EECS

EECS Introduction to PINE

Advanced Options & Features


[Options]  [Features]

Advanced Options

To find out how to use these options, go inside the Setup/Config menu, select one with your cursor, and type ? (question mark).

For instructions on how to modify these options, see the documentation on Configuring PINE.

Option for opening PINE somewhere other than the "main menu" list:

Options for the look and behavior of your outgoing messages:

Option for the look of your incoming messages:

Options for saving messages read:

default-saved-msg-folder
Changes your default saved messages folder from "saved-messages" to something you specify. Be sure to follow UNIX naming conventions if you choose to rename this file.


saved-msg-name-rule
The default will offer you the option of saving the message to "saved-messages" (or the name you specified in "default-saved-msg-folder above) but will also allow you to type in the name of a folder-- either new or already existing-- into which you'd like to save the message. Some of your choices for this option include being offered the default prompt of saving messages by sender name instead of a predetermined folder.

Option for the look of both your incoming messages and saved messages:

The default sort key is by arrival time.

Options for the look of your address book:

The default sort rule is fullname-with-lists-last. In other words, the list is alphabetized by surname with group mailing lists alphabetized in a section at the end.

Option that controls the action of the goto command:

Option that determines the look of included text when replying to a message:

The default is an arrow (>) followed by a space.

Other Options:

allow-talk

By default, permission for others to "talk" to your terminal is turned off when you are running Pine. When this feature is set, permission is instead turned on. If enabled, you may see unexpected messages in the middle of your Pine screen from someone attempting to contact you via the "talk" program.

Note: The "talk" program has nothing to do with Pine or email. The talk daemon on your system will attempt to print a message on your screen when someone else is trying to contact you. If you wish to see these messages while you are running Pine, you should enable this feature.

If you do enable this feature and see a "talk" message, you must suspend or quit Pine before you can respond.

auto-move-read-msgs

This feature controls an aspect of Pine's behavior upon quitting. If set, and the "read-message-folder" variable is also set, then Pine will automatically transfer all read messages to the designated folder and mark them as deleted in the INBOX. Messages in the INBOX marked with an "N" (meaning New, or unseen) are not affected.

compose-maps-delete-key-to-ctrl-d

This feature affects the behavior of the DELETE key. If set, Delete will be equivalent to Control-D, and delete the current character. Normally Pine defines the Delete key to be equivalent to Control-H, which deletes the *previous* character.

delete-skips-deleted

This feature controls an aspect of Pine's Delete command. If set, this feature will cause the Delete command to advance past other messages that are marked deleted. In other words, pressing "D" will both mark the current message deleted and advance to the next message that is not marked deleted.

disable-keymenu

If this feature is set the command key menu that normally appears on the bottom two lines of the screen will not usually be there. Asking for help with ^G or ? will cause the key menu to appear instead of causing the help message to come up. If you want to actually see the help text, another ^G or ? will show it to you. After the key menu has popped up with the help key it will remain there for an O for Other command but disappear if any other command is typed.

enable-cruise-mode

This feature affects Pine's behavior when you hit the "Space Bar" at the end of a displayed message. Typically, Pine complains that the end of the text has already been reached. Setting this feature causes such keystrokes to be interpreted as if the "Tab" key had been hit, thus taking you to the next new (unread) message, or scanning ahead to the next incoming folder with new (unread) messages.

enable-cruise-mode-delete

This feature modifies the behavior of Pine's "enable-cruise-mode" feature. Setting this feature causes pine to implicitly delete read messages when it moves on to display the next new (unread) message.

NOTE: Beware when enabling this feature AND the "expunge-without-confirm" feature.

enable-jump-shortcut

Setting this feature will allow you to enter a number (followed by RETURN) and jump to that message number, when in the FOLDER INDEX or MESSAGE TEXT screens. In other words, it obviates the need for typing the "J" for the Jump command.

enable-mouse-in-xterm

This feature controls whether or not an X terminal mouse can be used with Pine. If set, and the $DISPLAY variable indicates that an X terminal is being used, the left mouse button on the mouse can be used to select text or commands.

Note: if this feature is set, the behavior of X terminal cut-and-paste is also modified. It is necessary to hold the shift key down while clicking left or middle mouse buttons for the normal xterm cut/paste operations.

expunge-without-confirm

This features controls an aspect of Pine's eXpunge command. If set, you will not be prompted to confirm your intent before the expunge takes place.


fcc-name-rule

The default will save your outgoing messages into the "sent-mail" folder specified in the default-fcc option. This selection gives you other options for various circumstances as well.

fcc-on-bounce

This feature controls an aspect of Pine's behavior when bouncing a message. If set, normal FCC ("File Carbon Copy") processing will be done, just as if you had composed a message to the address you are bouncing to. If not set, no FCC of the message will be saved.

include-attachments-in-reply

This feature controls an aspect of Pine's Reply command. If set, any MIME attachments that were part of the original message will automatically be included in the Reply.

include-header-in-reply

This feature controls an aspect of Pine's Reply command. If set, and the original message is being included in the reply, then headers from that message will also be part of the reply.

print-offers-custom-cmd-prompt

When this feature is set, the print command will have an additional subcommand called "C CustomPrint". If selected, you will have the opportunity to enter any system print command --instead of being restricted to using those that have been previously configured in the printer setup menu.

print-includes-from-line

If this feature is set, then the Berkeley-mail style From line is included at the start of each message that is printed. This line looks something like the following, with the address replaced by the address from the From line of the message being printed:
From user@domain.somewhere.com Mon May 13 14:11:06 1996

print-formfeed-between-messages

Setting this feature causes a formfeed to be printed between messages when printing multiple messages (with Apply prYnt command).

quell-dead-letter-on-cancel

This feature affects Pine's behavior when you cancel a message being composed. Pine's usual behavior is to write the canceled message to a file named "dead.letter" in your home directory overwriting any previous message. Under some conditions (some routine), this can introduce a noticeable delay.

Setting this feature will cause Pine NOT to write canceled compositions into the file called dead.letter.

NOTE: Enabling this feature means NO record of canceled messages is maintained.

quell-status-message-beeping

This feature affects Pine's behavior when it displays status message (e.g., Error complaints, New mail warnings, etc). Setting this feature will not affect the display of such messages, but will cause those that emit a beep to become silent.

quit-without-confirm

This feature controls whether or not Pine will ask for confirmation when a Quit command is received.

save-will-not-delete

This feature controls one aspect of the Save command. If set, Save will not mark the message "deleted" (its default behavior) after it has been copied to the designated folder.

save-will-advance

This feature controls one aspect of the Save command. If set, Save will (in addition to copying the current message to the designated folder) also advance to the next message.

show-cursor

This feature controls an aspect of Pine's displays. If set, the system cursor will move to convenient locations in the displays. For example, to the beginning of the status field of the highlighted index line, or to the highlighted word after a successful WhereIs command.

signature-at-bottom

This feature controls an aspect of Pine's Reply command. If this feature is set, and the original message is being included in the reply, then the contents of your signature file (if any) will be inserted after the included message, and the cursor will also be positioned after the included text.

single-column-folder-list

This feature controls an aspect of Pine's folder list screen. If set, the folders will be listed one per line instead of several per line in the folder list display.

Advanced Features

If you have time, and you want to experiment with some of the other things PINE can do, try exploring some of the following features.

For instructions on how to modify these features, see the documentation on Configuring PINE.

It is possible in PINE to select a group of mail messages based on the date, sender, or other criteria. In order for these commands to work, the following feature must be enabled:

enable-aggregate-command-set

Setting this feature enables the commands and subcommands that relate to performing operations on more than one message at a time. We call these "aggregate operations". In particular, the "; Select", "A Apply", and "Z Zoom" commands are enabled by this feature. Select is used to "tag" one or more messages meeting the specified criteria. Apply can then be used to apply any message command to all of the selected/tagged messages. Further, the Zoom command allows you to toggle the Folder Index view between just those Selected and all messages in the folder.

This feature also enables the "^X" subcommand in the FOLDER INDEX WhereIs command which causes all messages matching the WhereIs argument to become selected.

auto-move-read-msgs

This feature controls an aspect of Pine's behavior upon quitting. If set, and the "read-message-folder" variable is also set, then Pine will automatically transfer all read messages to the designated folder and mark them as deleted in the INBOX. Messages in the INBOX marked with an "N" (meaning New, or unseen) are not affected.

auto-zoom-after-select

This feature affects the behavior of the Select command. If set, the select command will automatically perform a zoom after the select is complete.

auto-unzoom-after-apply

This feature affects the behavior of the Apply command. If set, and if you are currently looking at a Zoomed Index view of selected messages, the Apply command will do the operation you specify, but then will implicitly do an "UnZoom", so that you will automatically be back in the normal Index view after the Apply.

show-selected-in-boldface

This feature controls an aspect of Pine's aggregate operation commands; in particular, the Select and WhereIs commands. Select and WhereIs (with the ^X subcommand) will search the current folder for messages meeting a specified criteria, and "tag" the resulting messages with an "X" in the first column of the applicable lines in the FOLDER INDEX. If this feature is set, instead of using the "X" to denote a selected message, Pine will attempt to display those index lines in boldface. Whether this is preferable to the "X" will depend on personal taste and the type of terminal being used.

enable-flag-cmd

Setting this feature enables the "* Flag" command which allows you to manipulate the status flags associated with a message. By default, Flag will set the "Important" flag, which results in an asterisk being displayed in column one of the FOLDER INDEX for such messages.

enable-flag-screen-implicitly

The feature modifies the behavior of the "* Flag" command (provided it too is enabled). By default, when the "* Flag" command is selected, Pine offers a prompt to set one of several flags and also offers the option of entering the detailed flag manipulation screen via the "^T" key. Enabling this feature causes Pine to immediately enter the detailed flag screen rather than first offer the simple prompt.

tab-visits-next-new-message-only

This feature affects Pine's behavior when using the TAB key to move from one message to the next. Pine's usual behavior is to select the next unread message or message flagged as "Important".

Setting this feature causes Pine to skip the messages flagged as important, and select unread messages exclusively. Tab behavior when there are no new messages left to select remains unchanged.

enable-dot-files

When this feature is set, files beginning with dot (".") will be visible in the file browser. For example, you'll be able to select them when using the browser to add an attachment to a message.

enable-dot-folders

When this feature is set, folders beginning with dot (".") may be added and viewed.

enable-goto-in-file-browser

This feature modifies the behavior of Pine's file browser. Setting this feature causes Pine to offer the "G Goto" command in the file browser.

enable-jump-shortcut

This command allows you to explicitly set the displayed directory. Pine's default behavior requires you to visit each related directory when between two distant directories.

enable-mail-check-cue

If set, this feature will cause an asterisk to appear in the upper left-hand corner of the screen whenever Pine checks for new mail, and two asterisks whenever Pine saves (checkpoints) the state of the current mailbox to disk.

enable-newmail-in-xterm-icon

This feature controls whether or not Pine will attempt to announce new mail arrival when it is running in an X terminal window and that window is iconified. If set, and the $DISPLAY variable indicates that an X terminal is being used, Pine will send appropriate escape sequences to the X terminal to modify the label on Pine's icon to indicate that new mail has arrived.

enable-unix-pipe-cmd

This feature enables the "| Pipe" command that sends the current message to the specified Unix command for external processing. Not available on PC-Pine.

expanded-view-of-addressbooks

If multiple address books (either personal or global) are defined, and you wish to have them all expanded implicitly upon entering the ADDRESS BOOK screen, then set this feature.

expanded-view-of-distribution-lists

If this feature is set, then distribution lists in the address book screen will be expanded automatically.

expanded-view-of-folders

If multiple folder collections are defined, and you wish to have them all expanded implicitly upon entering the FOLDER LIST screen, then set this feature.

select-without-confirm

This feature controls an aspect of Pine's Save, Export, and Goto commands. These commands all take text input to specify the name of the folder or file to be used, but allow you to press ^T for a list of possible names. If set, the selected name will be used immediately, without further opportunity to confirm or edit the name.

use-current-dir

This feature controls an aspect of several commands. If set, your "current working directory" will be used instead of your home directory for all of the following operations:

use-subshell-for-suspend

This feature affects Pine's behavior when process suspension is enabled and then activated via the Ctrl-Z key. Pine suspension allows one to temporarily interact with the operating system command "shell" without quitting Pine, and then subsequently resume the still-active Pine session.

When the "enable-suspend" feature is set and subsequently the Ctrl-Z key is pressed, Pine will normally suspend itself and return temporary control to Pine's parent shell process. However, if this feature is set, Pine will instead create an inferior subshell process. This is useful when the parent process is not intended to be used interactively. Examples include invoking Pine via the -e argument of the Unix "xterm" program, or via a menu system.

Note that one typically resumes a suspended Pine by entering the Unix "fg" command, but if this feature is set, it will be necessary to enter the "exit" command instead.

Newsgroups

We recommend using tin or Netscape for reading news since we are not familiar with reading news using PINE and can't support it. However, if you are using PINE to read news and would like to tailor it, here are some Newsgroup Features

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 © 2006 EECS Department, University of California, Berkeley
Last modified: Friday, 11-Oct-2002 21:05:49 PDT