Note: ^ means press the control key.
You should then see the main menu:
| ? (help) | Gives you access to Pine's comprehensive online help system, which gives more information about the screen being displayed. |
| C (compose) | Lets you compose and send a message. You can send mail to an individual address or to a group of addresses, separating those addresses with commas. You can also set up an address book to store addresses (see "Address Books", below). And you can send carbon copies of your messages to others. |
| I (index folder) | Displays a one-line summary of each message in the current folder, including the sender's name and the subject of the message. From this display, you can view and manage individual messages. When you start Pine, the current folder will be INBOX. |
| L (folder list) | Lets you open, add, delete, and rename mail folders. All messages are
kept in folders. The first time you run Pine, it creates two folders:
|
| A (address) | Lets you maintain your personal address book. Use it to define convenient nicknames that refer to more complex electronic addresses or groups of addresses. This feature is particularly useful for sending E-mail to a list of people. |
| S (setup) | Displays a one-line prompt at which you can select options to define a printer, change your password, or see update messages from the developers of the Pine software. |
| Q (quit) | Leaves the Pine program, asking you to confirm that you want to purge all messages marked for deletion in the current folder. |
While at the main menu, the status bar at the top of the screen tells you how many messages are in your INBOX folder, where Pine stores all incoming mail. To read, write, print, save, forward, and reply to messages, choose I for Folder Index, and a new screen will appear.
From this index, you can write, read, and organize your mail messages. The letter N before a message indicates a new message that you have not read. D appears before a message that you have deleted. An A indicates an answered message, and a + character means that the message was sent to you as the addressee, not as a member of a mailing-list group or as a carbon-copy (CC) addressee. Finally, if nothing precedes the message number, you have read the message but have done nothing with it.
****HINT****
In total there are 25 commands you can use at the Folder Index screen. To see them, use the O command to skip through the 3 sets of commands displayed at the bottom of the screen.
But you need not choose O to call the "other" commands--if you remember the choices below. You can choose these commands at any time in the Mail Index:
Q Quit L ListFldrs Y Print S Save
C Compose G GotoFldr W WhatIs T TakeAddr E Export
X eXpunge J Jump
$ SortIndex Tab NextNew
^N Next Line ^P Previous Line
The caret character (^) means hold down the control (CTRL) key while pressing the other character.
You can save a message to a folder, in which case the current copy of it is marked for deletion. Or you can export a message to a file, in which case the current copy remains. The fundamental difference between the two types of saving is that once you save a message to a file, Pine will no longer have direct access to that file: it will be an ordinary, editable file. When saved to a folder, messages are stored together in a format that Pine can read and handle like the messages in the inbox.
To save a message to a file, type E, for Export to a file ( one of the "Other" commands ). Pine will prompt you:
File (in home directory) to save message text in:
Type a file name and press the Return key. To acknowledge your request, Pine displays the message:
[Message __ exported to file "_____"]
To save a message to a folder, highlight it and press S. When you save a message this way, Pine prompts you for a folder name:
Save to folder [saved-messages] :
^G Help ^C Cancel
RETURN Enter ^T To Fldrs
Press Return to accept the default folder named "saved-messages", or type your own title for a folder, up to 14 characters long. After pressing Return , you will see the message:
[Message __ copied to folder "_________" and marked deleted]
If you use a new folder name, perhaps by mistyping the name for one of your folders, Pine will ask you to confirm that you want to create a new folder before saving the message there.
Pine mail folders on VMS systems are stored in a special file named MAIL.MAI.
If you don't want Pine to delete your message, type u to undelete it, and Pine will display:
[Deletion mark removed, message won't be deleted]
****HINT****
If you don't remember the name of a folder you have already created, type S to get the prompt for a folder name, and then ^T to display a list of your folders. Use the arrow keys to highlight the folder you want and press Return. Pine will fill in that folder's name on the prompt line, and you can press Return again to save the message.
Here is an example of an Address Book menu:
The first time you choose A from the main menu to see your Address Book, the display will show the message:
No Address in Address Book
You can then select A to make an entry for a single name. Pine will prompt you for the information needed and display it in the format shown below.
To edit items in the Address Book, move the cursor to highlight the name or list you want to change and use the V command. Pine will display the entry near where you can edit it.
****HINT****
Pine lets you capture someone's address from E-mail that you have received. While reading the message or when the message is highlighted in the Mail Index, press T to take the address from the header and place it into your Address Book. (T is one of the "Other" commands.) Pine will prompt you to give this address a nickname and full name. Then it will update your Address Book automatically.
In
| TO: | Type the address of the receiver of your message (ie. lilly@vms.tarleton.edu)
OR type the address or the Address-Book nickname of the person you want
to receive your message, and then press Return.
Note: If you typed C from the Address Book menu, the To: line will be filled in with the address highlighted on the Address-Book menu. |
| Cc: | type the address of anyone who should receive a carbon copy of this message. |
| Attachment: | you can type the complete file name of the file you want to send along with this message. |
| Subject: | Type a few words describing the subject of your message and then press Return. |
****HINT****
If you want to have a signature file automatically placed at the bottom of all your messages, you can create and edit one using an editor--I recommend Windows Notepad. When you have created the file, tell Pine where that file is located. Use an editor to edit the pine.pinerc file (VMS) that Pine automatically creates for you. Type in the name of the file you created, at the end the line that reads:
# Name of file to read signature out of for inclusion in outgoing mail
signature-file=
An easier way to do create a signature file is to go to the $prompt.
Type: edit pine.signature; then enter the information you want placed in
your signature file. Save the file by holding down the control key and
typing Z.
^G Get Help ^C Cancel ^R Read File ^Y Prev Pg ^K Cut Text ^O Postpone
^X Send ^J Justify ^W Where is ^V Next Pg ^U UnCut Text ^T To Spell
Besides these, there are other text editing commands. To see a complete list, type ^G when "Message Text" is highlighted.
Some of the less obvious editing commands are ^R (Read File) and ^W (Where is). Use ^R to insert a prepared file into a message text. Simply press ^R and then type the name of the file you want to insert. Pine will place the text of the file in your message. ^W lets you search for a word or a phrase within the text of your message.
When you finish editing your message, send it by typing ^X. Pine will ask you to confirm that you want to send it. After you do so, it returns to the main menu.
Reply to all recipients? (y/n/^C) [n]:
The default answer when you press Return is no, but if you choose yes, your reply will be sent to anyone who received the original message. Next, Pine will ask:
Include original message in Reply? (y/n/^C) [n]:
If you choose yes, the original message is included at the top of your reply, where it can be edited as well as your new text. If you don't want the original message included, choose no and type your reply.
? Help M Main Menu P Prev Msg - Prev Page F Forward D Delete
O OTHER CMDS V View Mail N Next Msg SPACE Next Page R Reply S Save
Pine creates a new message containing the message you are reading but with the To: section empty for you to type in the new address. The subject will have the word (fwd) after it so that the receiver knows that this message has been forwarded.
The body of the new message will contain the original message, with space for you to enter an introductory note. You can also add comments intermingled with the forwarded message. To do that, move to where you want to add text and use the same commands you use to edit a message.
(Pine) Copyright 1989-1993 University of Washington
Permission to use, copy, modify, and distribute this software and its documentation for any purpose and without fee to the University of Washington is hereby granted, provided that the above copyright notice appears in all copies and that both the above copyright notice and this permission notice appear in supporting documentation, and that the name of the University of Washington not be used in advertising or publicity pertaining to distribution of the software without specific, written prior permission.