Pine

How do I get started using Pine to access my email?
Where can I find more information on Pine?
How do I set up Pine to use SSL at U-M?
How do I manage my IMAP and AFS Folders in Pine?
How can I change the order in which my Pine folder collections are listed?
How do I change the From: field in Pine?
What does the Invalid Remote Specification error mean?
How do I get rid of so many pine prompts?
How do I change the default editor in Pine?
How can I mark messages as unread in Pine?

How do I get started using Pine to access my email?

Pine is an easy-to-use, yet powerful, email reader. Its user-definable environment, menu-driven interfaces, instant new-mail notification, and one-touch commands make Pine simple yet very functional. Although experienced mail users may not find Pine to be as welcoming as other email programs, it is still a very versatile and well-organized program.

You can launch Pine by typing pine at any CAEN Linux (%) prompt. Each major function in Pine has its own screen and menu of options, which are selected by pressing the letter indicated by the command list at the bottom of the terminal window. Commands prefaced with a carat (^), require that you press and hold the Control key while typing the letter indicated. Pine employs the Pico text editor, which can be used independently of Pine by typing pico at the prompt.

The Main Menu

Most of the Main Menu options correspond to the primary functions for which Pine was written: mail composition and transmission (Compose and Address Book), and mail reception and presentation (Folder Index and List).

The Help screen and the Main Menu can be accessed from all menus except when editing the body of a message. The Main Menu functions are as follows:

HELP - Display information on the program’s background, along with concise information on its basic and configurable features, as well as solutions to possible problems. This feature is context sensitive.
COMPOSE MESSAGE - Draft, send, or postpone a message. This includes MIME functionality and word wrap, and is employed by the Reply and Forward commands.
MESSAGE INDEX - Access saved incoming or outgoing messages.
FOLDER LIST - Access all the mail folders created within Pine.
ADDRESS BOOK - Access or edit a personal database of email addresses.
SETUP - Change Pine’s internal settings, including printing, .signature files, filters and other features.
QUIT - Expunge deleted messages from mail folders and quit Pine.

The default folders in Pine are the following. They are all under your Mail folder collection:

INBOX - Location where incoming messages are stored.
sent-mail - Location where copies of sent messages are stored.
saved-messages - Location where copies of saved messages are stored. Type s to save, after selecting the message.

If you choose to save messages from the INBOX, Pine will create a default folder called saved-messages to store them. If you wish to save them to a different folder, simply type the name of the folder in which you want to save them.

There is not a Deleted-Items folder. To delete a message, select it and then type d. It will not be deleted immediately. However, when you exit pine, you will be asked if you would like to expunge all of the items you marked for deletion. If you choose to expunge a message, it is gone.

Composing Messages

When you enter the Message Editor, you will be presented with several fields in which you may designate your intended recipients, carbon copies, attachments, etc.

To: Enter the address manually or choose one from your address book.
Cc: Enter any additional addresses that you would like the email sent to.
Attachment: Message attachments are encoded in MIME (Multimedia Internet Mail Extensions) format and multiple attachments may be appended to a single message. List the file names and paths of the files to be attached.
Subject: Type the subject of the email.

If you choose the Rich Hdr command (by pressing ^r and having enable-full-header-cmd checked in the Setup Configuration) other additional choices will appear. These include:

Bcc: (Blind carbon copy)
Newsgrps:
Fcc:(A mail folder)
Lcc:

Other options are available as well, such as:

Spell checking
Word search
Left justification
Reading in text from a file
Cut and paste functions

Marking text to be cut or deleted can be done by positioning the cursor over the first letter in the area to be selected, pressing Ctrl-Shift-6, and using the arrow keys to extend the selection, which will appear highlighted. Next, simply apply whatever option you desire to the highlighted text; there is no need to mark the end of the selection.

After you have finished editing the header and message body, you can issue the Send command to send the message. If you have a file, called .signature, in your home directory, it will be appended automatically to your message. Note that prior to being sent, you may postpone a message indefinitely. Until you cancel or send the postponed message, you will be asked if you want to continue the message when Pine launches.

Message Inbox and Storage

Aside from providing access to all mail and newsgroup folders in your mail subdirectory, the Folder List function performs simple actions, including the addition, deletion, renaming of mail folders, searching for particular folders, and printing folder lists. All new mail will be placed in a folder, called INBOX. Your INBOX and other folders reside on the ITCS mail server (mail.umich.edu).

The Message Index function will generate a brief description, or index, of each message in the currently opened folder (which you may choose from the Folder List (to access from main menu type L); the default is your Inbox), allowing you to view, move, delete, export, print, expunge, forward, and reply. Index also has a Sort Index function allowing messages to be sorted by subject, time of arrival, sender, size (in bytes), and date of arrival. Each message has a flag: a plus sign (+) indicates that you were the direct recipient of that message; N denotes new messages; A represents messages you’ve answered; and D denotes deleted, but not expunged messages.

To sort:

Type s (Setup)
Type c (Config)
Scroll down using the arrow key until you reach the field sort-key
Scroll through the sort options until you find the way you would like to sort.
Press Enter, which will place an * by the sort option.
Then type e (exit) and y to save changes.

Using IMAP Directories

IMAP clients, like Pine, allow you to store mail folders on any IMAP-enabled mail server, such as mail.umich.edu. Because IMAP clients maintain a constant connection to the server while you are reading email, and do not move email from the server (until requested), this can be a very useful feature if you use multiple computers to read email.

By default, Pine stores your folders (i.e. sent-mail, saved-messages, etc.) as IMAP folders on mail.umich.edu. However, it is also possible for you to use a local folder collection in your AFS home directory, in a directory called mail, for example:

/afs/umich.edu/user/l1/l2/uniqname/mail/

where l1 and l2 are the first and second letters of your uniqname respectively. You are able to store mail in AFS by moving messages from IMAP Folders to AFS Folders, and vice versa. Not only does this help you keep mail organized, it improves the performance of your email by keeping your inbox size small.

Moving Existing Folders

As described above, it may sometimes be useful to move folders from IMAP to AFS, or vice versa, to manage your storage space. Before beginning to move existing folders, make sure the enable-aggregate-command-set is enabled. To do this:

Go to the Main Menu
Type s (Setup)
Type c (Config)
Scroll down to enable-aggregate-command-set and enable it by pressing return
Type e to exit the Config screen
Save your changes
Restart Pine

To Move the Folders:

Go to the folder containing the messages you want to move by using the Folder List command.
While in the folder, type a semicolon (;)
Type a (Select All)
Type a (Apply)
Type s (Save)
Type ^n to choose the folder collection to which you wish to save the messages.
Enter the folder name where you wish the messages to be stored.

Filters

To avoid receiving many junk messages, filtering them using pine is a great way to automate the process, rather than performing this manually for each message. Each filter performs one action on messages within specified folders. To set up filters:

Type s (Setup)
Type r (Rules). This will give you four choices: filters, roles, scores, and cancel. Type f (Filters).
Type a to add a new filter.
The options presented on the next screen are where you set up the specifics of the filter. To change any of the values, scroll to them using the arrow keys, and then type c (Change). Once changed, hit Enter to save the changes.
- Nickname simply refers to the name you wish to call your filter. If you plan on creating more than a couple of filters, naming them descriptively will aid in easily maintaining them.
- The fields beginning with To pattern through Subject pattern all search the header of the message.
- Recip pattern (recipient) will search the To: and Cc: fields, while Partic pattern (participant) will search the From:, To: and Cc: fields.
- AllText pattern will search the entire header and body of the message.

Once these fields have been filled out, you must now select where you would like to apply the filter. The choices are Any, which will search any mailbox or newsgroup; News, which will just filter the newsgroups; Email, which will filter mailboxes, and Specific, where you may specify just the folders you would like the filter to apply to. Please note that you may just pick one choice. Scroll to which you would like, and then type Enter.
Next, you can further narrow the filter by selecting to add filtering by importance, whether the message is new, deleted or answered. The suggested setting for all of these is “Don’t care, always matches.”
Now decide what you would like to do with the messages that are filtered. You may have them deleted immediately, or moved to a folder so you can review them. It is suggested that at the beginning, you move them to a special folder and scan them to make sure that the filter you set up is working properly. If not, you will have saved all the all the messages, and you will be able to make changes to the filter without losing any messages. If the folder you wish to move them to is not created, do not worry. Pine will create it for you.
Type E (Exit) and save the changes. You now have a working filter!

Note: All of the filter fields work together. That is, in order for a message to be filtered, it must match all of the criteria that you specified. If it only matches one out of four, it will not be filtered. If you wish to broaden your filter, specify less fields, leaving them as “No Value Set.”

Searching

Pine will let you search folders for specific messages as well as messages for specific words. If you would like to search entire folders or numerous folders for messages, you have two options. You may filter, or search. To filter, please follow the directions above, however change the criteria to be whatever you are searching on. Also, select to search from specified folders. This will permit you to search through multiple folders, an option that simple searching does not provide.

Navigate to the folder in which you would like to search.
Type s (Setup), then c (Config).
Scroll down to the Advanced Command Preferences.
Scroll to enable-aggregate-command-set and if there is not an X by it, type Enter.
Type e (Exit) the setup, and then y to save the changes.
Type ;
You are then given the option to sort by message number, date, text, status, to select the current message, or select all messages.
- If sorting by number, type n, and enter a range of message numbers separated by commas.
- If sorting by date, type d, enter the date the message was sent.
- If sorting by text, type t, select which part of the message you would like to search, (i.e. the sender field, or all of the message) Pine will offer you all of the following selections:

Sort by - Type

Subject - S

From - F

To - T

All of text - A

CC - C

Recipient - R

Participant - P

Not - !

Type in the matching text, and hit Enter.
Pine will place an X by each message selected.
Now, whatever commands you issue will be issued to all email selected, instead of just one.

Searching Messages

If you would like to search for words within in a message, or search and replace, follow these instructions:

If you are composing a message and want to search for a word,
In the window of the message you are composing, type ^w, (Whereis).
Then, type in the word you would like to search for, and hit Enter. Pine will automatically place the cursor at the beginning of the word if it finds a match.
If you are composing a message and want to search for and replace a word,
Type s (Setup), then c (Config).
Scroll down until the Composer Preferences Section.
Scroll until you reach enable-search-and-replace. If there is not an X by it, type Enter to select it.
Scroll down to the Advanced Command Preferences
Scroll to ‘enable-aggregate-command-set’ and if there is not an X by it, type Enter.
Type e (Exit) the Setup, and then y to save the changes.
In the window of the message you are composing, type ^w (Where is).
Type ^r (Replace)
Type in the word you would like to search for, and hit Enter.
If found, Pine will prompt you for the word you wish to replace it with.
Type the replacement word, and then, if you wish to only replace one, hit Enter. If you wish to replace all instances of the word, type ^x.
Pine will ask you if you wish to replace every instance, and hit Enter. It will then prompt you for verification of every replacement. Currently, we are not aware of a way to avoid all the prompts.

Address Book

Pine’s address book allows you to enter email addresses, full names, and short nicknames for each entry, and to create distribution lists. When composing a message, if you press ^t while in the To: or CC: fields you will be able to select an entry from your address book. This command lets you copy the information from the currently highlighted address book entry into a field (To: or Cc:) in the message. Another way to get an address from your address book is to enter the nickname you assigned to it. After moving to the next field, the email address should appear in the To: field.

Using LDAP as an Address Book

LDAP stands for Lightweight Directory Access Protocol, and is the backbone of the U-M Online Directory (http://directory.umich.edu). You can use this directory to search for people and add them to your address book. To do this in Pine, follow these steps:

Open Pine and type m (MAIN MENU)
Type s (Setup)
Type d (Directory)
Type a (Add Dir)
The first value you will be asked for is the ldap-server. Type c for [Change Val] and enter ldap.itd.umich.edu.
The next value to add is search-base. This should be set to:

ou=People,dc=umich,dc=edu

Note: Do not put any spaces in the above line.

Scroll to the bottom of the ADD A DIRECTORY SERVER window. Edit the custom-search-filter field with the following value; this will search last name and U-M uniqname fields for matches:

(|(sn=%s)(uid=%s))

Refer to the following picture:

Type e to Exit Setup, and y to Save Changes. Now, you can use the U-M Online Directory to search for people, as follows.
Type c to compose a new message in Pine.
While your cursor is in the To: line, type Ctrl-t.
You will now be presented with two options: One for your Personal AddressBook, which is stored in your AFS home directory, and one for the U-M Online Directory. Highlight the U-M Online Directory entry and press Enter:

Enter the string to search for (uniqname or last name) and press Enter again. If the search returns the person you are looking for, simply highlight that entry and press Enter. Their name and email address will now appear as a recipient of your message.

Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions (MIME)

MIME is a method of encoding sound, pictures, movies and other binary material so that it can be sent in RFC822 (Internet standard) mail messages. This encoding includes Base64, a method for encoding binary data in ASCII characters; Printable Encoding, which allows you to send messages that contain foreign characters such as ç; and a method of identifying and organizing each part of a message.

You can send MIME messages without worrying if the recipient will receive the message intact and decodable. However, the intended recipient must have a MIME-capable mail program to view any non-textual data sent in the message. Mail clients that are not MIME-capable will actually show the encoded data, which will look like garbled text. Pine is fully capable of sending and receiving MIME messages.

In addition to plain text, Pine is also capable of transferring non-ASCII parts as MIME attachments. MIME allows users to attach these components to their mail messages so that the recipient(s) can save and view them if they are also using a MIME-capable mail program. Attachments will be appended to the message as soon as it is sent.

To add an attachment to a message, go to the Attachment: line in the header and enter its path and file name; or, press ^t to select from a list of files in your home directory. Once you have selected a file, you can compose the rest of the message and send it.

To view an attachment, Pine uses the .mailcap file to determine what should be done with it. You may use a text editor, such as Pico, to customize its entries. When you receive a message with an attachment, Pine will display any text that was sent in the body of the message, and will then fill in the rest of the body with a listing of attachments. If Pine is unable to handle the attachment, this will be indicated as well.

To view an attachment, press >, which will take you to the Attachment Index. If Pine is unable to handle an attachment, highlight the attachment and then type s, to save it to your AFS home directory. You can then SCP this file to the computer you are using for viewing.

Reading Messages in Different Character Sets

While the default character set in Pine is US-ASCII, Pine supports many different ones. When you receive mail composed using a character set other than US-ASCII, Pine will generate a warning, stating the character set with which character set the message was composed. Pine will then display as much of the message as it can.

To change character sets:

Go to the Main Menu
Type s (Setup)
Type c (Config)
Scroll down until you get to the character-set-option and press Enter
Scroll down to Enable-8bit-esmtp-negotiation, and press Enter
Exit the Config screen
Save the changes
Quit and restart Pine

Using a different character set should not interfere with your normal use of Pine, since US-ASCII is a subset of most character sets.

For More Information

Pine help files provide useful information about simple and more involved tasks, and is context-sensitive. For more information, refer to the manual page by typing man pine at a Linux prompt, or call the CAEN Hotline. The University of Washington maintains the official Pine web site at http://www.washington.edu/pine/, which has the most up-to-date information on Pine and has more in-depth information on Pine’s more advanced features.

Where can I find more information on Pine?

Pine was developed by the University of Washington:

http://www.washington.edu/pine/

You can find their extensive set of FAQS here:

http://www.washington.edu/pine/faq/

How do I set up Pine to use SSL at U-M?

By default, CAEN's installation of Pine uses SSL to connect to the main U-M email server, mail.umich.edu. Below are the instructions for enabling SSL with Pine for other email servers. This is useful when using PC-Pine to connect to an email server from home. Also, users of the U-M Exchange server, exchange.umich.edu, will find this useful for establishing a secure IMAP connection to their Exchange email.

Log into Pine
Type s (Setup)
Type c (Config)
Using the down arrow, scroll down until you reach inbox-path
Type c (Change value)
In the field provided, change the path so it looks like the following, where servername is the host name of your email server:
{servername/ssl}inbox
Hit the Enter key to save changes
Type e to Exit Setup, and you will be back at the Main Menu.

Note: You will see a + symbol on the top right of the screen if you are connected via SSL.

For more information on SSL, see our SSL FAQ.

How do I manage my IMAP and AFS Folders in Pine?

Introduction

By default, Pine stores your folders (i.e. sent-mail, saved-messages, etc.) to your IMAP space on the email server. You are also given a local folder collection in your AFS home directory, in a directory called mail, for example:

/afs/umich.edu/user/l1/l2/uniqname/mail/sent-mail

where l1 and l2 are the first and second letters of your uniqname respectively.

Changing the Default Folder Collection

If you wish, you can configure Pine to only use AFS Folders, just as you could configure it to only use IMAP Folders. This is not recommended. It is preferred that users use their IMAP server space as their default folder collection to take advantage of the extra space on the email server. Using IMAP Folders frees up space in AFS for your personal files, and can help prevent you from going over quota.

You can, however, change which folder collection is used as the default. This is where Pine would save your folders and list your INBOX. See the following FAQ for more information:

http://www.engin.umich.edu/caen/faqs/Email/Pine/shuffle_imap/

Adding and Removing Folder Collections

If you would like to add a folder collection (e.g. to access IMAP folders on another server), follow these steps:

Run Pine
Type s for Setup
Type L for Collection Lists
Type a for Add Collection
Enter a Nickname for your new collection (e.g. My ITCS Folders or My Exchange Folders)
Next, enter a Server. In most cases, you will need to make sure you are using SSL to connect (e.g. mail.umich.edu/ssl or exchange.umich.edu/ssl)
Type Ctrl-x to save your collection, and e to Exit

If you to remove a folder collection, follow these steps:

Run Pine
Type s for Setup
Type L for Collection Lists
Highlight the folder collection you want to remove
Type d to Delete the collection
Type e for Exit
Quit and restart Pine

Moving Messages from One Folder Collection to Another

When you view your folder list, you should see entries for your AFS Folders (in mail/), IMAP Folders, and any other folder collections that you've added. Unfortunately, there is no easy way to move your folders from one collection to another. If you would like to move folders to a different folder collection, you will first need to create and name empty folders in that collection that match the folders you'd like to move, and then transfer the messages between these folders. To move messages between folders:

Type m to go to the Main Menu
Type s for Setup
Type c for Config
Type Ctrl-w for Whereis
Type agg and press Enter. This will search for the enable-aggregate-command-set function
Type x to select it
Type e to Exit Setup and y to Save Changes
Type i to go to your INBOX message list (or go into one of your folders, so you see the list of messages)
Type ;
Type a to Select All
Type a and then s to Save the messages to a folder
When Pine asks where you would like to save the messages, type Ctrl-T to obtain the list of folders. Pine will list your current folder collection, so you will need to press the < key to return to your folder collection list. Navigate your way into the proper destination folder, and press Enter.

These steps will need to be repeated for every folder you would like to move from one collection to another.

How can I change the order in which my Pine folder collections are listed?

It is possible to change the order in which your folder collections are listed, no matter how many folder collections you may have. It is important to note that whichever folder collection is at the top of the list will be the default folder collection where Pine will save messages and list your INBOX. In the following example, the user's INBOX was listed in the IMAP Folders collection, but it is now listed in the AFS Folders collection:

Run Pine
From the main menu, type s for Setup
Type L for Collection Lists
Highlight the folder collection you want to move
Type $ for Shuffle
Select whether you would like to move the folder collection up or down

How do I change the From: field in Pine?

From Pine's [M]AIN MENU, choose [S]etup, then [C]onfig. Move down to the customized-hdrs option. Press A:Add Value. Use the format:

        From: "My Real Name"

Note: You may wish to configure default-composer-hdrs so you can easily change the From: line when composing new messages. The process is the same as adding to the customized-hdrs entry. If you use this setting, remember that you must specify all the headers you want to see; simply changing the value to From: will make From: your only visible header.

Press Return to accept the change, and E:Exit Setup.

Note: Changing the From: line may not give you the complete anonymity you desire. Savvy computer users may know to look in the message headers for the Sender: or X-Sender: lines. These may still include your entire email address (even the name of the host you were logged into).

What does the Invalid Remote Specification error mean?

If you get either of the following two errors in Pine:

 Invalid Remote Specification Inbox

    or

 Cannot connect to mail server: No such host as ""

You will need to do the following to correct this error:

From the Main Menu of Pine, type s for Setup.
Then type c for Config. This will take you to the configuration screen for Pine.
Use the arrow keys to move down to the inbox-path field.
Change this field to read:

{${MAILSERVER}/ssl}inbox

The inbox-path variable tells Pine on which server your INBOX is located, and the MAILSERVER environmental variable should automatically be set to this. If it is not automatically set and you still get the error, you will have to set this variable manually at the prompt. Type the following:

setenv MAILSERVER mail.umich.edu

How do I get rid of so many pine prompts?

If you find Pine's tendency to ask you for confirmation on certain operations annoying, you may suppress several of the prompts. Type s for Setup and c for Config from the Main Menu. Now you may choose any of the following features:

expunge-without-confirm quit-without-confirm select-without-confirm compose-sets-newsgroup-without-confirm

You may further reduce the number of prompts you see via the following features which cause Pine to assume Yes to all:

response to a corresponding prompt: include-text-in-reply <-- applies to Reply command auto-move-read-msgs <-- applies if "read-message-folder" defined auto-open-next-unread <-- applies if incoming-msg folders defined

How do I change the default editor in Pine?

From the Pine main menu:

Select s (Setup).
Then select c (Config).
Scroll down and highlight the editor field.
Type c (Change Val).
Enter the path of the editor you want use, e.g.:

For emacs: /usr/um/bin/emacs
For vi: /usr/bin/vi

To invoke the alternate editor automatically when entering text, flag the value enable-alternate-editor-implicitly. To invoke the alternate editor be invoked with ^_, flag
the value enable-alternate-editor-cmd.

How can I mark messages as unread in Pine?

First you must set the flag command option. From Pine's main menu:

Type s (Setup).
Type c (Config).
Move the cursor down to highlight the enable-flag-cmd option, and type x to enable it if it is not already.
Type e to exit the configuration screen.
Go to your INBOX (or desired folder), highlight the message you want to mark, and type * (Shift 8).
Type n to mark the message as new (you will also see several other options printed at the bottom of the screen).