Documentation
Pine
Documentation table of contents.
Introduction
Pine is an easy-to-use, character-based mail client available on UBUnix. Pine features simple menus and context-sensitive online help. It also comes with its own easy-to-use editor, pico.
Starting Pine
To start Pine, open a UBUnix session. Type vt100 and press Return to set your terminal type. Type pine and press Return to start the email client.
Pine Conventions
Pine is not case-sensitive. As a result, you may enter commands using either upper or lowercase letters.
When you are prompted for a response such as yes or no, the default response is displayed in brackets (i.e., [y]). In such a case, pressing the Return or Enter key returns the default response.
Several options require you to type a two-character sequence comprised of the Ctrl key followed by a letter. Ctrl is represented on the screen by ^, so ^X would require you to press Ctrl and X at the same time.
The Main Menu
When you enter Pine, you are prompted for your login name and password. You should enter your UBITName and Password in response to these prompts. After a successful login, the Pine Main Menu will appear at the center of the screen. Commands from this menu can be executed by entering the corresponding command letter in the left column, or by moving the highlight bar to the desired line and pressing Return or Enter. In most cases, you can return to the Main Menu from other screens by entering M.
Folders
Pine provides the ability to organize individual mail messages into folders. The default folder, INBOX, is the folder in which new incoming mail is placed. In addition, Pine creates two other folders by default: sent-mail and saved-messages. You can also create your own folders for saving mail.
To display your folders, type L (FOLDER LIST) from the Main Menu. From here, you can select a folder collection and view its messages. The Central Mail Server collection contains your server-based mail folders, while the News on news.buffalo.edu/nntp contains your selected newsgroups. For more information on newsgroups, see the CIT document Newsgroup Reading with UNIX Pine.
You may highlight either collection and press Return or Enter to view the folders contained within.
Sub-Folders
The Central Email System provides the ability to create folders and sub-folders
(folders within folders). Within a folder you may have messages and additional
sub-folders, creating a folder hierarchy. To represent this folder hierarchy,
Pine lists each folder in a collection twice: once as the folder name, and
a second time as the folder name followed by a . (a period). To read messages
within a folder, view the folder name that does not contain the trailing
"dot." To see a list of sub-folders within a folder, highlight
the folder name containing the trailing "dot" and press Return
or Enter. For example, assume you have the
following mail folder hierarchy in your Central Mail Server folder collection:
If you want to read messages in the class_notes sub-folder:
- Open the Central Mail Server folder collection via the Main Menu option Folder List.
- Select and view the my_messages. folder (note the "dot").
- Select and view the class_notes folder (the folder name without the trailing "dot").
If you want to read messages in the english sub-folder:
- Open the Central Mail Server folder collection via the Folder List Main Menu option.
- Select and view the my_messages. folder (note the "dot").
- Select and view the class_notes. folder (note the "dot").
- Select and view the english folder (the folder name without the trailing "dot").
Reading Mail
Type I (FOLDER INDEX) from the Main Menu to view the list of messages within the current folder. Move the cursor up/down until it points to a desired piece of mail, or type J to jump to a specific mail message number. New mail has an N flag in the first column. Type v or press Return or Enter to read the current message, D to delete the current piece of mail, or M to return to the Main Menu. Other options appear on the Help Bar at the bottom of the screen.
Saving Mail Messages
When you select the S (SAVE) option while reading a message, you will be prompted for the name of the folder to which to save the message. Alternately, you can type Return or Enter to save it to the default saved-messages folder. If the folder name you supply does not exist, you will be prompted to create it.
To save a mail message to a file rather than to a folder, type E to export the message to your directory, then enter a filename.
Sending Mail
To send mail, type C (COMPOSE MESSAGE) from the Main Menu. Notice that the screen shows all fields in the mail header. You must fill the To: field with one or more valid email addresses. The other fields can be filled in or omitted (you may wish to return later to edit any of the fields before you send the message). The Subject: field should be filled as a matter of courtesy to the recipient. Cc: (Carbon Copy) is useful for sending duplicate mail to individuals other than the primary recipient. Attchmnt: specifies a file to be attached to the sent message. An attached file is not displayed in your message. As you move through the header, the Help Bar at the bottom of the page changes. Select the RichHdr option (Ctrl R) to see an extended set of header options.
Once you enter the Message Text section, Pine invokes the pico editor by default. The full set of pico commands can be listed by pressing Ctrl G. pico is also available from the UBUnix command line for use as a stand-alone text editor. For more information on pico, see the CIT document pico.
Press Ctrl T to check the spelling in your message. The spell checker examines all words in the text and offers each misspelled word for correction while simultaneously highlighting it in the text. To leave a potentially misspelled word unchanged, press Return or Enter at the edit prompt. If a word is corrected, each occurrence of that word is offered for replacement.
To send the message, press Ctrl X followed by Y, and press Return or Enter at the subsequent prompt to verify your intentions. Messages that you send are automatically filed in the folder Sent-Mail. You should periodically remove old messages to manage your mail server disk space usage.
Sending Files
As mentioned previously, you can attach a file to an email message using the Attchmnt: option in the mail header. You may also insert the contents of a file into your message while you are composing your mail message. Inserting a file is accomplished by pressing Ctrl R at the point at which you want to insert the file.
Indirection of a file to Pine, that is, using the < character to redirect output, does not work at the Unix prompt as it does with other email programs.
Printing from Pine
You can print messages from inside Pine. Typing O (other options) will cause the print command to be displayed at the bottom of the screen. The default printer for print is in Bell 101. If you want to specify a different printer, enter S (SETUP) at the Main Menu, followed by P for printer. Notice that the default option has been set to lpr on systems running UNIX. To change the default, you may select one of the pre-configured options under the Standard UNIX print command selection, or you may add your own under the Personally selected print command section.
Address Book
An address book provides an easy mechanism for storing frequently used email addresses associated with a nickname, and a real first name. Select A (ADDRESS BOOK) from the Main Menu to display the list of address books available to you. The .addressbook entry is your personal address book. The UB Online Directory is the campus-wide "white directory." Within Pine this "white directory" is available only for searching. To add an entry to your personal address book (.addressbook), open it from the address book list, then press @ at the address book screen. A template with five files is displayed. You need only to complete the nickname and the email address fields. Press Ctrl X to save the entry.
While you are reading mail from a folder, you can type the option T to take the addresses from the current mail message and save them to your address book. You will be prompted for the address book information at this point.
Exiting Pine
To exit pine, type q (Quit) at the Main Menu and press Enter or Return.
Additional Information
Additional information on Pine is available by typing:
man pine