Introduction to pine

Starting pine

To start pine from Gnome: Click on the Gnome Foot -> Select "DAMTP Apps" -> then Pine.

Alternatively, move the mouse pointer into an xterm or terminal window and type pine (and press the Return or Enter key).

Pine has comprehensive on-line help and a useful tutorial.

Sending mail

Press C to select COMPOSE MESSAGE in the Main Menu and fill in the lines in the mail header:

      To      :   (must be filled in)
      Cc      :   (optional)
      Attchmnt:   (not for new users -- see help for details)
      Subject :   (type a short, meaningful description)

Carbon copies of the mail are sent to the addresses listed in the Cc: field. To display two extra header fields (including Blind Carbon Copy) press ^R.

Now fill in the message text and type ^X (control X) to send the message. You can modify the header fields at any time by moving the cursor back to the top of the window.

Pine uses a text editor called pico which is like a simplified version of the (very advanced) emacs editor, and uses some control keys (but not all) in a similar way to emacs. Pico has a spelling checker (^T), it can justify (format) paragraphs (^J), and it provides a "cut and paste" facility for moving blocks of text around (see Pine help). (Note: the editor used by pine can be changed to emacs or any other editor using the pine Setup menu.)

It is possible to configure pine to use a different editor - see Pine help for details.

Reading mail

Press I to display an Index of mail messages in the current folder. Pine starts up by reading your mail in INBOX - the system mailbox, but you can use the L command to List (and select) other folders containing mail messages which you have saved previously.

To read a message position the menu selector bar using the arrow keys (or N and P) and press V (View), or just press Return. You can Reply to the message with R, or send it on to someone else with F (forward).

When you have processed the message press D to Delete it, or S to Save it in a folder (the message is then deleted). Note that deleted messages are only marked for deletion and do not actually disappear until you quit from pine. If you change your mind you can press U to Undelete a message and keep it.

Printing mail

If you want to print mail messages you will need to have told the system which printer you want to use. You do this by editing your .env_extra file.

Remove the "#" sign at the start of the line
```
	#export PRINTER=printer-name
```
and replace printer-name with the printer you would like to use.
If the setting up of your account predates April 2004, you will need to first create the file .env_extra in your home directory and then add the line
```
	export PRINTER=printer-name
```
into this file replacing printer-name with the name of the printer you have decided to use.

In both cases, the next time you log in the system will pick up your default printer.

By default pine will print out your message with two pages on a page. To change this behaviour you can specify different options.

Press S (Setup) in the Main menu followed by P. Press 3 and then enter the following command:

      a2ps --borders=no -q -B -R1 -f11 -o -  | lpr

This instructs pine to print on your default printer as defined by the PRINTER evironment setting. To specify a different printer (e.g the post printer) use

      a2ps -p -nn -ns | lpr -Ppost

a2ps converts the plain text mail message into Postscript for printing on laserjet printers, with no line numbers, no border around the page, and one page of mail per sheet of paper (see "man a2ps" for an explanation).

You need to do this only once as pine saves the printer configuration in the .pinerc configuration file.

More information about pine

Please email any suggestions, corrections, broken links, or errors to itweb [itweb@damtp.cam.ac.uk]