SECRETS OF PINE 3.9 How to use Pine for Reading and Posting Internet News Previous versions of Pine were capable of reading Internet newsgroups (Usenet), but the ability to post messages to these newsgroups, or subscribe to them, is new in Pine 3.9. It is possible that your system manager has configured Pine so that everyone on the system automatically has access to news. You can check this by looking for a news folder collection at the end of your FOLDER LIST screen. If it's not there, you will need to tell Pine the name of your local news server. Here are the steps for using this facility: 1. Choose the "Setup" command from the MAIN MENU. 2. Select "Config". 3. Use the down-arrow-key to select the option "nntp-server". 4. Press "A" to Add a value to this option. Type in the name of the news server for your site, then press RETURN. You will need to get this information from your local support staff. A typical news server name would be: "news.nowhere.edu". 5. Return to the MAIN MENU by pressing "E". 6. Press "Q" to quit Pine; then restart Pine. This is necessary to have the above configuration change take effect. 7. After restarting Pine, choose the FOLDER LIST screen by pressing "L". 8. Select "News-collection" (you can press SPACE to move to the news- collection, which will be the last item in the FOLDER LIST screen.) 9. Press RETURN if you see: [ Select Here to See Expanded List ]. If you have used a different newsreader previously, you probably already have a news subscription file with your favorite news groups listed. If not, you need to add some... 10. Press "A" to Add more news groups to your news subscription file. If you know the name of the group you wish to subscribe to, enter it at the prompt and press RETURN; otherwise, press the "To All Grps" key. Select the desired group and press RETURN. Repeat to add more groups. 11. Once you have newsgroups displayed in the FOLDER LIST, you may select them just like mail folders. One difference between news and (personal) mail folders: while you can mark News messages Deleted, just like with mail, you may not actually eXpunge them from the newsgroup folder. Instead, you may "eXclude" them from view, using the "X" command. In order to remain compatible with other news readers, Pine uses the same ".newsrc" news subscription file. However, this file can record very little message state information. The "Deleted" flag is the only message status flag that is preserved between sessions. When you reply to a news message, Pine will ask if you want to post the reply to the listed Newsgroups. When the current folder is a newsgroup and you enter the Composer, Pine will ask if you want to post to the current newsgroup. Even if you say "no", you may manually enter a newsgroup name, after exposing that header in the Composer by pressing Control-R. (There is also an optional feature to suppress this prompt if you'd like Pine to assume that you want to Post whenever invoking the composer while reading a newsgroup folder.) Here are some additional hints about using Pine for newsreading... * In most cases, the only thing you will need to do to enable news reading/posting is to set the "nntp-server" variable, as described above. For some configurations, such as reading news from the same machine Pine is running on, you will also need to set the "news-collections" variable. Use the context-sensitive help in the Setup/Config screen to see an example of this case. * You may specify a list of hosts for the nntp-server variable. In the absence of an explicit news-collection setting, the first nntp-server listed will be used for reading news. Any other hosts listed will be used for posting messages if the first host is unavailable. * PC-Pine users, take note! PC-Pine will normally look for your news configuration file (NEWSRC) first in your PC home directory (typically C:\NEWSRC) and if it doesn't find it there will look in the same directory where your PINERC file is. You may set the "newsrc-path" variable (PC-Pine only) to specify a different path if you prefer. This may be helpful for compatibility with other PC news readers. * If posting to news groups seems slow, especially if you are using PC-Pine over a slow dialup link, set the "news-post-without-validation" feature via the Setup/Config screen. This will suppress immediate validation of each newsgroup name appearing in a message you are about to post. * If you don't want your subscribed newsgroups to be displayed in alphabetical order, you may set the "news-read-in-newsrc-order" feature and then manually edit your newsrc file to the order you prefer. * To "catch up" in a newsgroup, that is, mark all the messages as deleted, use Pine's new aggregate operations capability (which must be explicitly enabled via the "enable-aggregate-command-set" feature). The four keystrokes ";aad" will cause all messages in the folder to be marked as deleted. These messages will not be shown the next time you enter the newsgroup, or after typing the eXclude command. * In news groups it is not possible to actually expunge messages marked as deleted. so Pine will normally suppress them from the FOLDER INDEX. However, the "& Unexclude" command --available only when viewing a news group index-- will restore them to the FOLDER INDEX display, and "X eXclude" will make them disappear again. * Remember that when you get "Empty List" for news folders in your FOLDER LIST, you need to use the "A Add" command to subscribe to the news groups of interest to you. Unfortunately, you need to do this one-at-a-time right now. * New feature in version 3.91: For those who miss having messages marked with an "N" in the Folder Index, try the "news-approximates-new-status" feature. Read the help text that goes with it, though, so you don't get surprised when some messages you've seen before show an N again... How to Use "Incoming Message" Folders It is often convenient to have incoming messages vectored into different folders, depending upon their subject (or any other criteria). This is sometimes called "Delivery Filtering". Pine has no knowledge of how mail delivery is done on any given computer, so it is not feasible for Pine to control delivery filtering. That means you must use whatever delivery filtering tools are available on your system to provide this function. Some of the programs used on Unix systems to accomplish this include: "procmail", "deliver", and "filter". Some sites also arrange for messages addressed in the form "user+folder@site" to be automatically vectored into the named folder. Once the delivery filtering arrangements have been made according to the local practice at your site --and that's the hard part-- Pine needs to be told about the additional folders you are using for incoming messages, besides your INBOX. This is done by selecting the "enable-incoming-folders" feature via the Setup/Config command. Then in the FOLDER LIST screen, you can use the "A Add" command to register the names (and optionally, nicknames) of the additional folders. In cases where these folders are on a remote mailserver other than the one holding your INBOX, you will need to know the name of that mail server as well. Once these incoming-message folders are defined, the TAB command may be used to scan the incoming message folders for Recent messages. When you are in the FOLDER INDEX or MESSAGE TEXT screen, the TAB key will take you to the next "interesting" message (e.g. one marked New); however, when there are no more such messages in your INBOX folder, TAB will check your list of incoming-message folders (if any) for Recent messages and ask you if you wish to read that folder now. If you set the "auto-open-next-unread" feature, it will automatically open the folder, so you can TAB through all of your Recent messages in each of your incoming message folders. Did You Know that... * The "Ret" shown in some key menus at the bottom of the screen refers to the RETURN or ENTER key on your keyboard, and "Spc" refers to the SPACE BAR. * The TAB command normally stops on messages marked as "New" or "Important". In folders where these message status flags cannot be permanently stored (e.g. news groups), TAB will stop on any undeleted message. * You can mark a message as "Important" so that you can easily find it later. This is done via the "* Flag" command. Once a message is so marked, the FOLDER INDEX will show an "*" in the first column for those messages. The Flag command must be explicitly enabled, and it can also be used to set or reset other message status flags, e.g. New. * You never need to press "O" to enable the OTHER CMDS, unless you have chosen to run Pine in "Function Key" mode. The "O" key just sequences through the key menu to remind you what commands are available for the current screen, but all of them are active regardless of which subset are displayed in the key menu. * The "signature-at-bottom" feature only applies to Replies. It is not possible to force your signature to the bottom of the included text in a Forward. * You can define multiple signature files and include whichever one you wish, wherever you wish, via the ^R (Read File) command in the composer. If the file names you choose are very short (e.g. s1, s2) this is relatively painless. * Pine automatically checks for new mail every 2.5 minutes. When viewing the FOLDER INDEX, you can force Pine to check for new mail by pressing ^L, or if on the last item in the Index, by pressing "N". The eXpunge command will also force a new-mail check. If you would like to have some indication of when Pine is checking for new mail, set the "enable-mail-check-cue" feature and watch for an asterisk to flash in the upper-left-hand corner of the screen. (Two asterisks mean that Pine is check-pointing --saving state changes in-- your INBOX.) * You can now cause the Export command, the Composer ^R (Read File) command, and the Attachment Save command to use your current working directory, rather than your home directory, by setting the "use-current-dir" feature. * Experience has shown that printing difficulties using Pine's "Attached-to-ANSI" feature are almost always due to problems with the PC or Mac communication programs being used (not all of them implement the ANSI standard control sequences for printing), or the printer configuration on the PC or Mac; however, there are cases where Pine's printing assumptions don't match what your printer requires (e.g. specific End-of-line convention, or suppression of the trailing form-feed to eject the last page, or needing PostScript). In these cases, setting a custom print command may be appropriate, perhaps using the "ansiprt" Unix command included in the Pine distribution and the commonly available "enscript" postscript encoder command. * The Composer's ^R command means two different things, depending on where your cursor is positioned. If you are editing the header of a message, ^R will cause additional headers to be displayed, e.g. "BCC" for Blind Carbon Copies. If you are editing the body of the message, ^R means "Read File". The file you specify will be included in the message text at the position of the cursor. * You can now control which headers show up by default in the composer. This is done by using the Setup/Config screen to set the "default-composer-hdrs" option. You would specify a list of headers you wish to be visible immediately when you enter the Composer. Other headers are still accessible via the "^R Rich Header" command. * The "H HdrMode" command now conditions not just the MESSAGE TEXT viewer, but also the Print, Pipe, Export, Reply, and Forward commands. This command, if enabled, toggles between displaying or including the basic set of message headers Pine normally shows and all the headers in the message, including the "Received-from: " diagnostic headers. The "H" command is a toggle; be careful to turn it off after use so that you don't inadvertently send unwanted headers when you forward a message. * On the MAIN MENU and in all Help screens there is now a "B Report Bug" command that will automatically attach configuration information that may assist in debugging a problem. It will also ask if you'd like to attach the current message in case the problem relates to that message. * If you find Pine's tendency to ask you for confirmation on certain operations annoying, you may suppress several of the prompts. Using the Setup/Config command on the MAIN MENU, 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 a "Yes" response to a corresponding prompt: include-text-in-reply auto-move-read-msgs auto-open-next-unread * The "+" that sometimes shows up in the first column of the FOLDER INDEX means that the message so marked was sent directly to you, as opposed to you being CC'd or receiving the message by virtue of being on a mailing list. The idea is that messages with the "+" sign might require some action on your part, whereas messages without the "+" are more likely to be "for your information". * The "*" that sometimes shows up in the first column of the FOLDER INDEX means that you have explicitly marked that message as "Important" via the "* Flag" command so that you can easily find it again later. * You can cut/paste more than one line at a time in the Composer. Use the "^^ Mark" command (that's the Ctrl-^ key) to set a "mark" at the beginning or end of the composed text you wish to delete or move, then move the cursor to the other end of the block of text to be "cut". Then the "^K Cut Text" command will remove the highlighted text between the Mark and the cursor, and put it into a buffer so that if you move the cursor and then use the "^U UnCut Text" command, it will be "pasted" into the new location. * The key menu at the bottom of the composer does not show all of the available commands in the composer. Use "^G Get Help" for a complete list. * If some control characters don't work in Pine (or Pico), it is probably because the communication or operating system software you are using is intercepting those characters before they get to Pine. Some that are more likely to be intercepted include ^C, ^J, ^O, ^^, and ^_ . If you are unable to reconfigure your communication software to correct this, a work-around is to press the ESCAPE key twice followed by the desired control key. For example, ^C would be simulated by pressing "ESC ESC C" and "^^" would be "ESC ESC ^". * You can suppress the monthly "sent mail" pruning prompts by setting the "last-time-prune-questioned=" variable in your .pinerc to a date far in the future, e.g. "99.9" You will need to do this by manually editing your .pinerc; you cannot change this value from the Setup/Config screen. * If you run "pine -pinerc new_pinerc_file_name" you will get a fresh copy of your .pinerc configuration information placed into the file "new_pinerc_file_name" with the options you are using set. It will also have fresh comments, and then everything in the config screen and the pinerc file should match. Old variables that are no longer being used will disappear. If you ever plan on editing your .pinerc file in the future (and don't want to be confused by obsolete comments), it would be a good idea to run the command: "pine -pinerc .pinerc" Or in the case of PC-Pine: "pine -pinerc \pine\pinerc" (assuming your pinerc file is in the \pine directory on your PC.) * You can suppress the creation of .pine-debug files by running with debugging turned off, i.e. invoke "pine -d 0". Note, however, that this will prevent recording data that might be essential to solving a problem you encounter. Pine normally keeps the last four pine-debug files in your Unix home directory. * You can prevent Pine from saving a copy of all outgoing messages by setting the default-fcc option to the null string (two consecutive double quote characters); i.e. default-fcc=""