer will properly display the text content of web pages. If you're not familiar with text-based browsing, here is an introduction to Lynx. (-: Sorry, still no pictures on text terminals. :-)

Here is one way that you can make this feature even more useful: Use lynx's "O" (options) command, to move your lynx bookmarks file into your WWW subdirectory. Then you can access that file easily from other programs such as Netscape. You can even put a Netscape bookmark pointing at your lynx bookmarks file. Now, whenever you're reading an email message that involves an URL, you can bookmark the URL (using lynx's "A" command) and thus have the URL readily available next time you start up Netscape.

NEWSGROUPS. Many newsgroups nowadays accessible through web page interfaces. However, if you prefer to go through the old-fashioned Usenet interface, that can be accomplished using Pine. Start up Pine, then press L to go to the folder List; use the down-arrow to go to "News on news.vanderbilt.edu/nntp"; press Enter to select that choice. Press "A" and you'll be prompted to give the name of the newsgroup you want to add, or a partial name for a list. If you don't know at all what you're looking for, you can press control-T for a list of all available newsgroups, but the list is very long. Before looking at such a list, you may want to look at the hierarchy and some descriptions of newsgroups, available at http://www.ibiblio.org/usenet-i/hier-s/top.html. Another good starting place apparently is Abacon's Conversation page.

A VU Math web page, updated 15 Aug 2005 by webmaster@math.vanderbilt.edu.