Pine Technical Notes
Version 3.94, June 1996
Pine and Pico are trademarks of the University of Washington.
Copyright © 1989-1996 by the University of Washington. For information
on copying, modifying or distributing documents from the Pine
Information Center, see the Legal Notices.
Table of Contents
Introduction
* Design Goals
* Pine Components
Background Details
* Domain Names
* RFC 822 Compliance
* SMTP and Sendmail
* Internet Message Access Protocol (IMAP)
* Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions (MIME)
* Folder Collections
Building and Installation
* UNIX Pine Compile-time Options
* Pico Compile-time Options
* IMAPd Compile-time Options
* Building the Pine Programs
* Installing Pine and Pico on UNIX Platforms
* Installing PC-Pine
* Installing IMAPd
* Support Files and Environment Variables: UNIX Pine
* Support Files and Environment Variables: PC-Pine
Command Line Arguments
* Pine
* Pico
* Pilot
Configuration and Preferences
* Pine Configuration
* General Configuration Variables
* Retired Variables
Configuration Notes
* Pine in Function Key Mode
* Domain Settings
* Syntax for Collections
* Syntax for Remote Folders
* Sorting a Folder
* Alternate Editor
* Signatures and Signature Placement
* Feature List Variable
* Additional Notes on PC-Pine
Behind the Scenes
* Address Books
* Checkpointing
* Debug Files
* Filters
* Folder Formats and Name Extensions
* Folder Locking
* INBOX and Special Folders
* Internal Help Files
* International Character Sets
* Interrupted and Postponed Messages
* Message Status
* MIME: Reading a Message
* MIME: Sending a Message
* New Mail Notification
* NFS
* Printers and Printing
* Save and Export
* Sent Mail
* Spell Checker
* Terminal Emulation and Key Mapping
Notes for Porting and Modification
* Porting Pine to Other Platforms
* Test Checklist
Introduction
Design Goals
Throughout Pine development, we have had to strike a balance between
the need to include features which advanced users require and the need
to keep things simple for beginning users. To strike this balance, we
have tried to adhere to these design principles:
- The underlying model presented to the user has to be simple
and clear. Underlying system operation is hidden as much as
possible.
- It's better to have a few easily understood commands that can
be repeated than to have some more sophisticated command that
will do the job all at once.
- Whenever the user has to select a command, file name,
address, etc., the user should be given (or can get) a menu
from which to make the selection. Menus need to be complete,
small, organized and well thought out.
- Pine must provide immediate feedback for the user with each
operation.
- Pine must be very tolerant of user errors. Any time a user is
about to perform an irreversible act (send a message, expunge
messages from a folder), Pine should ask for confirmation.
- Users should be able to learn by exploration without fear of
doing anything wrong. This is an important feature so the user
can get started quickly without reading any manuals and so
fewer manuals are required.
- The core set of Pine functions should be kept to a minimum so
new users don't feel "lost" in seemingly extraneous commands
and concepts.
Just as there were goals relating to the look and feel of Pine, there
were equally important goals having to do with Pine's structure-the
things that users never see but still rely on every time they use
Pine. While Pine can be used as a stand-alone mail user agent, one of
its strongest assets is its use of the Internet Message Access
Protocol (IMAP) for accessing remote email folders. In addition, Pine
was one of the first programs to support the Multipurpose Internet
Mail Extensions (MIME) specification. With MIME, Pine users can
reliably send any binary file to any other person on the Internet who
uses a MIME compliant email program.
The decision to use IMAP and MIME reflect the importance of
interoperability, standardization and robustness in Pine. As you work
with Pine more, you will see other features which reflect the same
values. For example, Pine enforces strict compliance with RFC 822,
implements a strong mail folder locking mechanism and verifies a
process before overwriting any files (e.g. addressbook, expunging
messages).
Pine Components
If you have picked up the Pine distribution, then you already know
that Pine comes in a few different pieces. They are:
Pine
This main code from which the Pine program is compiled.
Pico
Pico is the name for the Pine composer. The Pico code is used
in two ways: (1) it is compiled on its own to be a stand-alone
editor or (2) compiled as a library for Pine to support
composition of messages within Pine. Pico is Pine's internal
editor invoked when users need to fill in header lines or type
the text of an email message.
Imap
An API for IMAP. Includes the C-Client library, which is
compiled into Pine, and the IMAP server IMAPd. C-Client
implements the IMAP protocol and also negotiates all access
between Pine and the mail folders it operates on. The C-Client
routines are used for email folder parsing and interpreting
MIME messages. IMAPd is a separate server that handles IMAP
connections from any IMAP-compliant email program. When Pine
accesses a remote mailbox, the Pine program is the IMAP client
and the IMAPd program is the IMAP server.
_________________________________________________________________
Background Details
Domain Names
Domain names are used to uniquely name each host on the Internet. A
domain name has a number of parts separated by periods. Each label
represents a level in the hierarchy. An example of a name is:
olive.cac.washington.edu
In this domain name the top-level label is edu, indicating it is at an
educational institution, the second-level label is washington,
indicating the University of Washington. cac is a specific department
within the University of Washington, and olive is the host name. The
top-level names are assigned by Internet organizations, and other
names are assigned at the appropriate level. The Domain Name Service,
DNS, is the distributed database used to look up these names.
Pine relies on domain names in multiple places. A domain name is
embedded into the message-id line generated for each piece of email. A
domain name is needed to contact an IMAP server to get access to
remote INBOXes and folders. Most importantly, domain names are needed
to construct the From: line of your outgoing messages so that people
on the Internet will be able to get email back to you.
On UNIX systems, you can set the domain via the user-domain variable
in the Pine configuration file, or rely on the file /etc/hosts which
usually sets the name of the local host. While Pine can often deliver
email without the domain name being properly configured, it is best to
have this set right. Problems can usually be solved by adjusting the
system's entry in the /etc/hosts file. The fully-qualified name should
be listed before any abbreviations.
128.95.112.99 olive.cac.washington.edu olive
is preferred over
128.95.112.99 olive olive.cac.washington.edu
On PCs, the task of configuring the domain name is a bit different.
Often times, PCs do not have domain names-they have IP addresses. IP
addresses are the numbers which uniquely identify a computer on the
network. The way you configure your IP address depends on the
networking software which you use on the PC. You can refer to the
documentation which came with your networking software or see the PC
specific installation notes for help configuring the IP address with
your network software.
With PCs, it is vital that users set the variable user-domain in the
Pine configuration file (PINERC).
Details on configuring Pine with correct domain names can be found in
the Domain Settings section of this document.
_________________________________________________________________
RFC 822 Compliance
Pine tries to adhere to RFC 822 a little more strongly than some other
mailers and uses the "full name
" format rather than the
older "address (full name)" format. The intent of the standard is that
parentheses should only be for comments. Pine displays and generates
the newer format, but will parse the old format and attempt to turn it
into the new one.
As far as outgoing email is concerned, Pine fully-qualifies addresses
whenever possible. They are even displayed in fully-qualified form on
the terminal as the user composes a message. This makes addresses more
clear and gives a hint to the user that the network extends beyond the
local organization. Pine implements fully-qualified domain names by
tacking on the local domain to all unqualified addresses which a user
types in. Any address which does not contain a "@" is considered
unqualified.
The newer format for addresses allow for spaces and special characters
in the full name of an address. For this reason, commas are required
to separate addresses. If any special characters as defined in RFC 822
appear in the full name, quotes are required around the address. Pine
will insert the quotes automatically. The common cases where this
happens are with periods after initials and parentheses.
Because Pine fully complies with RFC 822, it is sometimes difficult to
use non-Internet address formats such as UUCP's host!user or DECNet's
USER::HOST with Pine. People who run Pine on these systems have made
local modifications to Pine or to the mail transport agent (e.g.
sendmail) to make things work for them.
Pine expects dates to be in the standard RFC 822 format which is
something like:
[www, ] dd mmm yy hh:mm[:ss] [timezone]
It will attempt to parse dates that are not in this format. When an
unparsable date is encountered it is displayed as xxx xx when shown in
the FOLDER INDEX screen.
_________________________________________________________________
SMTP and Sendmail
Pine is a user agent not a message transfer agent. In plain English,
that means Pine does not know how to interact with other computers on
the Internet to deliver or receive email. What Pine does know how to
do is help users read, organize and create email. The "dirty work" of
delivering and accepting email is handled by other programs.
All outgoing email is delivered to a mail transfer program or to an
SMTP server. The most common mail transfer program is sendmail.
Pine 3.91 and earlier:
When Pine on a UNIX computer uses the local sendmail, it first
writes the message to a temporary file in /tmp. Then Pine runs
a shell in the background that runs sendmail on the temporary
file and then removes it. This is done with a shell in the
background so the user doesn't have to wait for sendmail to
finish. By default, sendmail is invoked with the -t flag to
cause it to read and parse the header to determine the
recipients; the -oem flag to cause errors to be mailed back;
and the -oi flag to ignore dots in incoming messages. Systems
administrators can choose to configure Pine to use a different
mail transfer program or even sendmail with different flags.
See the section on UNIX Pine Compile-time Options for more
details on this.
Pine can also operate as an SMTP client. SMTP stands for Simple
Mail Transfer Protocol; it specifies the rules by which
computers on the Internet pass email to one another. In this
case, Pine passes outgoing email messages to a designated SMTP
server instead of to a mail transfer program on the local
machine. A program on the server then takes care of delivering
the message. To make Pine operate as an SMTP client, the
smtp-server variable must be set to the IP address or host name
of the SMTP server within your organization. This variable
accepts a comma separated list of servers, so you can specify
multiple SMTP servers. PC-Pine only runs as an SMTP client.
Pine 3.92 and later:
The selection of which MTA to use depends on the settings of
sendmail-path, smtp-server, and compile-time options. The first
MTA specified in the following list is used:
1. sendmail-path in /usr/local/lib/pine.conf.fixed
2. smtp-server in /usr/local/pine.conf.fixed
3. sendmail-path specified on the command line.
4. smtp-server specified on the command line.
5. sendmail-path in the user's .pinerc file.
6. smtp-server in the user's .pinerc file.
7. sendmail-path in /usr/local/lib/pine.conf
8. smtp-server in /usr/local/pine.conf
9. DF_SENDMAIL_PATH defined at compile time.
10. SENDMAIL and SENDMAILFLAGS defined at compile time.
If the sendmail-path form is used, a child process is forked,
and the specified command is executed with the message passed
on standard input. Standard output is then passed back and
displayed for the user. NOTE: The program MUST read the message
to be posted on standard input, AND operate in the style of
sendmail's "-t" option.
If an smtp-server is specified, a connection to the server is
opened. If the message contains 8-bit text, ESMTP 8BITMIME
negotiation is attempted. The message is then sent using SMTP
commands.
If none of the above are set, the default sendmail program is
invoked with the "-bs -odb -oem" flags, ESMTP negotiation is
attempted, and the message is sent.
_________________________________________________________________
Internet Message Access Protocol (IMAP)
IMAP is a remote access protocol for message stores. Pine uses IMAP to
get at messages and folders which reside on remote machines. With
IMAP, all messages are kept on the server. An IMAP client (such as
Pine) can request specific messages, headers, message structures, etc.
The client can also issue commands which delete messages from folders
on the server. IMAP's closest kin is POP, the Post Office Protocol,
which works by transferring an entire mailbox to the client where all
the mail is kept. For a comparison of IMAP and POP, see the paper
"Comparing Two Approaches to Remote Mailbox Access: IMAP vs. POP" by
Terry Gray. A more detailed exploration of message access may be found
in the paper " Message Access Paradigms and Protocols." These papers
may be found in the /mail directory of the anonymous FTP server at
ftp.cac.washington.edu.
IMAP Features:
* Allows access to mail folders from more than one client computer.
* Works well over low-bandwidth lines because information is sent in
small pieces as needed by the user. For example, only header
information is sent to build index lists, and if someone sends a
2MB audio file via MIME, you can choose when (or if) you want to
get that part of the message.
* Email can be delivered and stored on a well-maintained and
reliable server which is "always-up".
* Folders can be accessed and manipulated from anywhere on the
Internet.
* Users can get to messages stored in different folders within the
same Pine session.
* Allows use of IMAP server for searching and parsing.
* The latest revision of IMAP (IMAP4) also provides for disconnected
operation, including resynchronization of message state between
mail servers and message caches on clients. Pine does not yet
support this capability, however.
IMAP2 is defined in RFC 1176. IMAP4, the revision to IMAP2, is
described in RFC 1730. Further information about IMAP may be obtained
from the University of Washington's IMAP Information Center on the
World Wide Web.
Pine 3.94 is an IMAP2bis client and does not yet implement all of the
IMAP4 extensions. (IMAP2bis was an interim specification superseded by
IMAP4.) Pine takes advantage of the extensions defined in IMAP2bis for
efficient and selective access to MIME body parts. We expect the next
major release of Pine (probably version 4.0) to be fully compatible
with the IMAP4 specification.
_________________________________________________________________
Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions (MIME)
MIME is a way of encoding a multipart message structure into a
standard Internet email message. The parts may be nested and may be of
seven different types: Text, Audio, Image, Video, Message, Application
and Multipart (nested). The MIME specification allows email programs
such as Pine to reliably and simply exchange binary data (images,
spreadsheets, etc.) MIME includes support for international character
sets, tagging each part of a message with the character set it is
written in, and providing 7-bit encoding of 8-bit character sets. It
also provides a simple rich text format for marking text as bold,
underlined, and so on. There is a mechanism for splitting messages
into multiple parts and reassembling them at the receiving end.
The MIME standard was officially published in June of 1992 as RFC 1341
and subsequently revised in RFC 1521 when it became a full Internet
Standard. Pine 3.0 was one of the first email programs to Implement
MIME. Now, there are dozens of commercial and freely available
MIME-capable email programs. In addition, MIME is being added to
newsreaders so MIME messages can be posted and read in USENET
newsgroups.
The MIME standard also includes support for non-ASCII text in message
headers through the extensions described in RFC 1342 and subsequently
revised in RFC 1522. Support for RFC 1522 was added in Pine 3.92.
An actual MIME message looks something like this:
Date: Tue, 12 Mar 1996 15:39:35 -0800 (PST)
From: David L Miller
To: David L Miller
Subject: =?iso-8859-1?Q?Test_MIME_message_with_RFC-1522_headers_=28=E1?= =?i
so-8859-1?Q?=E2=E3=29?=
Message-Id:
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: MULTIPART/MIXED; BOUNDARY="0-1737669234-826673975=:21583"
Content-Id:
This message is in MIME format. The first part should be readable text,
while the remaining parts are likely unreadable without MIME-aware tools.
Send mail to mime@docserver.cac.washington.edu for more info.
--0-1737669234-826673975=:21583
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII
Content-ID:
The text of the message would go here. It is readable if
one doesn't mind wading around a little bit of the MIME
formatting. After this is a binary file in base 64
encoding.
|\ | |\/| David L. Miller dlm@cac.washington.edu (206) 685-6240
|/ |_ | | Software Engineer, Pine Development Team (206) 685-4045 (FAX)
University of Washington, Networks & Distributed Computing, JE-20
4545 15th Ave NE, Seattle WA 98105, USA
--0-1737669234-826673975=:21583
Content-Type: APPLICATION/ZIP; NAME="test.zip"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: BASE64
Content-ID:
Content-Description: Test Attachment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--0-1737669234-826673975=:21583--
For details about Pine's implementation of MIME, see the two MIME
sections "MIME: Reading a Message" and "MIME: Sending a Message" later
in this document.
_________________________________________________________________
Folder Collections
Folder Collections are Pine's way of dealing with more than a single
group of folders. With advent of PC-Pine and the development of tools
within IMAP to better manage remote folders, the time was ripe to
provide a mechanism for defining a group of remote folders. PC-Pine
forced the issue in that many potential PC-Pine users would be
migrating from UNIX pine in a time-sharing environment and, thus,
would have some investment in their archived messages on that host.
Currently, Pine has no way to dynamically create or define
collections, but there is much work still going on in this area. The
hope is to provide a general way to define, display and navigate
remote folder collections in a consistent way across platforms and
applications. Especially important to this goal will be the hierarchy
support provisions in the IMAP4 specification. Stay tuned!
For a more complete description of Folder Collections, see the section
on "Syntax for Collections."
The Pine distribution is designed to require as little configuration
and effort at compile time as possible. Still, there are some Pine
behaviors which are set at the time you compile Pine. For each of
these, there is a reasonable (our opinion) default built into the
code, so most systems administrators will have no need for these
steps.
Building and Installation
UNIX Pine Compile-time Options
The files you may need to modify are ./pine/makefile.xxx and
./pine/osdep/os-xxx.h where "xxx" is the 3-letter code for your
platform. You can give the command build help to see the list of ports
incorporated into Pine and their associated 3-letter codes. The file
./pine/makefile.xxx is where you would set your compiler options. By
default, Pine will be compiled with debugging on, optimization and
profile off. Note that if you compile with DEBUG off, then Pine will
not create its normal debug files, no matter how the debug-level and
debug command line flag are set.
Most of Pine's behaviors are set in the file ./pine/osdep/os-xxx.h,
which includes comments that explain each setting. Some of these can
only be set when you compile. Others, however, can be overridden by
command-line flags to Pine or settings in Pine's user or system
configuration files. Some of the options which can be set when
compiling:
USE_QUOTAS
Determines whether quotas are checked on startup. Default is to
not check the quota.
ALLOW_CHANGING_FROM
Determines whether users are allowed to modify the From line on
outgoing mail. Even with this turned on, users will have to
include From in their default-composer-hdrs or customized-hdrs
in order to be able to edit the From line. Default is to not
allow any changing.
DEFAULT_DEBUG
Sets the level of debugging output created in Pine's debug
files. Default is level 2.
NEW_MAIL_TIME
Interval between new-mail checks. Default is 150 seconds.
OVERLAP
Number of lines overlap when user views the next page of a
message. Default is 2 lines.
USE_TERMINFO
Instructs Pine to use the terminfo database instead of termcap.
Default varies by system.
SENDMAIL
SENDMAILFLAGS
Sets the name and flags for the local program that will be
called to handle outgoing email. Default is /usr/lib/sendmail
-oi -oem -t.
SYSTEM_PINERC
The name of the file which holds Pine configuration information
for all users on the system. Default on UNIX systems is
/usr/local/lib/pine.conf.
SYSTEM_PINERC_FIXED
The name of the file which holds the same type of information
as for SYSTEM_PINERC, but only for variables that the
administrator wants to keep fixed. That is, users are not
allowed to change variables that are specified in the FIXED
file. Default on UNIX systems is
/usr/local/lib/pine.conf.fixed.
There are a couple of more obscure options which are in the source
code because a few people have asked for them or because we changed
our minds about them being a good idea in general.
ENCODE_FROMS
Use Quoted-printable encoding so that From's at the beginning
of lines don't end up being escaped by >'s. Most people seem to
dislike the Q-P encoding more than the > escapes so this is off
by default. Once everyone has MIME mail readers, we'll turn
this on by default.
NO_KEYBOARD_LOCK
Disable the keyboard locking function in the main menu.
Keyboard locking is enabled by default. (Keyboard lock may also
be turned off by adding disable-kblock-cmd to the feature list
variable in the global pine.conf file.)
_________________________________________________________________
Pico Compile-time Options
There are even fewer options needed when compiling Pico. The two
interesting ones are for UNIX Pico versions only. The file that may
need some changing is ./pico/os_unix.h. Whatever is set will effect
the behavior of the Pico stand-alone program as well as the composer
within Pine.
SPELLER
Names the program called to do "normal" spell-checking.
TERMCAP
TERMINFO
Determines which of these terminal databases will be used.
_________________________________________________________________
IMAPd Compile-time Options
There are no options or settings required for the version of IMAPd
distributed with Pine. If you need to be doing more complex
modifications to IMAP, then you should pick up the IMAP development
package and work with that code. The developer's version of IMAP is
available for anonymous ftp from ftp.cac.washington.edu in the
directory mail. The file is called imap.tar.Z.
_________________________________________________________________
Building the Pine Programs
You may have already compiled Pine and tried it out. If so, great! If
not, you should be able to do it without too much trouble by following
these step-by-step instructions:
1. Figure out what platform you're building for. You can give the
command build help to see the list of ports incorporated into
Pine. What you need is the three letter code for the platform.
Some examples are nxt for the Next operating system and ult for
Ultrix. If your platform is not in the list of ports, then you
might have some work ahead of you. First, check the file
doc/pine-ports to see if there are others working on a port for
your platform or to see if the port is included in the "contrib"
section of the source code. Ports in the contrib directory were
contributed by Pine administrators from around the world, but the
Pine development team has not been able to test the code. If Pine
has not yet been ported to your platform at all, read the section
on Porting Pine in this document.
2. Make sure you're in the root of the Pine source. When you type ls
you should see the following files and directories (or something
close to it):
README build doc makefile pine
bin contrib imap pico
3. Make sure you're getting a clean start by giving the command build
clean. This should take only a few seconds to run.
4. Give the command build xxx where xxx is the three letter code you
picked in step 1. The compiler should grind away for a few
minutes.
5. When the compilation is complete the sizes of the four binaries
built (pine, mtest, imapd, pico) will be displayed. The actual
binaries are in the various source directories. In addition, the
bin directory contains a link to each program compiled. You can
just copy them out of bin or try them from there.
_________________________________________________________________
Installing Pine and Pico on UNIX Platforms
Installing Pine and Pico is remarkably simple. You take the program
files which you have just transferred or built and you move them to
the correct directory on your system. Most often the binaries go in
/usr/local/bin though sometimes they are placed in /usr/bin. All the
help text is compiled into Pine so there are no required auxiliary
files.
There are, however, three optional auxiliary files:
/usr/local/lib/pine.info, /usr/local/lib/pine.conf, and
/usr/local/lib/pine.conf.fixed. The file pine.info contains text on
how to get further help on the local system. It is presented as the
first page of the help text for the main menu and should probably
refer to the local help desk or the system administrator. If this file
doesn't exist a generic version which suggests ``talking to the
computer support staff at your site'' is shown. The file pine.conf is
used to set system-wide default configurations for Pine. The file
pine.conf.fixed is also used to set system-wide default configurations
for Pine. The difference between these two files is that configuration
variables set in the pine.conf.fixed file may not normally be
over-ridden by a user. See the section on Pine Configuration later in
this document for details about the pine.conf and pine.conf.fixed
files.
_________________________________________________________________
Installing PC-Pine
Beginning with the Pine 3.90 release, there is a PC-Pine version that
runs under windows using the Winsock network interface. For those who
still need to run the DOS version of PC-Pine, there are versions for
four different TCP/IP network stacks: FTP Inc's PC/TCP, Novell's LAN
Workplace for DOS, Sun's PC/NFS, and WATTCP for packet drivers.
PC-Pine needs to be able to interact closely with the stack loaded on
your PC. Most of the time, this occurs automatically. However, there
are certain modifications that need be made.
LAN Workplace for DOS Version 4.1
Set the environment variable EXCELAN in the PC's AUTOEXEC.BAT
file. This provides the necessary links so that LAN Workplace
for DOS 4.1 can translate domain names to IP numbers correctly.
It is needed because Pine was developed for LAN Workplace 4.0
and this particular variable is treated differently in 4.1 than
in 4.0. The EXCELAN variable must point to the directory in
which LAN Workplace is installed.
PC/TCP versions before 2.2
You need a file called PCTCP.INI which contains a bare-minimum
2-line description of the PC's configuration. It looks like
this:
[pctcp ifcust 0]
ip-address=xx.xx.xx.xx
Where xx.xx.xx.xx is the IP address of the PC. Pine also
requires an environment variable, PCTCP, which points to this
file. For example:
set PCTCP=C:\PINE\PCTCP.INI
Packet Drivers
Pine needs to be made aware of the PC's network configuration
file. Simply edit the file WATTCP.CFG included in the Pine
distribution. The file includes 5 configuration
settings--IP-address, gateway, netmask, nameserver(s) and
domainslist. If you have a network configuration file for NCSA
Telnet then WATTCP.CFG is just a pared down version of the
CONFIG.TEL file you already made. Take a look at CONFIG.TEL to
find the correct settings for WATTCP.CFG. Once the
configuration file is made, the DOS environment variable
WATTCP.CFG needs to point at it. For example:
set WATTCP.CFG=C:\PINE
In addition to networking software issues, you might need to worry
about setting the time zone. PC-Pine includes the time zone as part of
outgoing email. There is a generic way for PC applications to get the
time zone, but, because PC-Pine is one of a very few applications
which requires this information, time zone might not be previously
configured.
The trick is to add an environment variable, TZ, to your PC's
AUTOEXEC.BAT file. The format for the TZ environment variable is as
follows:
ZZZ[+H]H[:MM:SSTTT]
First is the 3-letter code for your standard time, then a "+" or a "-"
for direction of offset from GMT, then the amount of offset (hours,
minutes, seconds) and finally the 3-letter code for your summer- or
daylight savings time. Everything in [] brackets is optional.
The default time zone is "PST-8PDT" (U.S. Pacific Time).
Coincidentally, Microsoft is headquartered in that time zone.
As an example, people in the Eastern part of the US should add this
line to their AUTOEXEC.BAT files:
TZ=EST-5EDT
_________________________________________________________________
Installing IMAPd
When the Pine distribution is built on a UNIX station, the IMAP server
binary, imapd, is compiled. Installing imapd requires placing the
binary in the appropriate directory, usually /usr/etc, and adding
entries to /etc/services and /etc/inetd.conf or their counterparts.
The following line is appropriate for /etc/services:
imap 143/tcp # Mail transfer
and the next line is appropriate for /etc/inetd.conf:
imap stream tcp nowait root /usr/etc/imapd imapd
The /etc/inetd.conf file entry may vary on different versions of UNIX.
Some have a slightly different set of fields. Also the pathname in
/etc/inetd.conf must match the path where imapd is installed.
With this configuration, the IMAP server runs without
pre-authentication. Each new IMAP connection requires a correct
username and password. IMAP can also be run with pre-authentication
based on the standard rsh mechanism. To enable this, the user account
on the IMAP server must contain a valid file which grants access to
the client machine. Enabling rimap authentication is done by creating
a link called /etc/rimapd to imapd. Basically, what is happening is
that Pine is taking advantage of the ability that rsh has to use
privileged TCP ports so it doesn't have to run in privileged mode. If
the rimap authentication fails it will drop back to plain password
authentication.
PC-Pine cannot take advantage of rimap authentication. Also, if your
system uses a distributed configuration database, like NIS, Yellow
Pages or Netinfo, be sure that appropriate steps are taken to ensure
the above mentioned information is updated.
_________________________________________________________________
Support Files and Environment Variables: UNIX Pine
This section lists the various files which Pine uses which are not
email folders. All of these are the default names of files, they may
vary based on Pine's configuration.
/usr/local/lib/pine.conf
Pine's global configuration file.
/usr/local/lib/pine.conf.fixed
Non-overridable global configuration file.
/usr/local/lib/pine.info
Local pointer to system administrator.
~/.pinerc
Personal configuration file for each user.
~/.addressbook
Personal addressbook
~/.addressbook.lu
Personal address book lookup file (index file to speed up
lookups).
~/.newsrc
Personal USENET subscription list. This is shared with other
newsreading programs.
~/.pine-debugX
The files created for debugging Pine problems. By default,
there are 4 .pine-debug files kept at any time.
~/.signature
A signature file which will be included in all outgoing email
messages.
~/.pine-interrupted-mail
The text of a message which was interrupted by some unexpected
error which Pine detected.
~/mail/postponed-msgs
A folder of messages which the user chose to postpone.
/etc/mailcap
System-wide mail capabilities file. Only used if $MAILCAPS not
set.
~/.mailcap
Personal mail capabilities file. Combines with system-wide
mailcap. Only used if $MAILCAPS not set.
The location of the following support files may be controlled by
variables in the personal or global Pine configuration file:
signature, addressbook and its index file, postponed messages, and
newsrc.
Unix Pine uses the following environment variables:
TERM
Tells Pine what kind of terminal is being used.
DISPLAY
Determines if Pine will try to display IMAGE attachments.
SHELL
If not set, default is /bin/sh
MAILCAPS
A semicolon delimited list of path names to mailcap files.
_________________________________________________________________
Support Files and Environment Variables: PC-Pine
This section lists the various files which PC-Pine uses which are not
normal mail folders. All of these are the default names of files, they
may vary based on Pine's configuration.
\PINE.HLP
File containing Pine's internal help text.
\PINE.NDX
Index of Pine's help text used by PC-Pine to locate entries.
$PINERC or $HOME\PINE\PINERC or \PINERC
Path to (required) personal configuration file.
$PINECONF
Path of optional global configuration file.
\ADDRBOOK
Personal addressbook
\ADDRBOOK.LU
Personal address book lookup file (index file to speed up
lookups).
\PINE.SIG
A signature file which will be included in all outgoing email
messages.
\PINE.PWD
A file containing encrypted password for remote mail server.
\PINEDEBG.TXT
Location of Pine debug file.
\MAILCAP and/or \MAILCAP
These paths are only used if $MAILCAPS not set.
$HOME\NEWSRC or \NEWSRC
Personal USENET subscription list. This may be shared with
other newsreading programs.
$HOME\MAIL\INTRUPTD
The text of a message which was interrupted by some unexpected
error which Pine detected.
$HOME\MAIL\POSTPOND
A folder of messages which the user chose to postpone.
PC-Pine's help text and help text index file are expected to reside in
the same directory as the PINE.EXE executable, as they are essentially
extensions of the executable. The personal configuration file may be
in the same directory as the executable, or if that is inconvenient
because the executable is on a shared or read-only drive, then it can
be in a file named by the $PINERC environment variable, or in
$HOME\PINE\PINERC, where if not set, $HOME defaults to the root of the
current working drive.
Most of the other support files key off of the location of the PINERC
file. However, in the case of the NEWSRC file, the path $HOME\NEWSRC
is checked first. Also, the postponed messages and interrupted message
folders are placed in the default folder collection, normally in the
directory $HOME\MAIL.
The location of the following support files may be controlled by
variables in the personal or global Pine configuration file:
signature, addressbook (and its index file), postponed messages, and
newsrc.
PC-Pine uses the following environment variables:
PINERC
Overrides default path to pinerc file.
PINECONF
Optional path to global pine config file.
HOME
If not set, Pine uses the root of the current drive, e.g. C:
TMP or TEMP
Specifies location of temporary storage area
COMSPEC
Specifies shell for external commands.
MAILCAPS
A semicolon delimited list of path names to mailcap files.
Command Line Arguments
Pine
Pine and PC-Pine can accept quite a few command-line arguments. Many
of these arguments overlap with variables in the Pine configuration
file. If there is a difference, then a flag set in the command line
takes precedence. Both Pine and PC-Pine expect command line arguments
to be preceded by the "-" (dash) as normally used by UNIX programs.
[address]
Send-to: If you put an unqualified string (or strings) in the
command line, Pine reads them as email addresses. Pine will
startup in the composer with a message started to the
person/people specified. Once the message is sent, the Pine
session closes.
< file
Pine will startup in the composer with file read into the body
of the message. Once the message is sent, the Pine session
closes.
-a
Special anonymous mode for UWIN*.
-c n
When used with the -f option, apply the nth context. This is
used when there are multiple folder collections and you want to
open a folder not in the primary collection.
-conf
Configuration: Prints a sample system configuration file to the
screen or standard output. To generate an initial system
configuration file, execute
pine -conf > /usr/local/lib/pine.conf
To generate a system configuration file using settings from an
old system configuration file, execute
pine -P old-pine.conf -conf > /usr/local/lib/pine.conf
-create_lu addrbook sort-order
Create auxiliary index (LookUp) file for addrbook and sort
addrbook in sort-order, which may be dont-sort, nickname,
fullname, nickname-with-lists-last, or
fullname-with-lists-last. Only useful when creating global or
shared address books.
-d debug-level
Debug Level: Sets the level of debugging information written by
Pine. debug-level can be set to any integer 0-9. A debug level
of 0 turns off debugging for the session. (Actually there are
some levels higher than 9, now, but you probably don't want to
see them.)
-f folder
Startup folder: Pine will open this folder in place of the
standard INBOX.
-F file
Open named text file and view with Pine's browser.
-h
Help: Prints the list of available command-line arguments to
the screen.
-i
Pine will start up in the FOLDER INDEX screen instead of the
MAIN MENU.
Configuration equivalent: initial-keystroke-list=i
-I a,b,c,...
Initial Keystrokes: Pine will execute this comma-separated
sequence of commands upon startup. This allows users to get
Pine to start in any of its menus/screens. You cannot include
any input to the composer in the initial keystrokes. The key
is represented by a ``CR'' in the keystroke list; the
spacebar is designated by the letters ``SPACE''. Control keys
are two character sequences beginning with ``^'', such as
``^I''. A tab character is ``TAB''. Function keys are ``F1'' -
``F12'' and the arrow keys are ``UP'', ``DOWN'', ``LEFT'', and
``RIGHT''.
Configuration equivalent: initial-keystroke-list
-k
Function-Key Mode: When invoked in this way, Pine expects the
input of commands to be function-keys. Otherwise, commands are
linked to the regular character keys. This option supported
only in conjunction with UW Enhanced NCSA telnet.
Configuration equivalent: use-function-keys included in
feature-list.
-l
Folder-List: With "-l" set, Pine will default to an expanded
folder list. This means that the FOLDER LIST screen will always
show all folders in all collections. Default is to show the
folders in the current collection only.
Configuration equivalent: expanded-view-of-folders in
feature-list.
-n n
Message-Number: When specified, Pine starts up in the FOLDER
INDEX screen with the current message being the designated
message number.
-nr
Special mode for UWIN*.
-o folder
Opens the INBOX (or a folder specified via the -f argument)
ReadOnly.
-p file
Uses the named file as the personal configuration file instead
of ~/.pinerc or the default PINERC search sequence PC-Pine
uses.
-P file
Uses the named file as the system wide configuration file
instead of /usr/local/lib/pine.conf. UNIX Pine only.
-pinerc file
Output fresh pinerc configuration to file, preserving the
settings of variables that the user has made. Use file set to
``-'' to make output go to standard out.
-r
Restricted Mode: For UNIX Pine only. Pine in restricted mode
can only send email to itself. Save and export are limited.
-sort key
Sort-Key: Specifies the order messages will be displayed in for
the FOLDER INDEX screen. Key can have the following values:
subject, arrival, date, from, size, orderedsubj,
subject/reverse, arrival/reverse, date/reverse, from/reverse,
size/reverse, orderedsubj/reverse. The default value is
"arrival". The key value reverse is equivalent to
arrival/reverse. This option will be expanded in the future to
allow sorting on "to" and "cc".
Configuration equivalent: sort-key.
-z
Enable Suspend: When run with this flag, the key sequence
ctrl-z will suspend the Pine session.
Configuration equivalent: enable-suspend included in
feature-list.
-option=value
Assign value to the config option option. For example,
-signature-file=sig1 or -feature-list=signature-at-bottom
(Note: feature-list values are additive).
* UWIN = University of Washington Information Navigator
Pico
The following command line options are supported in Pico:
+n
Causes pico to be started with the cursor located n lines
into the file. (Note: no space between "+" sign and
number)
-d
Rebind the "delete" key so the character the cursor is on
is rubbed out rather than the character to its left.
-e
Enable file name completion.
-f
Use function keys for commands. This option supported
only in conjunction with UW Enhanced NCSA telnet.
-g
Enable "Show Cursor" mode in file browser. Cause cursor
to be positioned before the current selection rather than
placed at the lower left of the display.
-k
Causes "Cut Text" command to remove characters from the
cursor position to the end of the line rather than remove
the entire line.
-m
Enable mouse functionality. This only works when
\fIpico\fR is run from within an X Window System "xterm"
window.
-nn
The -nn option enables new mail notification. The n
argument is optional, and specifies how often, in
seconds, your mailbox is checked for new mail. For
example, -n60 causes pico to check for new mail once
every minute. The default interval is 180 seconds, while
the minimum allowed is 30. (Note: no space between "n"
and the number)
-o dir
Sets operating directory. Only files within this
directory are accessible. Likewise, the file browser is
limited to the specified directory subtree.
-rn
Sets column used to limit the "Justify" command's right
margin.
-t
Enable "tool" mode. Intended for when pico is used as the
editor within other tools (e.g., Elm, Pnews). Pico will
not prompt for save on exit, and will not rename the
buffer during the "Write Out" command.
-v
View the file only, disallowing any editing.
-w
Disable word wrap (thus allow editing of long lines).
Note: Pico will break any lines over 255 characters when
reading a file, regardless of word wrapping.
-x
Disable keymenu at the bottom of the screen.
-z
Enable ^Z suspension of pico.
Pilot
The following command line options are supported in Pilot:
-a
Display all files including those beginning with a period
(.).
-f
Use function keys for commands. This option supported
only in conjunction with UW Enhanced NCSA telnet.
-g
Enable "Show Cursor" mode. Cause cursor to be positioned
before the current selection rather than placed at the
lower left of the display.
-m
Enable mouse functionality. This only works when pilot is
run from within an X Window System "xterm" window.
-nn
The -nn option enables new mail notification. The n
argument is optional, and specifies how often, in
seconds, your mailbox is checked for new mail. For
example, -n60 causes pilot to check for new mail once
every minute. The default interval is 180 seconds, while
the minimum allowed is 30. (Note: no space between "n"
and the number)
-o dir
Sets operating directory. Only files within the specified
directory are accessible and browsing is limited to the
specified directory subtree.
-v
Enable single vertical column display.
-x
Disable keymenu at the bottom of the screen.
-z
Enable ^Z suspension of pilot.
Configuration and Preferences
Pine Configuration
There is very little in Pine which requires compile-time
configuration. In most cases, the compiled-in preferences will suit
users and administrators just fine. When running Pine on a UNIX
system, the default built-in configuration can be changed by setting
variables in the system configuration file, /usr/local/lib/pine.conf.
Both Pine and PC-Pine also use personal (user-based) configuration
files. On UNIX machines, the personal configuration file is the file
~/.pinerc. For PC-Pine systems, the personal configuration file is in
$PINERC or $HOME\PINE\PINERC or \PINERC.
The syntax of a non-list configuration variable is this:
=
If the value is absent then the variable is unset. To set a variable
to the empty value the syntax is "". This is equivalent to an absent
value except that it overrides any system-wide value that may be set.
Quotes may be used around any value. All values are strings and end at
the end of the line or the closing quote. Leading and trailing space
is ignored unless it is included in the quotes. For some variables the
only appropriate values are yes and no. There is also a second type of
variable, lists. A list is a comma-separated list of values. The
syntax for a list is:
= [, , ... ]
A list can be continued on subsequent lines by beginning the line with
white-space. Both the per-user and global configuration files may
contain comments which are lines beginning with a #.
For UNIX Pine, there are five ways in which a variable can be set. In
decreasing order of precedence they are:
1. the system-wide fixed configuration file
2. a command line argument
3. the personal configuration file (which is usually set from the
Config screen)
4. the system-wide configuration file
5. default in the source code.
So, system-wide fixed settings always take precedence over command
line flags, which take precedence over per-user settings, which take
precedence over system-wide configuration settings, which take
precedence over source code defaults. PC-Pine has the same precedence,
but it does not use a system-wide fixed configuration file.
You may get a sample/fresh copy of the system configuration file by
running pine -conf. The result will be printed on the standard output
with short comments describing each variable. (The online help in the
Setup/Config screen provides longer comments.) If you need to fix some
of the configuration variables, you would use the same template for
the fixed configuration file as for the regular system-wide
configuration file. (If it isn't clear, the purpose of the fixed
configuration file is to allow system administrators to restrict the
configurability of Pine. It is by no means a bullet-proof method.)
Pine will automatically create the personal configuration file the
first time it is run, so there is no need to generate a sample. Pine
reads and writes the personal configuration file occasionally during
normal operation. Users will not normally look at their personal
configuration file, but will use the Setup/Config screen from within
Pine to set the values in this file. If a user does add additional
comments to the personal configuration file they will be retained.
Pine always writes this file at least once when running, so you can
tell when a user last invoked Pine by checking the date on this file.
References to environment variables may be included in the Pine
configuration files. The format is $variable or ${variable}. The
character ~ will be expanded to the $HOME environment variable.
When environment variables are used for Pine settings which take
lists, you must have an environment variable set for each member of
the list. That is, Pine won't properly recognize an environment
variable which is set equal to a comma-delimited list. It is OK to
reference unset environment variables in the Pine configuration file,
which will expand to nothing.
_________________________________________________________________
General Configuration Variables
The following is a list of all Pine configuration variables, in
alphabetical order. Note that not all variables apply to all versions
of Pine and that some variables are only applicable in a system
configuration file and some are only applicable in a personal
configuration file.
addrbook-sort-rule
This variable sets up the default address book sorting.
Currently, Pine will accept the values dont-sort,
fullname-with-lists-last, fullname, nickname-with-lists-last,
and nickname. The default is to sort by fullname with lists
last.
address-book
A list of personal address books. Each entry in the list is an
optional nickname followed by a pathname or file name relative
to the home directory. This list will be added to the
global-address-book list to arrive at the complete set of
address books.
addressbook-formats
This option specifies the format that address books are
displayed in. Normally, address books are displayed with the
nicknames in the first column, the fullnames in the second
column, and addresses in the third column. The system figures
out reasonable defaults for the widths of the columns. An
address book may be given a different format by listing special
tokens in the order you want them to display. The possible
tokens are NICKNAME, FULLNAME, ADDRESS, FCC, and COMMENT.
alt-addresses
This option provides a place for you to list alternative email
addresses you may have. If set, the option affects the behavior
of the Reply command and the "+" symbol in the Folder Index,
which denotes that a message has been addressed specifically to
you.
With respect to Reply, the reply-to-all option will exclude
addresses listed here.
bugs-additional-data
System-wide configuration file only. Program/Script used by
"Report Bug" command. Output from the program/script is
captured and attached to the bug report.
bugs-nickname, bugs-fullname, bugs-address, local-fullname,
local-address, suggest-fullname, and suggest-address
System-wide configuration file only. These are used by the
Report Bug command.
character-set
This sets the character set used by the terminal. Currently
appropriate values are US-ASCII, ISO-8859-1 through ISO-8859-9
and ISO-2022-JP. See the section on international character
sets for more details. The default is US-ASCII.
composer-wrap-column
This option specifies an aspect of Pine's Composer. This gives
the maximum width that auto-wrapped lines will have. It's also
the maximum width of lines justified using the ^J Justify
command. The normal default is "74". The largest allowed
setting is normally "80" in order to prevent very long lines
from being sent in outgoing mail. When the mail is actually
sent, trailing spaces will be stripped off of each line.
customized-hdrs
Add these custom headers when composing. Also possible to add
default values to these custom headers or to any of the
standard headers. This is a list variable. Each entry in the
list is a header name (the actual header name that will appear
in the message) followed by an optional colon and value. For
example, if a Reply-to header was needed because it was
different from the From address, that could be accomplished
with:
customized-hdrs=Reply-to: fred_flintstone@bedrock.net
default-composer-hdrs
Show only these headers (by default) when composing a message.
This list may include headers defined in the customized-hdrs
list.
default-fcc
The name of the folder to which all outgoing mail goes is set
here. The compiled-in default is sent-mail (UNIX) or sentmail
(PC). It can be set to "" (two double quotes with nothing
between them) to turn off saving copies of outgoing mail. If
the default-fcc is a relative file name, then it is relative to
your default collection for saves (see folder-collections).
default-saved-msg-folder
This option determines the default folder name for Saves... If
this is not a path name, it will be in the default collection
for saves. Any valid folder specification, local or IMAP, is
allowed. This default folder only applies when the
saved-msg-name-rule (see later in this configuration screen)
doesn't override it. Unix Pine default is normally
"saved-messages" in the default folder collection. PC-Pine
default is "SAVEMAIL" (normally stored as SAVEMAIL.MTX).
display-filters
This option defines a list of text-filtering commands (programs
or scripts) that may be used to filter text portions of
received messages prior to their use (e.g., presentation in the
"MESSAGE TEXT" display screen). For security reasons, the full
path name of the filter command must be specified. See the
online help text for further details.
download-command
This option affects the behavior of the Export command. It
specifies a Unix program name, and any necessary command line
arguments, that Pine can use to transfer the exported message
to your personal computer's disk.
download-command-prefix
This option is used in conjunction with the Download-command
option. It defines text to be written to the terminal emulator
(via standard output) immediately prior to starting the
download command. This is useful for integrated serial line
file transfer agents that permit command passing (e.g.,
Kermit's APC method).
editor
UNIX Pine only. Sets the name of the alternate editor for
composing mail (message text only, not headers). It will be
invoked with the "^_" command or it will be invoked
automatically if the enable-alternate-editor-implicitly feature
is set.
fcc-name-rule
Determines default folder name for fcc when composing.
Currently, Pine will accept the values default-fcc,
by-recipient, or last-fcc-used. If set to default-fcc, then
Pine will use the value defined in the default-fcc variable
(which itself has a default) for the Fcc header field. If set
to by-recipient, then Pine will use the name of the recipient
as a folder name for the fcc. The relevant recipient is the
first address in the To field. If set to "last-fcc-used", then
Pine will offer to fcc to whatever folder you used previously.
In all cases, the field can still be edited after it is
initially assigned. If the fcc field in the address book is set
for the first To address, that value over-rides any value
derived from this rule.
feature-list
This is a list of features (options) which may be turned on.
You may also turn features off (the default) by prepending the
characters no- to any of the features. The feature-list is
additive. That is, first the system-wide feature-list is read
and then the user's feature-list is read. This makes it
possible for the system manager to turn some of the features on
by default while still allowing the user to cancel that
default. However, some of the documentation assumes that all of
the features are off by default, so use this with care. In Unix
Pine, features can be individually fixed on or off by setting
the feature on or off in the system-wide fixed configuration
file. Descriptions for most features are omitted here. See the
online help for descriptions of each feature (in the
Setup/Config screen).
Here is the current list of possible features.
allow-talk
assume-slow-link
auto-move-read-msgs
auto-open-next-unread
auto-unzoom-after-apply
auto-zoom-after-select
compose-cut-from-cursor
compose-maps-delete-key-to-ctrl-d
compose-rejects-unqualified-addrs
compose-send-offers-first-filter
compose-sets-newsgroup-without-confirm
delete-skips-deleted
disable-keyboard-lock-cmd
disable-keymenu
disable-config-cmd
disable-password-cmd
disable-signature-edit-cmd
disable-update-cmd
enable-8bit-esmtp-negotiation
enable-8bit-nntp-posting
enable-aggregate-command-set
enable-alternate-editor-cmd
enable-alternate-editor-implicitly
enable-bounce-cmd
enable-cruise-mode
enable-cruise-mode-delete
enable-dot-files
enable-dot-folders
enable-flag-cmd
enable-flag-screen-implicitly
enable-full-header-cmd
enable-incoming-folders
enable-jump-shortcut
enable-mail-check-cue
enable-mouse-in-xterm
enable-suspend
enable-tab-completion
enable-unix-pipe-cmd
enable-verbose-smtp-posting
expanded-view-of-addressbooks
expanded-view-of-folders
expunge-without-confirm
fcc-on-bounce
include-attachments-in-reply
include-header-in-reply
include-text-in-reply
news-post-without-validation
news-read-in-newsrc-order
pass-control-characters-as-is
preserve-start-stop-characters
print-formfeed-between-messages
print-offers-custom-cmd-prompt
print-index-enabled
quell-dead-letter-on-cancel
quell-lock-failure-warnings
quell-status-message-beeping
quit-without-confirm
reply-always-uses-reply-to
save-aggregates-copy-sequence
save-will-quote-leading-froms
save-will-not-delete
save-will-advance
select-without-confirm
show-cursor
show-selected-in-boldface
signature-at-bottom
single-column-folder-list
tab-visits-next-new-message-only
use-current-dir
use-function-keys
use-sender-not-x-sender
user-lookup-even-if-domain-mismatch
The four disable- features and the use-function-keys feature
are intentionally suppressed from the Config screen, as they
are intended for use by system administrators in the
system-wide fixed config file. Their meaning should be
self-explanatory.
The save-aggregates-copy-sequence feature is suppressed from
the config screen. This feature will optimize an aggregate copy
operation, if possible, by issuing a single COPY command with a
list of the messages to be copied. This may save network
traffic when the source and destination folders are on the same
IMAP server. However, many IMAP servers (including the UW IMAP
server) do not preserve the order of messages when this
optimization is applied. If this feature is not enabled, or if
the folders are on different IMAP servers, or the folders are
local and in different formats, Pine will copy each message
individually.
folder-collections
This is a list of one or more collections where saved mail is
stored. See the sections describing folder collections and
collection syntax for more information. The first collection in
this list is the default collection for saves, including
default-fcc's.
font-name
Winsock version of PC Pine only.
font-size
Winsock version of PC Pine only.
forced-abook-entry
System-wide Pine configuration file only. Force these address
book entries into all writable personal address books.
global-address-book
A list of shared address books. Each entry in the list is an
optional nickname followed by a pathname or file name relative
to the home directory. This list will be added to the
address-book list to arrive at the complete set of address
books. Global address books are defined to be readonly.
goto-default-rule
This value affects Pine's behavior when you use the Goto
command. There are three possible values for this option:
inbox-or-folder-in-recent-collection
If your current folder is "Inbox", Pine will offer the
last open folder as the default. If the current folder is
other than "Inbox", "Inbox" is offered as the default.
inbox-or-folder-in-first-collection
The second accepted value is a variation on the default
which again offers "Inbox" if it isn't currently open,
but otherwise offers the most recent folder in the first
collection found in the "FOLDER LIST" screen.
most-recent-folder
The last accepted value simply causes the most recently
opened folder to be offered as the default regardless of
the currently opened folder.
NOTE: The default while a newsgroup is open remains the same;
the last open newsgroup.
image-viewer
This variable names the program to call for displaying parts of
a MIME message that are of type IMAGE. If your system supports
the mailcap system, you don't need to set this variable.
inbox-path
This specifies the name of the folder to use for the INBOX.
Normally this is unset so the system's default is used. The
most common reason for setting this is to open an IMAP mailbox
for the INBOX. For example, {imap5.u.example.edu}inbox will
open the user's standard INBOX on the mail server, imap5.
incoming-archive-folders
This is like Read-Message-Folder, only more general. This is a
list of folder pairs, with the first separated from the second
in the pair by a space. The first folder in a pair is the
folder you want to archive, and the second folder is the folder
that read messages from the first should be moved to. Depending
on how you define the "auto-move-read-messages" setting in the
"feature-list", you may or may not be asked when you leave the
first folder if you want read messages to be moved to the
second folder. In either case, moving the messages means they
will be deleted from the first folder.
If these are not path names, they will be in the default
collection for saves. Any valid folder specification, local or
remote (via IMAP), is allowed. There is no default.
incoming-folders
This is a list of one or more folders other than INBOX that may
receive new messages. This list is slightly special in that it
is always expanded in the folder lister. In the future, it may
become more special. For example, it would be nice if Pine
would monitor the folders in this list for new mail.
index-format
This option specifies the format that folder indexes are
displayed in. Normally, the system figures out reasonable
defaults for the widths of the columns of the index display. A
non-standard display format can be used by listing special
tokens in the order you want them to display. The tokens are
STATUS, FULLSTATUS, MSGNO, DATE, SIZE, DESCRIPSIZE, SUBJECT,
FROMORTO, FROM, and TO. The tokens are separated by spaces.
Each of the tokens may also be optionally followed by
parentheses with either a number or a percentage inside the
parentheses.
initial-keystroke-list
This is a comma-separated list of keystrokes which Pine
executes on startup. Items in the list are usually just
characters, but there are some special values. SPACE, TAB, and
CR mean a space character, tab character, and a carriage
return, respectively. F1 through F12 stand for the twelve
function keys. UP, DOWN, LEFT, and RIGHT stand for the arrow
keys. Control characters are represented with ^. A
restriction is that you can't mix function keys and character
keys in this list even though you can, in some cases, mix them
when running Pine. A user can always use only character keys in
the startup list even if he or she is using function keys
normally, or vice versa.
kblock-passwd-count
System-wide Pine configuration file only. number of times a
user will have to enter a password when they run the keyboard
lock command in the main menu.
last-time-prune-questioned
Personal configuration file only. This variable records the
month the user was last asked if his or her sent-mail folders
should be pruned. The format is yy.mm. This is automatically
updated by Pine when the the pruning is done or declined. If a
user wanted to make Pine stop asking this question he or she
could set this time to something far in the future.
last-version-used
Personal configuration file only. This is set automatically by
Pine. It is used to keep track of the last version of Pine that
was run by the user. Whenever the version number increases, a
new version message is printed out.
mail-check-interval
This options specifies, in seconds, how often Pine will check
for new mail. If set to zero, new-mail checking is disabled.
There is a minimum value, normally 15 seconds.
mail-directory
This variable was more important in previous versions of Pine.
Now it is used only as the default for storing personal folders
(and only if there are no folder-collections defined). The
default value is ~/mail on UNIX and $HOME\MAIL on a PC.
mailcap-search-path
This variable is used to replace Pine's default mailcap file
search path. It takes one or more file names (full paths must
be specified) in which to look for mail capability data.
mimetype-search-path
This variable is used to replace Pine's default mime.types file
search path. It takes one or more file names (full paths must
be specified) in which to look for file-name-extension to MIME
type mapping data. See the Config Notes for details on Pine's
usage of the MIME.Types File.
news-active-file-path
This option tells Pine where to look for the "active file" for
newsgroups when accessing news locally, rather than via NNTP.
The default path is usually "/usr/lib/news/active".
news-collections
This is a list of collections where news folders are located.
See the section describing collections for more information.
news-spool-directory
This option tells Pine where to look for the "news spool" for
newsgroups when accessing news locally, rather than via NNTP.
The default path is usually "/usr/spool/news".
newsrc-path
This option overrides the default name Pine uses for your
"newsrc" news status and subscription file. If set, Pine will
take this value as the full pathname for the desired newsrc
file.
nntp-server
One or more NNTP servers (host name or IP address) which Pine
will use for outgoing news. If you read and post news to and
from a single NNTP server, you can get away with only setting
the nntp-server variable and leaving the news-collections
variable unset.
normal-background-color
PC-Pine only. Currently, Pine will accept the colors black,
blue, green, cyan, red, magenta, yellow, or white.
normal-foreground-color
PC-Pine only. See normal-background-color for possible colors.
operating-dir
System-wide Pine configuration file only. This names the root
of the tree to which the user is restricted when reading and
writing folders and files.
personal-name
Personal configuration file only (not applicable in global
config. file). User's full personal name. On UNIX systems, the
default is taken from the accounts data base (/etc/passwd).
personal-print-command
UNIX personal configuration file only. This corresponds to item
3 in the printer menu. This variable retains the value of
personal-print-command when the printer is set to something
other than item 3. The personal-print-command can be set within
Pine using the printer setup menu.
postponed-folder
The folder where postponed messages are stored. The default is
postponed-msgs (Unix) or POSTPOND (PC).
printer
UNIX Pine only. This is the current setting for a user's
printer. This variable is set from Pine's printer-setup
function. The value must be either
+ "attached-to-ansi" -or-
+ the value of personal-print-command -or-
+ the value of standard-printer from the system-wide
configuration.
pruned-folders
This variable allows you to define a list of one or more
folders that Pine will offer to prune for you in the same way
it automatically offers to prune your "sent-mail" folder each
month. That is, once a month for each folder listed, Pine will
offer to move the contents of the folder to a new folder of the
same name but with the previous month's date appended. Pine
will then look for any such date-appended folder names created
for a previous month, and offer each one it finds for deletion.
If you decline the first offer, no mail is moved and no new
folder is created. Folders listed are assumed to exist, and the
archive folders will be created, in the first collection
defined by the "folder-collections" variable.
read-message-folder
If set, mail in the INBOX that has been read but not deleted is
moved here, or rather, the user is asked whether or not he or
she wants to move it here upon quitting Pine.
reply-indent-string
This variable specifies an aspect of Pine's Reply command. When
a message is replied to and the text of the message is
included, that text usually has the string "> " prepended to
each line to indicate quoting.
This variable specifies a different value for that string. If
you wish to use a string which begins or ends with a space,
enclose the string in double quotes.
You can also include the sender's name in the prepended string.
The first occurrence of "_FROM_" in the reply-indent-string
will be replaced with the "username" portion of the address
being replied to.
The normal default is "> ".
reverse-background-color
PC-Pine only. See normal-background-color for possible colors.
reverse-foreground-color
PC-Pine only. See normal-background-color for possible colors.
saved-msg-name-rule
Determines default folder name when saving. Currently, Pine
will accept the values "default-folder", "by-sender",
"by-from", "by-recipient", or "last-folder-used". If set to
default-folder, then Pine will offer the folder
"saved-messages" (UNIX) or "SAVEMAIL" (PC) for saving messages.
If set to by-from, then Pine will offer to save the message in
a folder with the same name as the From, if there is one, or
the Sender otherwise. If set to by-sender, then Pine will offer
to save the message in a folder with the same name as the
Sender, if there is one, or the From otherwise. If set to
by-recipient, then Pine will offer to save the message in a
folder with the same name as the recipient, which is the
newsgroup if this was sent to a newsgroup or the To address if
not. If set to "last-folder-used", then Pine will offer to save
in whatever folder you used previously.
sending-filters
This option defines a list of text-filtering commands (programs
and scripts) that may be selectively invoked to process a
message just before it is sent. If set, the Composer's ^X
(Send) command will allow you to select which filter (or none)
to apply to the message before it is sent. For security
reasons, the full path of the filter program must be specified.
See the online help text for further details.
sendmail-path
System-wide Pine configuration file only. This names the path
to an alternative program, and any necessary arguments, to be
used in posting mail messages.
signature-file
Names the file to be included as the signature. This defaults
to ~/.signature on UNIX and \PINE.SIG on a
PC.
smtp-server
One or more SMTP servers (host name or IP address) which Pine
will use for outgoing mail. If not set, Pine passes outgoing
email to the sendmail program on the local machine. PC-Pine
users must have this variable set in order to send mail as they
have no sendmail program. An alternate port may be specified by
appending :port to the host name or IP address. See the SMTP
Servers section for details.
sort-key
This variable sets up the default index sorting. The default is
to sort by arrival order. It has the same functionality as the
-sort command line argument and the $ command in the folder
index. If a sort-key is set, then all folders open during the
session will have that as the default sort order.
speller
This option affects the behavior of the ^T (spell check)
command in the Composer. It specifies the program invoked by ^T
in the Composer. By default, Pine uses the system's "spell"
command. Pine will use the command defined by this option (if
any) instead. When invoking the spell-checking program, Pine
appends a tempfile name (where the message is passed) to the
command line.
standard-printer
System-wide configuration file only. Specifies the command for
printer selection number 2 on the printer menu. Unix only.
status-message-delay
If this is set to a positive number, it causes the cursor to
move to the status line whenever a status message is printed
and pause there for this many seconds. It will probably only be
useful if the show-cursor feature is also turned on.
upload-command
This option affects the behavior of the Composer's "Read File"
(^R in the message body) and "Attach File" (^J in the header)
commands. It specifies a Unix program name, and any necessary
command line arguments, that Pine can use to transfer files
from your personal computer into messages that you are
composing.
upload-command-prefix
This option is used in conjunction with the Upload-command
option. It defines text to be written to the terminal emulator
(via standard output) immediately prior to starting upload
command. This is useful for integrated serial line file
transfer agents that permit command passing (e.g., Kermit's APC
method).
use-only-domain-name
Can be set to yes or no. At this point anything but yes means
no. If set to yes the first label in the host name will be
lopped off to get the domain name and the domain name will be
used for outgoing mail and such. That is, if the host name is
carson.u.example.edu and this variable is set to yes, then
u.example.edu will be used on outgoing mail. Only meaningful if
user-domain is NOT set.
user-domain
Sets the domain or host name for the user, overriding the
system host or domain name. See the domain name section.
user-id
PC-Pine only. Sets the username that is placed on all outgoing
messages.
viewer-hdrs
You may change the default list of headers that are viewed by
listing the headers you want to view here. If the headers in
your "viewer-hdrs" list are present in the message, then they
will be shown. The order of the headers you list will be
honored. If the special value "all-except" is included as the
first header in the "viewer-hdrs" list, then all headers in the
message except those in the list will be shown. The values are
all case insensitive.
viewer-overlap
This option specifies an aspect of Pine's Message Viewing
screen. When the space bar is used to page forward in a
message, the number of lines specified by the "viewer-overlap"
variable will be repeated from the bottom of the screen. That
is, if this was set to two lines, then the bottom two lines of
the screen would be repeated on the top of the next screen. The
normal default value is "2".
window-position
Winsock version of PC Pine only. Window position in the format:
CxR+X+Yn Where C and R are the window size in characters and X
and Y are the screen position of the top left corner of the
window.
_________________________________________________________________
Retired Variables
Variables that are no longer used by the current Pine version. When an
obsolete variable is encountered, its value is applied to any new
corresponding setting and a comment is place before it noting that it
is no longer in used. The replaced values at the time of this document
include:
elm-style-save
Replaced by saved-msg-name-rule
feature-level
Replaced by feature-list.
header-in-reply
Replaced by include-header-in-reply in the feature-list.
old-style-reply
Replaced by signature-at-bottom in the feature-list.
save-by-sender
Replaced by saved-msg-name-rule.
show-all-characters
No replacement, it always works this way now.
_________________________________________________________________
Notes on Configuration and Preferences
Pine in Function Key Mode
The standard Pine uses alphabetic keys for most commands, and control
keys in the composer. Despite possible appearances, the current
bindings are the result of much discussion and thought. All the
commands in the composer are single control characters. This keeps
things very neat and simple for users. Two character commands in the
composer are a possibility, but we're trying to avoid them because of
the added complexity for the user.
Pine can also operate in a function-key mode. To go into this mode
invoke pine -k or (on some UNIX systems) pinef. On a UNIX system, you
can link or copy the pine executable to pinef to install pinef.
Alternatively, users and systems administrators can set the
use-function-keys feature in the personal or system-wide Pine
configuration file. The command menus at the bottom of the screen will
show F1-F12 instead of the alphabetic commands. In addition, the help
screens will be written in terms of function keys and not alphabetic
keys.
One of the results of using Pine in function-key mode is that users
can only choose from twelve commands at any given time. In
alphabetic-key mode, a user can press a key for a command (say, q to
quit) and that command can be fulfilled. In function-key mode, the
command must be visible on the bottom key-menu in order to be used.
There are some screens where 34 commands are operational; function-key
users can get to all of them, just not all at once.
_________________________________________________________________
Domain Settings
Pine uses the default domain for a few different tasks. First, it is
tacked onto the user-id for outgoing email. Second, it is tacked onto
all "local" (unqualified) addresses in the "To:" or "Cc:" fields of
messages being composed (unless they are found in the address book).
The domain name is also used to generate message-id lines for each
outgoing message and to allow Pine to check if an address is that of
the current Pine user.
Pine determines the domain name according to whichever of these it
finds. The list here is in decreasing order of precedence.
1. Value of the variable user-domain in the system fixed
configuration file
2. Value of the variable user-domain in the personal configuration
file
3. Value of the variable user-domain is the system-wide configuration
file
4. Value from an external database (DNS, /etc/hosts, NIS) as modified
by a system fixed configuration file if use-domain-name-only set
to "yes"
5. Value from an external database (DNS, /etc/hosts, NIS) as modified
by a personal configuration file if use-domain-name-only set to
"yes"
6. Value from an external database (DNS, /etc/hosts, NIS) as modified
by a system configuration file if use-domain-name-only set to
"yes"
7. Unmodified value (host name) from an external database
The easiest way for this system to work is for PC-Pine users and UNIX
Pine system administrators to set the user-domain variable. The
variable use-only-domain-name is helpful if your site
supports/requires hostless addressing, but for some reason you don't
want to use the user-domain variable.
A new feature in 3.90 is called user-lookup-even-if-domain-mismatch.
This will cause the personal name field to be looked up from the
password file even if the domain of an address isn't a substring of
the local host name. See the online help in the Setup/Config screen
for full information.
_________________________________________________________________
Syntax for Collections
In many environments, it is quite common to have collections of
archived mail on various hosts around the network. Using the folder
collections facility in Pine, access to these archives is just as
simple as access to folders on Pine's local disk.
"Collection" is the word we use in Pine to describe a set of folders.
A collection corresponds loosely to a "directory" containing mail
folders. Folders within a defined collection can be manipulated
(opened, saved-to, etc) using just their simple name. Any number of
folder collections can be defined, and pine will adjust its menus and
prompts to help navigate them.
The way collections are defined in Pine is with the folder-collections
variable in the Pine configuration file. Folder-collections takes a
list of one or more collections, each (optionally) preceded by a
user-defined logical name (label). Once collections are defined, Pine
adjusts its menus and behavior to allow choosing files by their simple
name within the collection. Collections are always defined in the
configuration file; there is no time that Pine will ever ask a
question which requires a user to input a collection specifier. This
might change in the future if/when the Goto command is extended to
allow jumping to a collection/directory as well as an individual
folder.
Consider the following:
folder-collections= Local-Mail C:\MAIL\[],
Remote-Mail {imap.u.example.edu}mail/[]
The example shows two collections defined (a comma separated list;
newlines in the list are OK if there's one or more spaces before the
next entry), one local and one remote. Each collection is a
space-delimited pair of elements-first an optional logical-name and
second the collection specifier. The logical-name can have spaces if
it has quotes around it (but keeping the logical name short and
descriptive works best). Pine will use the logical-name (if provided)
to reference all folders in the collection, so the user never has to
see the ugliness of the collection specifier.
The collection specifier can be thought of as an extended IMAP format
(see the "Remote Folders" section for a description of IMAP format
names). Basically, a pair of square-brackets are placed in the fully
qualified IMAP path where the simple folder name (the part without the
host name and path) would appear. Like IMAP, the path can be either
fully qualified (i.e., with a leading '/') or relative to your home
directory.
An advanced feature of this notation is that a pattern within the
square brackets allows the user to define a collection to be a subset
of a directory. For example, a collection defined with the specifier:
M-Mail C:MAIL/[m*]
will provide a view in the folder lister of all folders in the PC's
"C:MAIL" directory that start with the letter 'm' (case insensitive
under DOS, of course). Further, the wildcard matching will honor
characters trailing the '*' in the pattern.
From within Pine, the FOLDER LIST display will be adjusted to allow
browsing of the folders in any defined collection. Even more, you'll
notice in the Goto and Save commands a pair of sub-commands to rotate
through the list of logical collection names, so only a simple name
need be input in order to operate on a folder in any collection.
The first collection specified in the folder-collections has special
significance. That folder is the "default collection for saves". In
cases where the user does not specify which collection should be used
to save a message, the default collection for saves will be used.
Also, if the default-fcc is a relative file name, then it is relative
to the default collection for saves.
The notion of collections encompasses both email folders and news
reading. The variable news-collections uses nearly the same format as
folder-collections. Newsgroups can be defined for convenient access
via either IMAP or NNTP. There are advantages and disadvantages to
both access methods. In the IMAP case, your news environment state is
maintained on the server and, thus, will be seen by any client. The
downside is that, at the moment, you must have an account on the
server. In the NNTP case, server access is mostly anonymous and no
state/accounting need be maintained on it. The downside is that each
client, for now, must individually maintain news environment state.
An example pinerc entry might be:
news-collections= Remote-State *{news.u.example.edu}[],
Local-State *{news.u.example.edu/nntp}[]
Note that each news collection must be preceded by a '*' to indicate
non-mail access. Only newsgroups to which you are subscribed are
included in the collection.
The pattern matching facility can be applied so as to define a news
collection which is a subset of all the newsgroups you subscribe to.
For example, this could be a valid collection:
Newsfeed-News *{news.u.example.edu/nntp}[clari.*]
Collection handling is a tough problem to solve in a general way, and
the explanation of the syntax is a bit ugly. The upside is, hopefully,
that for a little complexity in the Pine configuration file you get
simple management of multiple folders in diverse locations.
_________________________________________________________________
Syntax for Remote Folders
Remote folders are distinguished from local folders by a leading host
name bracketed by '{' and '}'. The path and folder name immediately
following the closing bracket, '}', is interpreted by the IMAP server
and is in a form compatible with that server (i.e., path delimiters
and naming syntax relative to that server).
Typically, a folder name without any path description is understood to
reside in the user's "home directory" (i.e., in some way the user's
personal, writable file area), as are incomplete path designations.
However, the IMAP specification does not require that unqualified
folder names live in one's home directory, so some IMAP servers may
require fully qualified names. An example of a remote folder
specification would be,
{mailhost.cac.washington.edu}mail/saved-messages
This example simply specifies a folder named ``saved-messages'' on the
imap server ``mailhost.cac.washington.edu'', in the ``mail''
subdirectory of the user's home directory. Easy isn't it?
To confuse things a bit, qualifiers are permitted within the brackets
following the host name. These qualifiers consist of a slash, '/'
character followed by a keyword or keyword and value equality, and
have the effect of modifying how the connection is made to the host
specified. An example of such a specification might be,
*{pine.cac.washington.edu/anonymous}updates
Another example might be,
*{news.u.washington.edu/nntp}comp.mail.mime
Both of these examples illustrate a different qualifier. The first,
specifying ``anonymous'' access to the IMAP server on
``pine.cac.washington.edu''. The second is interesting in that it
specifies an altogether different access method: access via the
Network News Transport Protocol (NNTP). Both examples bring to light
one remaining subtlety. The leading ``*'' tells pine to treat the
remote folder as a Bulletin-Board (i.e., typically a shared, read-only
resource) and to adjusts its behavior accordingly.
_________________________________________________________________
Sorting a Folder
The mail index may be sorted by subject, size, sender, date, or
arrival order. Each sort order can also be reversed. The $ command
will prompt the user for the sort order. The sort order can also be
specified on the command line with the -sort flag or (equivalently)
with the sort-key variable in the .pinerc file. When a user changes
folders, the sort order will go back to the original sort order. The
command line (-sort) or configuration file sort specification
(sort-key) changes the original sort order.
When a folder is sorted and new mail arrives in the folder it will be
inserted in its properly sorted place. This can be a little odd when
the folder is sorted by something like the subject. It can also be a
little slow if you are viewing a large, sorted INBOX, since the INBOX
will have to be re-sorted whenever new mail arrives.
The sorts are all independent of case and ignore leading or trailing
white space. There are actually two forms of subject sort. One called
"Subject" and the other called "OrderedSubj". They both ignore "Re:"
at the beginning and "(fwd)" at the end of the subjects. Subject sorts
all the subjects alphabetically. OrderedSubj sorts by subjects
alphabetically, groups messages with the same subject
(pseudo-threads), then sorts the groups by the date of the first
message of the group. The sort by sender sorts by the userid, not the
full name. The arrival sort is basically no sort at all and the date
sort depends on the format of the date. Some dates are in strange
formats and are unparsable. The time zone is also taken into account.
Sorting large mail folders can be very slow since it requires fetching
all the headers of the mail messages. With UNIX Pine, only the first
sort is slow since Pine keeps a copy of all the headers. One exception
is sorting in reverse arrival order. This is fast because no headers
have to be examined. Pine will show progress as it is sorting.
_________________________________________________________________
Alternate Editor
In the Pine composer you can use any text editor, such as vi or emacs,
for composing the message text. The addresses and subject still must
be edited using the standard Pine composer. If you include the feature
enable-alternate-editor-cmd in your .pinerc you can type ^_ while in
the body of the message in the composer and be prompted for the
editor. If you also set the editor variable in your .pinerc then ^_
will invoke the configured editor when you type it.
Turning on the feature enable-alternate-editor-implicitly will
automatically invoke the editor you have defined with the editor
variable whenever you enter the body of a message you are composing.
For example, when you move out of the last header line and into the
body of the message, the alternate editor will be automatically
invoked.
We know that many people would like to use the alternate editor to
edit the mail header as well. We considered several designs for this
and didn't come up with one that we liked and that was easy to
implement. One of the main problems is that you lose access to the
address book.
_________________________________________________________________
Signatures and Signature Placement
If the file ~/.signature (UNIX) or \PINE.SIG (PC)
exists, it will be included in all outgoing messages. It is included
before composition starts so that the user has a chance to edit it out
if he or she likes. The file name for the signature can be changed by
setting the signature-file variable in the .pinerc. There is no way to
have Pine include different signatures in different outgoing messages
automatically. You can do this by hand, however, by having multiple
signature files (.sig1, .sig2, .sig3, etc) and choosing to include (^R
in the composer) the correct one for the message being sent.
Pine's default behavior encourages a user to put his or her
contribution before the inclusion of the original text of the message
being forwarded or replied to, This is contrary to some conventions,
but makes the conversation more readable when a long original message
is included in a reply for context. The reader doesn't have to scroll
through the original text that he or she has probably already seen to
find the new text. If the reader wishes to see the old message(s), the
reader can scroll further into the message. Users who prefer to add
their input at the end of a message should set the signature-at-bottom
feature in the feature-list. The signature will then be appended to
the end of the message after any included text. This feature applies
when replying, not when forwarding.
_________________________________________________________________
Feature List Variable
Pine used to have feature levels for users with different amounts of
experience. We found that this was too restrictive. Pine now has a
feature-list instead. Each user may pick and choose which features
they would like enabled (simple to do in the Setup/Config screen).
There is a short on-line help explaining the effect of each of the
features in the Setup/Config screen. When the cursor is highlighting a
feature, the "?" command will show the help text for that feature.
Features don't have values, they are just turned on or off. They are
all off by default.
The feature-list variable is different from all other configuration
variables in that its value is additive. That is, the system-wide
configuration file can have some features turned on by default. The
user can select other features in their personal configuration file
and those features will be added to the set of features turned on in
the system-wide configuration file. (With all other configuration
variables, the user's values replace the system-wide values.)
Likewise, additional features may be set on the command-line with the
argument "-feature-list=". These will be added to the others.
The treatment of feature-list in the system-wide fixed configuration
file is also different from other variables. The system management can
fix the value of individual features by placing them in the fixed
configuration file. Users will not be able to alter those features,
but will still be able to set the other non-restricted features the
way they like.
Because feature-list is additive, there is a way to turn features off
as well as on. Prepending the prefix "no-" to any feature sets it to
off. This is useful for over-riding the system-wide default in the
personal configuration file or for over-riding the system-wide default
or the personal configuration value on the command line. For example,
if the system-wide default configuration has the quit-without-confirm
feature set, the user can over-ride that (and turn it off) by
including no-quit-without-confirm in the personal configuration file
or by giving the command line argument
-feature-list=no-quit-without-confirm. More features (options) will no
doubt continue to be added.
_________________________________________________________________
SMTP Servers
It is sometimes desireable to set smtp-server=localhost instead of
setting sendmail-path to overcome the inability to negotiate ESMTP
options when sendmail is invoked with the -t option. Sendmail can also
be subject to unacceptable delays due to slow DNS lookups and other
problems.
It is sometimes desireable to configure an SMTP server on a port other
than the default port 25. This may be used to provide an alternate
service that is optimized for a particular environment or provides
different features from the port 25 server. An example would be a
program that negotiates ESMTP options and queues a message, but does
not attempt to deliver messages. This would avoid delays frequently
encountered when invoking sendmail directly.
A typical configuration would consist of
* A program that implements the SMTP or ESMTP protocol via stdio.
* An entry in /etc/services for the alternate service.
* An entry in /etc/inetd.conf for the alternate service.
* An entry in /usr/local/lib/pine.conf,
/usr/local/lib/pine.conf.fixed or ~/.pinerc.
_________________________________________________________________
MIME.Types file
Pine's MIME-TYPE support is based on code contributed by Hans Drexler
<drexler@mpi.nl>. Pine assigns MIME Content-Types types
according to file name extensions found in a system wide files
/usr/local/lib/mime.types and /etc/mime.types, and a user specific
~/.mime.types file.
In DOS and OS/2, Pine looks in the same directory as the PINERC file
and the same dir as PINE.EXE. This is similar to the UNIX situation
with personal config info coming before potentially shared config
data. An alternate search path can be specified by setting
mimetype-search-path variable in the user or system-wide configuration
or by setting the MIMETYPES environment variable.
These files specify file extensions that will be connected to a mime
type. Lines beginning with a '#' character are treated as comments and
ignored. All other lines are treated as a mime type definition. The
first word is a type/subtype specification. All following words are
file extensions belonging to that type/subtype. Words are separated by
whitespace characters. If a file extension occurs more than once, then
the first definition determines the file type and subtype.
_________________________________________________________________
Additional Notes on PC-Pine
Below are a few odds and ends worth mentioning about PC-Pine. They
have to do with DOS-specific behavior that is either necessary or
useful (and sometimes both!).
As PC-Pine runs in an environment with limited access control,
accounting or auditing, an additional line is automatically inserted
into the header of mail messages generated by PC-Pine:
X-Sender: @
By popular demand of system administrators, PC-Pine has been modified
to prevent sending messages until the user has successfully logged
into a remote mail server. Even though PC-Pine cannot prevent users
from changing the apparent identity of the sender of a message, the
IMAP server login name host name included in the X-Sender line provide
some level of traceability by the recipient. However, this should not
be considered a rigorous form of authentication. It is extremely
lightweight, and is not a replacement for true authentication.
Hand in hand with authentication and accounting is user information.
Since PC-Pine has no user database to consult for user-id,
personal-name, etc., necessary information must be provided by the
user/installer before PC-Pine can properly construct the "From"
address required for outbound messages. PC-Pine will, by default,
prompt for the requisite pieces as they are needed. This information
corresponds to the PINERC variables user-id, personal-name,
user-domain, and smtp-server.
The user is then asked whether or not this information should
automatically be saved to the PINERC. This is useful behavior in
general, but can lead to problems in a lab or other shared
environment. Hence, these prompts and automatic saving of
configuration can be turned off on an entry by entry basis by setting
any of the above values in the PINERC to the null string (i.e., a pair
of double quotes). This means that the user will be prompted for the
information once during each pine session, and no opportunity to save
them in the PINERC will be offered.
Along similar lines, a feature allowing automatic login to the
imap-server containing the user's INBOX has also been requested. This
feature is not enabled by default, but requires the existence of the
file named PINE.PWD in the same directory as the PINERC. Even with the
existence of this file, the user must still acknowledge a prompt
before the password is saved to the file. If PC-Pine is configured to
access several different IMAP servers, each password entered will be
kept (associated with the corresponding host name) in memory during
the current session, and optionally, in the PINE.PWD file for use in
subsequent sessions.
WARNING! Use this feature with caution! It effectively makes the
user's mail no more secure than the physical security of the machine
running PC-Pine. What's more, while the password is cloaked by a mild
(some might say, feeble) encryption scheme, it is nonetheless sitting
in a file on the PC's disk and subject to cracking by anyone with
access to it. BEWARE!
Another feature of DOS is the lack of standard scratch area for
temporary files. During the course of a session, PC-Pine may require
numerous temporary files (large message texts, various caches, etc.).
Where to create them can be a problem, particularly when running under
certain network operating systems. PC-Pine observes the TMP and TEMP
environment variables, and creates temporary files in the directory
specified by either. In their absence, PC-Pine creates these files in
the root of the current working drive.
Behind the Scenes
Many people ask how certain Pine features are implemented. This
section outlines some of the details.
Address Books
The address book file is named, by default, .addressbook in the user's
Unix home directory, or in the case of PC-Pine, ADDRBOOK, in the save
directory as the PINERC file. There may be more than one address book,
and the default name can be over-ridden via an entry in any of the
Pine configuration files. The two configuration variables address-book
and global-address-book are used to specify the file names of the
address books. Each of these variables is a list variable. The total
set of address books for a user is the combination of all the address
books specified in these two lists. Each entry in the list is an
optional nickname followed by a file name. The nickname is everything
up to the last space before the file name. The global-address-book
list will typically be configured in the system-wide configuration
file, though a user may over-ride it like most other variables.
Address books which are listed in the global-address-book variable are
forced read-only, and are typically shared among multiple users.
Address books are simple text files with lines in the format:
TABTABTABTAB
The last two fields are optional. A "line" may be made up of multiple
actual lines in the file by using continuation lines, which are lines
beginning with SPACE characters. The line breaks may be after TABS or
in between addresses in a distribution list.
Nicknames (the first field) are short names that the user types
instead of typing in the full address. There are several characters
which aren't allowed in nicknames in order to avoid ambiguity when
parsing the address (for example: spaces, commas, "@", ...).
The fullname field is usually stored as Last_name, First_name, in
order that a sort on the fullname field comes out right. If there is a
comma in the fullname, Pine will flip the first and last name around
and get rid of the comma when using the entry in a composition. It
isn't required that there be a comma, that's only useful if the user
wants the entries to sort on last names.
The address field takes one of two forms, depending on whether the
entry is a single (simple) address or a distribution list. For a
simple entry, the address field is the email-address part of the
address, i.e., the part that goes inside the brackets (<>). It is
combined with the fullname field to form the complete address. For a
distribution list, the is in the format:
"(" , , , ... ")"
Unlike the simple entry case, each of the addresses in a list can be a
full RFC 822 address with fullname included, or it may be just the
same as in the simple case. This way you can have a list which
includes the fullnames of all the list members. In both the simple and
list cases, addresses may also be other nicknames which appear in this
address book or in one of the other address books. (Those nicknames
are searched for by looking through the address books in the order
they appear in the address book screen, with the first match winning.)
Lists may be nested. If addresses refer to each other in a loop this
is detected and flagged. The address will be changed to "**** address
loop ****".
The optional fcc field is a folder name, just like the fcc field in
the composer headers. If the first address in the To field of a
composition comes from an address book entry with an fcc field, then
that fcc is placed in the fcc header in the composer.
The comments field is just a free text field for storing comments
about an entry. Neither the fcc nor the comments field is normally
shown on the screen in the address book screen. You can only see them
by Editing them. You may also search them with the WhereIs command.
The address book is displayed in the order that it is sorted in the
file. When the user chooses a different sorting criterion, the file is
actually sorted, not just the view of the file.
When the address book is written out, it is first written to a
temporary file and if that write is successful it is renamed
correctly. This guards against errors writing the file that might
destroy the whole address book. The address book is re-written after
each change.
The end-of-line character(s) in the address book file are those native
to the system writing it. So it is on Unix and on PC's.
However, both Unix and PC versions of Pine can read either format, so
it should be possible to share a read-only address book among the two
populations (using NFS, for example). The end-of-line character for
the LookUp file is always just , even on a PC. There is not
currently any method built into Pine to access a remote address book
(through IMAP or something like that). The only sharing possible is
via some external remote file system or copying. It is very likely
that a future version of Pine will be able to access remote address
books using IMSP, when that becomes standardized and available.
_________________________________________________________________
Address Book Lookup File
Starting in 3.90 there is an additional file for each address book,
called the LookUp file. It usually has the same name as the address
book file with the suffix ".lu" appended. (It might have a different
name if a file name length restriction prohibited that name.) This
file is created and maintained by Pine. Its purpose is to speed up
lookups for large address books and to reduce memory requirements for
large address books. A fairly detailed description of how it is used
is given in src/pine/adrbklib.h.
The lookup file changes whenever the address book itself is changed.
If it doesn't exist, Pine attempts to create it. If Pine doesn't have
permission to create the lookup file with the standard name, it will
create a temporary version in a temp directory. You want to avoid this
since it would have to be rebuilt every time Pine was run, and
rebuilding takes a significant time for a large address book. So, if
you're going to have a shared address book in a read-only directory,
it is highly desirable to create the lookup file so that the users
sharing it won't have to each create a copy in a temp directory. You
can do that by running Pine and accessing the address book under a
user id which does have permission to write the file (root, for
example) or by using the -create_lu command line argument to Pine (as
root, still). If users may be using a shared address book that needs
updating, it is best to move the old address book to another name
rather than copying over it. It is also best to make the lookup file
for the new addrbook before moving it and the address book file into
place, otherwise users may get stuck initializing the new file.
An effort is made to detect that an address book has been changed by
another process. If a change is detected, the address book will be
closed down and a new open will be attempted. If the new lookup file
is in place when the open is tried, it will work smoothly. In normal
operation (lookups and browsing the address book) the check to see if
it has changed is just a heuristic to notice if things seem right. It
isn't more rigorous because it needs to be fast. When a lookup is
done, an offset into the address book is gotten from the LookUp file
and a seek into the address book is done. It will check to see if the
preceding character is an end-of-line character, which it should be.
If it isn't, it figures it needs to rebuild the LookUp file. When an
address book is about to be changed, a more fool-proof check is made.
Several things in the file are checked to see that it is a LookUp file
(magic number, size, ...) and that it is whole. Then, a timestamp in
the LookUp file is compared to the mtime of the address book. If the
timestamp is later than the mtime, everything is ok, otherwise, the
address book has been changed and the new change is aborted.
The address book code has been completely rewritten for 3.90 and
production experience with shared address books is nil at the time of
this writing. We expect there may be some changes as experience is
gained, and that some new tools may emerge (scripts to convert
password files to shared address books, for example).
_________________________________________________________________
Checkpointing
Periodically Pine will save the whole mail folder to disk to prevent
loss of any mail or mail status in the case that Pine gets
interrupted, disconnected, or crashes. The period of time Pine waits
to do the checkpoint is calculated to be minimally intrusive. The
timing can be changed (but usually isn't) at compile time. Folder
checkpointing happens for both local folders and those being accessed
with IMAP. The delays are divided into three categories:
Good Time: 1.5i
This occurs when Pine has been idle for more than 30 seconds.
In this case Pine will checkpoint if 12 changes to the file
have been made or at least one change has been made and a
checkpoint hasn't been done for five minutes.
Bad Time: 1.5i
This occurs just after Pine has executed some command. Pine
will checkpoint if there are 36 outstanding changes to the mail
file or at least one change and no checkpoint for ten minutes.
Very Bad Time: 1.5i
Done when composing a message. In this case, Pine will only
checkpoint if at least 48 changes have been made or one change
has been made in the last twenty minutes with no checkpoint.
_________________________________________________________________
Debug Files
If UNIX Pine is compiled with the compiler DEBUG option on (the
default), then Pine will produce debugging output to a file. The file
is normally .pine-debugX in the user's home directory where X goes
from 1 to 4. Number 1 is always the most recent session and 4 the
oldest. Four are saved because often the user has gone in and out of
Pine a few times after a problem has occurred before the expert
actually gets to look at it. The amount of output in the debug files
varies with the debug level set when Pine is compiled and/or as a
command line flag. The default is level 2. This shows very general
things and records errors. Level 9 produces copious amounts of output
for each keystroke.
PC-Pine creates a single debug file named PINEDEBG.TXT in the same
directory as the PINERC file.
_________________________________________________________________
Filters
Pine is not designed to process email messages as they are delivered;
rather Pine depends on the fact that some other program (sendmail,
etc) will deliver messages and Pine simply reads the email folders
which that "other" program creates. For this reason, Pine cannot
filter incoming email into different folders. It can, however, work
alongside most of the programs available over the Internet which
perform this task. Pine is known to operate successfully with the Elm
filter program and with Procmail.
Design changes introduced in Pine 3.8x facilitate Pine users filtering
email. You still have to get a filtering program and configure it
correctly, but Pine now allows users to specify a set of
incoming-folders. Pine will separate out all the folders listed as
incoming-folders and offer convenient access to these. We hope that in
the future Pine will be able to offer new message counts for all of
the incoming folders.
_________________________________________________________________
Folder Formats and Name Extensions
A folder is a group of messages. The default format used by Unix Pine
is the Berkeley mail format. It is also used by the standard mail
command and by elm. Unix Pine also understands message folders in
other formats, such as Tenex, MH, MMDF, Carmel, and Netnews. (For more
information about the carmel format, see the directory
./contrib/carmel in the Pine distribution.)
PC-Pine reads and writes local (PC) folders in a special format
similar to the Tenex format. Near as we can tell, PC-Pine is the only
program to use this format. Beginning with version 3.90, PC-Pine
includes a Read-Only driver for the Berkeley mailbox format in
addition. That means that you can import Unix mail folders, or mount
them via NFS or SMB, and PC-Pine can read them --but not modify them.
Extensions. In the past, file name extensions have been significant in
both Unix Pine and PC-Pine, but this has caused more problems than it
solved. Therefore, on Unix Pine extensions no longer have any special
meaning, and this is the trend for PC-Pine as well.
By default, PC-Pine adds ".MTX" to the name of any local (PC) folders
that are referenced, and suppresses the extension from the Folder List
display. Now that PC-Pine can read more than one folder format, the
MTX extension no longer implies a particular format, and is largely
irrelevant. By using the "folder_extension" option, you can change
this behavior. In particular, you may set "folder-extension" to the
"null string" which tells PC-Pine to neither add nor hide-from-view
*any* folder name extension.
The reason you might wish to over-ride the MTX default is that recent
versions of PC-Pine have the ability to open (albeit READ-ONLY) normal
Unix mail folders. Since it might be inconvenient to rename all of
them to have an MTX extension, it is possible with this option to
switch PC-Pine's behavior so that such folders can be seen and
accessed without changing their names. However, doing this means that
your existing PC-Pine local folders will have apparently changed their
names. For example, if you had a local folder named "FOO" it will now
appear in the Folder List as "FOO.MTX". If you wish to save additional
messages to that folder, you will need to enter the full name,
"FOO.MTX" at the Save prompt. Likewise for GOTO.
If you wish to permanently avoid having to deal with folder name
extensions, you will need to set this option to the null string by
entering two double- quote marks, and you will need to rename your
existing local folders to not have an MTX extension. In DOS this can
be done in one command, once you have changed to your mail directory:
RENAME *.MTX *.
We don't know why you might wish to, but you could also use this
option to tell PC-Pine to use an extension other than MTX. In this
case, enter the three characters you desire to use in lieu of "MTX".
Note that your existing folders will need to be renamed to correspond
to this new extension.
Berkeley Mail Format
This format comes to us from the ancient UNIX mail program,
/bin/mail. (Note that this doesn't have anything to do with
Berkeley, but we call it the Berkeley mail file format anyway.)
This program was actually used to interactively read mail at
one time, and is still used on many systems as the local
delivery agent. In the Berkeley mail format, a folder is a
simple text file. Each message (including the first) must start
with a separator line which takes approximately the form:
From juser@u.example.edu Wed Aug 11 14:32:33 1993
Each message ends with two blank lines. There are actually
several different variations in the date part of the string,
twenty at last count. Because of the format of the separators,
lines in the mail message beginning with "From ", space
included, risk being confused as message separator lines. Some
mail programs will interpret any line beginning with "From " as
a message separator, while others --including Pine-- will not
be confused unless the line really looks like a message
separator, complete with address and date. Such lines will be
modified to begin with ">From ". In deference to other mail
programs, you may also set the "save-will-quote-leading-froms"
feature, in which case any line beginning with "From " will be
modified as above. If you see this occasionally in incoming
mail messages, the culprit is not Pine but the message delivery
program being used at your site.
You can fool Pine into thinking a file is a mail folder by
copying a suitable message separator from a real folder to the
beginning of the file and wherever you want message boundaries.
The vast majority of INBOXes Pine reads and folders it writes
are of this format.
Tenex and MTX Formats
Like the Berkeley format, the Tenex folder format uses a single
file per folder. Historically, the name of Tenex-format folders
ended with .txt, but this rule is no longer enforced. The file
format consists of a header line followed by the message text
for each message. The header is in one of two forms:
dd-mmm-yy hh:mm:ss-zzz,n;ffffffffffff
dd-mmm-yyyy hh:mm:ss sssss,n;ffffffffffff
and is immediately followed by a newline (and the message
text).
The fields in the formats are:
dd two-digit day of month (leading space if a single-digit day)
mmm three-letter English month name (Jan, Feb, etc.)
yy two-digit year in 20th century (obsolete)
yyyy four-digit year
hh two-digit hour in 24-hour clock (leading zero if single-digit)
mm two-digit minute (leading zero)
ss two-digit second (leading zero)
zzz three-letter North American time zone (obsolete)
sssss signed four-digit international time zone as in RFC 822
n one or more digits of the size of the following message in
bytes
ffffffffffff
twelve-digit octal flags value
Punctuation is as given above.
The time in the header is the time that message was written to
the folder. The flags are interpreted as follows: the high
order 30 bits are used to indicate user flags, the next two
bits are reserved for future usage, the low four bits are used
for system flags (010 = answered, 04 = flagged urgent, 02 =
deleted, 01 = seen).
If a Tenex-format (or empty) file named mail.txt exists in a
Pine user's home directory, this triggers special processing in
Pine. When INBOX is opened, mail is automatically moved from
/usr/spool/mail into mail.txt in the user's home directory.
The format used by PC-Pine is identical to the Tenex format,
with two exceptions: the folder name ends with .MTX instead of
.txt (this is a requirement in the MTX format), and DOS-style
CR/LF newlines are used instead of UNIX-style LF newlines.
Netnews Format
The netnews format is a read-only format which uses directories
under /usr/spool/news as folders. The /usr/spool/news/ prefix
is removed and all subsequent ``/'' (slash) characters are
changed to ``.'' (period). For example, the netnews folder name
comp.mail.misc refers to the directory name
/usr/spool/news/comp/mail/misc. In addition, the news folder
name must appear in the file /usr/lib/news/active for it to be
recognized. Individual messages are stored as files in that
directory, with file names being the ASCII form of a number
assigned to that message.
_________________________________________________________________
Folder Locking
There are two kinds of locking which Pine has to worry about. The
first might be called program-contention locking. This affects the
times when a program is performing actual updates on a folder. An
update might be a message delivery program appending a message
(sendmail delivering a message to an INBOX), status changes
(checkpoints by Pine every few minutes) or deletion of messages (an
expunge in Pine). For moderate sized mail messages, these operations
should not last for more than a few seconds. The second kind of
locking has to do with user-contention situations. This would be the
case when one folder is shared by a group of people or even when one
person starts multiple email sessions all of which access the same
folders and INBOX.
There are two standard locking mechanisms which handle
program-contention locking. To be on the safe side, Pine implements
both of them. The older mechanism places a file xxxx.lock (where xxxx
is the name of the file being locked) in the same directory as the
file being locked. This makes use of the fact that directory
operations are atomic in UNIX and mostly works across NFS. There are
involved algorithms used to determine if a lock has been held for an
excessive amount of time and should be broken. The second
program-contention locking mechanism uses the flock() system call on
the mailbox. This is much more efficient and the locks can't get stuck
because they go away when the process that created them dies. This is
usually found on 4BSD and related machines.
In addition to these, Pine--through the c-client library--provides
robust locking which prevents several users (or several instances of
the same user) having a mail file open (for update) at once. This
user-contention lock is held the entire time that the folder is in
use.
With IMAPd 7.3(63) and Pine 3.84 and higher, the second Pine session
which attempts to open a particular folder (usually INBOX) with Pine
will ``win''and That is to say, the second session will have
read/write access to the folder. The first user's folder will become
read-only. (Note that this is exactly the opposite of the behavior
prior to Pine 3.84 where the second open was read-only. Having the
latest open be read-write seems to match more closely with what users
would like to have happen in this situation.) Pine's additional
locking is only effective against multiple uses of Pine or other
programs using the c-client library, such as MailManager, ms, IMAPd
and a few others. Beginning with Pine 3.85, there is an -o command
line flag to intentionally open a mailbox read-only.
Pine locking on UNIX systems works by creating lock files in /tmp of
the form \usr\spool\mail\joe. The system call flock() is then used on
these files; the existence of the file alone does not constitute a
lock. This lock is created when the folder is opened and destroyed
when it is closed. When the folder is actually being written, the
standard UNIX locks are also created.
If a folder is modified by some other program while Pine has it open,
Pine will give up on that mail file, concluding it's best not to do
any further reads or writes. This can happen if another mailer that
doesn't observe Pine's user-contention locks (e.g. elm or mail) is run
while Pine has the mail folder open. Pine checkpoints files every few
minutes, so little data can be lost in these situations.
PC-Pine does not do any folder locking. It depends on IMAP servers to
handle locking of remote folders. It is assumed that only one Pine
session can be running on the PC at a time, so there is no contention
issue around folders on the PC itself.
_________________________________________________________________
INBOX and Special Folders
The INBOX folder is treated specially. It is normally kept open
constantly so that the arrival of new mail can be detected. The name
INBOX refers to wherever new mail is retrieved on the system. If the
inbox-path variable is set, then INBOX refers to that. IMAP servers
understand the concept of INBOX, so specifying the folder
{imap.u.example.edu}INBOX is meaningful. The case of the word INBOX is
not important, but Pine tends to display it in all capital letters.
The folders for sent mail and saved messages folders are also somewhat
special. They are automatically created if they are absent and
recreated if they are deleted.
_________________________________________________________________
Internal Help Files
The file pine.hlp in the pine subdirectory of the distribution
contains all the help text for Pine. On UNIX, it is compiled right
into the Pine binary as strings. This is done to simplify installation
and configuration. The pine.hlp file is in a special format that is
documented at the beginning of the file. It is divided into sections,
each with a name that winds up being referenced as a global variable.
Some special formatting rules are used to keep things lined up and to
allow for substitutions in the help text depending on whether the Pine
session uses function keys or the standard alphabetic/mnemonic keys.
This file is processed by two awk scripts and turned into C files that
are compiled into Pine.
This scheme can increase efficiency because Pine can be compiled to
have the strings as part of shared, read-only text. Rather than each
process having to read in the help text from a file, the strings are
shared by all executing processes on the machine and demand paged.
This works on machines that have separate instruction and data space,
but is only fully implemented in the NeXT (tested) and Dynix (not
tested) ports.
PC-Pine, which tries to run on machines with as little as 640k of
memory, leaves the Pine help text out of the executable. PINE.EXE,
PINE.HLP, and PINE.NDX are all needed for PC-Pine's help system.
_________________________________________________________________
International Character Sets
While Pine was designed in the U.S. and used mostly for
English-language correspondence, it is a goal for Pine to handle email
in almost any language. Many sites outside of the U.S. run Pine in
their native language. The default character set for Pine is US-ASCII.
That can be changed in the personal or system-wide configuration file
with the variable character-set.
When reading incoming email, Pine allows all character sets to pass
through. Pine doesn't actually display the characters but simply
passes them through; it is up to the actual display device to show the
characters correctly. When composing email, Pine will accept input in
any language and tag the message according to the character-set
variable. Again, it is up to the input device to generate the correct
sequences for the character set being used.
With the exception of UNICODE-1-1-UTF-7, the outgoing message is
checked to see if it is all US-ASCII text (and contains no escape
characters). In that case, the text will be labeled as US-ASCII even
if the character-set variable is set to something else. The theory is
that every reasonable character set will have US-ASCII as a subset,
and that it makes sense to label the text with the
lowest-common-denominator label so that more mailers will be able to
display it.
Text in the UNICODE-1-1-UTF-7 character set is never re-labelled as
US-ASCII. BUG: If you prepare a UNICODE-1-1 document and read it into
the composer with ^R, Pine will mistreat it. If your document, when
misviewed as 8-bit bytes, does not contain any individual bytes
greater than 0x7f base 16, then pine will re-label your outgoing
message as US-ASCII, even if your message is really in Unicode
Cyrillic, Arabic, or Thai. On the other hand, if your UNICODE-1-1,
when misviewed as 8-bit bytes, does contain at least one individual
byte greater than 0x7f base 16, as is likely for Unicode
French/German/Spanish, Greek, Japanese, and Chinese, then pine will
retain the UNICODE-1-1 label.
The character sets are:
US-ASCII Standard 7 bit English characters
ISO-8859-1 8 bit European "latin 1" character set
ISO-8859-2 8 bit European "latin 2" character set
ISO-8859-3 8 bit European "latin 3" character set
ISO-8859-4 8 bit European "latin 4" character set
ISO-8859-5 8 bit Latin and Cyrillic
ISO-8859-6 8 bit Latin and Arabic
ISO-8859-7 8 bit Latin and Greek
ISO-8859-8 8 bit Latin and Hebrew
ISO-8859-9 8 bit European "latin 5" character set
ISO-8859-10 8 bit European "latin 6" character set
KOI8-R 8 bit Latin and Russian
VISCII 8 bit Latin and Vietnamese
ISO-2022-JP Latin and Japanese
ISO-2022-KR Latin and Korean
UNICODE-1-1 Unicode
UNICODE-1-1-UTF-7 Mail-safe Unicode
ISO-2022-JP-2 Multilingual
Earlier versions of Pine made use of the character set tags associated
with text in MIME to decide if the text should be displayed or not.
Depending on the character set tag and the character-set variable in
Pine, the text was either displayed as is, displayed with some
characters filtered out, or not displayed at all. The current version
uses a much simpler algorithm in order to maximize the chance that
useful contents are readable by the user. It simply displays all
messages of type text and makes no attempt to filter out characters
that may be in the wrong character set. If the text is tagged as
something other than US-ASCII and the tag does not match the character
set that the character-set variable is set to, then a warning is
printed at the start of the message. In that case, it is possible that
the text will be displayed incorrectly. For example, if the text is
one variant of ISO-8859 and the display device is another variant,
some of the characters may show up on the screen as the wrong
character. Or if the text is Japanese and the display device is not,
some parts of the message may be total gibberish (which will look like
ASCII gibberish). On the other hand, the parts of the Japanese message
that really are US-ASCII will be readable in the midst of the
gibberish.
In the case of PC-Pine, the character values cannot be passed through
to the display device unaltered since MS-DOS uses various non-standard
character sets called "Code Pages".
The mapping between DOS Code Page and standard character set is
controlled by the "character-set" variable in the PINERC file and the
PC's installed Code Page. PC-Pine will automatically map common
characters in IBM Code Pages 437, 850, 860, 863, and 865 to ISO-8859-1
and back when the PINERC has "character-set=ISO-8859-1". Pine will
also map common characters for IBM Code Page 866 to ISO-8859-5 and
back when "character-set=ISO-8859-5". The mappings are bi-directional,
and applied to all saved text attachments in the defined character
set, messages exported, etc.
Alternatively, the translation tables can be configured externally and
applied at run time whenever the "character-set=" variable is set to
something other then "US-ASCII" (the default). PC-Pine looks in the
text file pointed to by the environment variable "ISO_TO_CP" for the
table to use for mapping text matching the type defined by the
"character-set=" variable into the local Code Page value. PC-Pine
looks in the text file pointed to by the environment variable
"CP_TO_ISO" for the table to use for mapping text in the local Code
Page into outbound text tagged with the "character-set=" variable's
value.
A text file containing a character set mapping table is expected to
contain 256 elements where each element is a decimal number separated
from the next element by white-space (space, tab or newline, but no
commas!). The index of the element is the character's value in the
source character set, and the element's value is the corresponding
character's value in the destination character set.
_________________________________________________________________
Interrupted and Postponed Messages
If the user is composing mail and is interrupted by being disconnected
(SIGHUP, SIGTERM or end of file on the standard input), Pine will save
the interrupted composition and allow the user to continue it when he
or she resumes Pine. As the next Pine session starts, a message will
be given that an interrupted message can be continued. To continue the
interrupted message, simply go into the composer. To get rid of the
interrupted message, go into the composer and then cancel the message
with ^C.
Composition of half-done messages may be postponed to a later time by
giving the ^O command. Other messages can be composed while postponed
messages wait. All of the postponed messages are kept in a single
folder. Postponing is a good way to quickly reference other messages
while composing.
_________________________________________________________________
Message Status
The c-client library allows for several flags or status marks to be
set for each message. Pine uses four of these flags: UNSEEN, DELETED,
ANSWERED, and FLAGGED. The "N" in Pine's FOLDER INDEX means that a
message is unseen-it has not been read from this folder yet. The "D"
means that a message is marked for deletion. Messages marked with "D"
are removed when the user expunges the folder (which usually happens
when the folder is closed or the user quits Pine). The "A" in Pine's
FOLDER INDEX means that the message has been replied-to. The "*" in
Pine's FOLDER INDEX means that the message has been ``flagged'' as
important. That is, the user used the Flag command to turn the FLAGGED
flag on. This flag can mean whatever the user wants it to mean. It is
just a way to mark some messages as being different from others. It
will usually probably be used to mark a message as somehow being
``important''. For Berkeley format folders, the message status is
written into the email folder itself on the header lines marked
Status: and X-Status. In Tenex and PC-Pine's MTX folder formats, the
status goes into the 36-bit octal flags.
_________________________________________________________________
MIME: Reading a Message
Pine should be able to handle just about any MIME message. When a MIME
message is received, Pine will display a list of all the parts, their
types and sizes. It will display the attachments when possible and
appropriate and allow users to save all other attachments.
Starting with version 3.90, Pine honors the "mailcap" configuration
system for specifying external programs for handling attachments. The
mailcap file maps MIME attachment types to the external programs
loaded on your system which can display and/or print the file. A
sample mailcap file comes bundled with the Pine distribution. It
includes comments which explain the syntax you need to use for
mailcap. With the mailcap file, any program (mail readers,
newsreaders, WWW clients) can use the same configuration for handling
MIME-encoded data.
If a $MAILCAPS environment variable is defined, Pine will use that to
look for one or more mailcap files, which are combined. In the absence
of $MAILCAPS, Unix Pine will look for a personal mailcap file in
~/.mailcap and combine that with a system-wide file in /etc/mailcap.
PC-Pine will look for a file named MAILCAP in the same directory as
the PINERC file, and/or the directory containing the PINE.EXE
executable.
Messages which include rich text or enriched text in the main body
will be displayed in a very limited way (it will show bold and
underlining).
If Pine sees a MIME message part tagged as type IMAGE, and Pine's
image-viewer. configuration variable is set, Pine will attempt to send
that attachment to the named image viewing program. In the case of
UNIX Pine, the DISPLAY environment variable is checked to see if an
X-terminal is being used (which can handle the images). If the
image-viewer variable is not set, Pine uses the mailcap system to
determine what to do with IMAGE types, just as it does for any other
non-TEXT type, e.g. type APPLICATION. For MIME's generic "catch all"
type, APPLICATION/OCTET-STREAM, the mailcap file will probably not
specify any action, but Pine users may always Save any MIME attachment
to a file.
MIME type "text/plain" is handled a little bit differently than the
other types. If you are viewing the main body part in the MESSAGE TEXT
viewing screen, then Pine will use its internal viewer to display it.
This happens even if there is a mailcap description which matches this
particular type. If it is labelled as having a character set other
than the one you are using, it will still be displayed by the internal
viewer (perhaps incorrectly), though you will get a warning message
prepended to the message in the viewing screen. However, if you view a
part of type "text/plain" from the ATTACHMENT INDEX screen, then Pine
will check the mailcap database for a matching entry and use it in
preference to its internal viewer.
Some text attachments, specifically those which are just other email
messages forwarded as MIME messages, are displayed as part of the main
body of the message. This distinction allows easy display when
possible (the forward as MIME case) and use of an attachment viewer
when that is desirable (the plain text file attachment case).
If the parts of a multipart message are alternate versions of the same
thing Pine will select and display the one best suited. For parts of
type "message/external-body", the parameters showing the retrieval
method will be displayed, but the retrieval process is not yet
automated. Messages of type "message/partial" are not currently
supported.
_________________________________________________________________
MIME: Sending a Message
There are two important factors when trying to include an attachment
in a message: encoding and labeling. Pine has rules for both of these
which try to assure that the message goes out in a form that is robust
and can be handled by other MIME mail readers.
MIME has two ways of encoding data-Quoted-Printable and Base64.
Quoted-Printable leaves the ASCII text alone and only changes 8-bit
characters to "=" followed by the hex digits. For example, "=09" is a
tab. It has the advantage that it is mostly readable and that it
allows for end of line conversions between unlike systems. Base64
encoding is similar to uuencode or btoa and just encodes a raw bit
stream. This encoding is designed to get text and binary files through
even the most improperly implemented and configured gateways intact,
even those that distort uuencoded data.
All attachments are encoded using Base64 encoding. This is so that the
attachment will arrive at the other end looking exactly like it did
when it was sent. Since Base64 is completely unreadable except by
MIME-capable mailers or programs, there is an obvious tradeoff being
made here. We chose to ensure absolutely reliable transport of
attachments at the cost of requiring a MIME-capable mailer to read
them. If the user doesn't want absolute integrity he or she may always
include text (with the ^R command) in the body of a message instead of
attaching it. With this policy, the only time quoted-printable
encoding is used is when the main body of a message includes special
foreign language characters.
When an attachment is to be sent, Pine sniffs through it to try to set
the right label (content-type and subtype). An attachment with any
lines longer than 500 characters in it or more than 10% of the
characters are 8-bit it will be considered binary data. Pine will
recognize (and correctly label) a few special types including GIF,
JPEG, PostScript, and some audio formats.
If it is not binary data (has only a small proportion of 8-bit
characters in it,) the attachment is considered 8-bit text. 8-bit text
attachments are labeled "text/plain" with charset set to the value of
the user's character-set variable. If an attachment is ASCII (no 8-bit
characters) and contains no ESCAPE, ^N, or ^O characters (the
characters used by some international character sets), then it is
considered plain ASCII text. Such attachments are given the MIME label
"text/plain; charset=US-ASCII", regardless of the setting of the
user's character-set variable.
All other attachments are unrecognized and therefore given the generic
MIME label "application/octet-stream".
_________________________________________________________________
New Mail Notification
Pine checks for new mail in the INBOX and in the currently open folder
at least every two and a half minutes. It used to be 30 seconds
instead of 150 seconds, but we increased it in order to reduce the
load on large systems with lots of Pine users. The value can be
changed at compile-time in the pine/os.h file. If you really don't
want to wait you can force a new mail check by pressing N Next with
the cursor on the last message of the message index or by redrawing
the screen with a ^L.
When there is new mail, the message(s) will appear in the index, the
screen will beep, and a notice showing the sender and subject will be
displayed. If there has been more than one new message since you last
issued a command to Pine, the notice will show the count of new
messages and the sender of the most recent one.
Questions have arisen about the interaction between Pine and external
mail notification routines (biff, csh, login). Firstly and
unfortunately, we have found no PC based program that will check for
email on an IMAP server when PC-Pine is not running. If you find one,
please tell us.
The UNIX case is more complicated. Pine sets the modification and
access time on a file every time it performs a write operation (status
change or expunge). You need to see which of these your email
notification program is looking at to know how it will behave with
Pine.
_________________________________________________________________
NFS
It is possible to access mail folders on NFS mounted volumes with
Pine, but there are some drawbacks to doing this, especially in the
case of incoming-message folders that may be concurrently updated by
Pine and the system's mail delivery agent. One concern is that Pine's
user-contention locks don't work because /tmp is usually not shared,
and even if it was, flock() doesn't work across NFS.
The implementation of the standard UNIX ".lock" file locking has been
modified to work with NFS as follows. Standard hitching post locking
is used so first a uniquely named file is created, usually something
like xxxx.host.time.pid. Then a link to it is created named xxxx.lock
where the folder being locked is xxxx. This file constitutes the lock.
This is a standard UNIX locking scheme. After the link returns, a
stat(2) is done on the file. If the file has two links, it is
concluded that the lock succeeded and it is safe to proceed.
In order to minimize the risks of locking failures via NFS, we
strongly recommend using IMAP rather than NFS to access remote
incoming message folders, e.g. your INBOX. However, it is generally
safe to access personal saved-message folders via NFS since it is
unlikely that more than one process will be updating those folders at
any given time. Still, some problems may occur when two Pine sessions
try to access the same mail folder from different hosts without using
IMAP. Imagine the scenario: Pine-A performs a write that changes the
folder. Pine-B then attempts to perform a write on the same folder.
Pine-B will get upset that the file has been changed from underneath
it and abort operations on the folder. Pine-B will continue to display
mail from the folder that it has in its internal cache, but it will
not read or write any further data. The only thing that will be lost
out of the Pine-B session when this happens is the last few status
changes.
If other mail readers besides Pine are involved, all bets are off.
Typically, mailers don't take any precautions against a user opening a
mailbox more than once and no special precautions are taken to prevent
NFS problems.
_________________________________________________________________
Printers and Printing
UNIX Pine can print to the standard UNIX line printers or to generic
printers attached to ANSI terminals using the escape sequences to turn
the printer on and off. The user has a choice of three printers in the
configuration.
The first setting, attached-to-ansi, makes use of escape sequences on
ANSI/VT100 terminals. It uses "[5i" to begin directing all output
sent to the terminal to the printer and then "[6i" to return to
normal. Pine will send these escape sequences if the printer is set to
attached-to-ansi. This works with most ANSI/VT100 emulators on Macs
and PCs such as kermit, NCSA telnet, VersaTerm Pro, and WinQVT.
Various terminal emulators implement the print feature differently.
For example, NCSA telnet requires "capfile = PRN" in the config.tel
file. Attached-to-ansi printing doesn't work at all with the telnet
provided with PC-NFS.
The second selection is the standard UNIX print command. The default
is lpr, but it can be changed on a system basis to anything so desired
in /usr/local/lib/pine.conf.
The third selection is the user's personal choice for a UNIX print
command. The text to be printed is piped into the command. Enscript or
lpr with options are popular choices. The actual command is retained
even if one of the other print selections is used for a while.
If you have a PostScript printer attached to a PC or Macintosh, then
you will need to use a utility called ansiprt to get printouts on your
printer. Ansiprt source code and details can be found in the ./contrib
directory of the Pine distribution.
The three printer choices are for UNIX Pine only. PC-Pine for DOS can
only print to the locally attached printer. All printing on PC-Pine
(DOS) is done via ROM BIOS Print Services (Int 17h). After verifying
the existence of a local printer via the BIOS Equipment-List Service
(Int 11h), it simply sends the message text, character by character,
to the first printer found using ASCII CR and LF at the end of lines
and followed by an ASCII FF. Note, some system adjustments using the
PC's "MODE" command may be required if the printer is not on the first
parallel port. PC-Pine cannot generate PostScript, so printing to
exclusively PostScript printers does not work.
PC-Pine for Winsock uses the MS-Windows printer interface. A Pine
print command will bring up a standard MS-Windows printer dialog box.
_________________________________________________________________
Save and Export
Pine users get two options for moving messages in Pine: save and
export. Save is used when the message should remain ``in the Pine
realm.'' Saved messages include the complete header (including header
lines normally hidden by Pine), are placed in a Pine folder collection
and accumulate in a standard folder format which Pine can read. In
contrast, the export command is used to write the contents of a
message to a file for use outside of Pine. Messages which have been
exported are placed in the user's home directory (unless the feature
use-current-dir is turned on), not in a Pine folder collection. Unless
FullHeaderMode is toggled on, all delivery-oriented headers are
stripped from the message. Even with export, Pine retains message
separators so that multiple messages can accumulate in a single file
and subsequently be accessed as a folder. On UNIX systems, the export
command pays attention to the standard umask for the setting of the
file permissions.
_________________________________________________________________
Sent Mail
Pine's default behavior is to keep a copy of each outgoing message in
a special "sent mail" folder. This folder is also called the fcc for
"file carbon copy". The existence, location and name of the sent mail
folder are all configurable. Sent mail archiving can be turned off by
setting the configuration variable default-fcc="". The sent mail
folder is assumed to be in the default collection for saves, which is
the first collection named in folder-collections. The name of the
folder can be chosen by entering a name in default-fcc. With PC-Pine,
this can be a bit complicated. If the default collection for saves is
local (DOS), then the default-fcc needs to be "SENTMAIL", which is
syntax for a DOS file. However, if the default collection for saves is
remote, then the default-fcc needs to be "sent-mail" to match the UNIX
syntax.
The configuration variable fcc-name-rule also plays a role in
selecting the folder to save sent mail in. See the documentation on it
in the section on configuration variables.
The danger here is that the sent mail could grow without bound. For
this reason, we thought it useful to encourage the users to
periodically prune their sent mail folder. The first time Pine is used
each month it will offer to archive all messages sent from the month
before. Pine also offers to delete all the sent mail archive folders
which are more than 1 month old. If the user or system has disabled
sent mail archiving (by setting the configuration variable
default-fcc="") or if the fcc folder is a remote/IMAP folder then
there will be no pruning question.
It is likely that Pine will be improved so that users can set the time
increment for pruning (weekly, monthly, yearly, never) but that has
not been implemented yet.
_________________________________________________________________
Spell Checker
Spell checking is available for UNIX Pine only. We could not find an
appropriate PC based spell checker to hook into PC-Pine. Even UNIX
Pine depends on the system for its spell checking and dictionary.
Pico, the text editor, uses the same spell checking scheme as Pine.
Lines beginning with ">" (usually messages included in replies) are
not checked. The message text to be checked is on the standard input
and the incorrect words are expected on the standard output.
The default spell checker is UNIX spell. You can replace this at
compile time for the whole system. Pine also respects the environment
variable SPELL. Beginning in Pine 3.92, there is also a "speller"
configuration entry in the Setup/Config screen and configuration
files. If it is set, Pine will use that as the spelling checker. The
spelling checker reads its words from a standard dictionary on the
system. Below is a description, contributed by Bob Hurt, of how you
can create your own personal dictionary with additional ``correct''
words.
Step 1:
Make a file with all the words you want to include in your new
dictionary. I did mine with one word per line in alphabetical
order. Caps don't matter at all, as far as I know.
Step 2:
At the UNIX prompt, type "cat [word file] | spellin
/usr/dict/hlista > [new dict name]" where [word file] is the
file you just created and [new dict name] is the name of the
new dictionary that Pine will look at instead of the standard
/usr/dict/hlista. I named my word file .bobwords and my
dictionary .bobspell so I don't have to see them when I do a ls
command (ls doesn't list "dot" files). I also put the above
command into my .alias file as the command makedict so I can
add a word to my word file and easily recreate my dictionary.
NOTE: the new dictionary is in something called a "hashed"
format, and can't be read normally.
Step 3:
Check your new dictionary. At the UNIX prompt, type "cat [word
file] | spellout [new dict name]" If you did everything
correctly, it should just give you another prompt. If it lists
any of the words in your file, something is wrong. I can try to
help if all else fails.
Step 4:
Now you have to tell UNIX to use your dictionary instead of the
standard one by setting the environment variable SPELL to
access your dictionary. Go into your .login or .cshrc file in
your home directory (it doesn't seem to make a difference which
one you use) and add the line
setenv SPELL "spell -d [new dict name]"
I also created an alias for SPELL in my .alias file so I can
use the UNIX spell command to spell-check a file outside of
Pine. (The .alias line is: alias spell 'spell -d [new dict
name]')
Step 5:
Now you need to logoff and log back on to let UNIX look at your
.login (or .cshrc) file.
Here is an alternative method suggested by Zachary Leber:
Create a list (e.g. .zachwords) with the upper case followed by
lower case words, sorted alphabetically.
Add this line to .cshrc:
setenv SPELL 'spell +/home/ie/rsa/.zachwords'
The limitation here is that the path must be absolute (e.g.
+~/.zachwords doesn't work).
My man pages for spell show this + flag to be an easy way to do
the exception list. This way you don't have to bother with hash
lists or rehashing, and it seems to work across several
platforms.
______________________________________________________________
Terminal Emulation and Key Mapping
Pine has been designed to require as little as possible from the
terminal. At the minimum, Pine requires cursor positioning, clear
to end of line, and inverse video. Unfortunately, there are
terminals that are missing some of these such as a vt52. Pine makes
no assumptions as to whether the terminal wraps or doesn't wrap. If
the terminal has other capabilities it may use some of them. Pine
won't run well on older terminals that require a space on the
screen to change video attributes, such as the Televideo 925. One
can get around this on some terminals by using "protected field"
mode. The terminal can be made to go into protected mode for
reverse video, and then reverse video is assigned to protected
mode.
Pine handles screens of most any size and resizing on the fly. It
catches SIGWINCH and does the appropriate thing. A screen one line
high will display only the new mail notification. Screens that are
less than ten columns wide don't format very nicely or work well,
but will function fine again once resized to something large. Pine
sets an internal maximum screen size (currently 170x200) and
decides to use either termcap or terminfo when it is compiled.
On the input side of things, Pine uses all the standard keys, most
of the control keys and (in function-key mode) the function keys.
Pine avoids certain control keys, specifically ^S, ^Q, ^H, and ^\
because they have other meanings outside of Pine (they control data
flow, etc.) ^H is treated the same as the delete key, so the
backspace or delete keys always works regardless of any
configuration. In an upcoming version, there will be an option to
have the delete key behave like ^D rather than ^H.
Sometimes a communications program or communications server in
between you and the other end will eat certain control characters.
There is a work-around when you need it. If you type two escape
characters followed by a character that will be interpreted as the
character with the control key depressed. For example, ESC ESC T is
equivalent to ^T.
When a function key is pressed and Pine is in regular (non-function
key) mode, Pine traps escape sequences for a number of common
function keys so users don't get an error message or have an
unexpected command executed for each character in the function
key's escape sequence. Pine expects the following escape sequences
from terminals defined as VT100:
ANSI/VT100
F1: OP
F2: OQ
F3: OR
F4: OS
F5: Op
F6: Oq
F7: Or
F8: Os
F9: Ot
F10: Ou
F11: Ov
Arrow keys are a special case. Pine has the escape sequences for a
number of conventions for arrow keys hard coded and does not use
termcap to discover them. This is because termcap is sometimes
incorrect, and because many users have PC's running terminal
emulators that don't conform exactly to what they claim to emulate.
Some arrow keys on old terminals send single control characters
like ^K (one even sends ^\). These arrow keys will not work with
Pine. The most popular escape sequences for arrow keys are:
Up: [A ?x A OA
Down: [B ?r B OB
Right: [C ?v C OC
Left: [D ?t D OD
It is possible to configure an NCD X-terminal so that some of the
special keys operate. Brad Greer contributes these instructions:
1.
In your .Xdefaults file, include the following "translations",
using lower hex values:
Pine*VT100.Translations: #override \n\
Delete: string(0x04) \n\
End: string(0x05) \n\
Escape: string(0x03) \n\
Home: string(0x01) \n\
Next: string(0x16) \n\
Prior: string(0x19) \n\
KP_Enter: string(0x18) \n\
2.
Start up Pine from an xterm, and specify a "resource name".
This resource name will allow the user to specify resources for
Pine (that deviate from the defaults). For example, xterm -name
Pine -e pine & (the resource name Pine corresponds to the
translations just added in the .Xdefaults file).
Notes for Porting and Modification
Porting Pine to Other Platforms
Substantial effort has gone into making Pine/Pico portable. There are
still, of course, a number of machine dependencies. Some of the ports
are well-tested and some are untested. In particular, the most heavily
used ports are the Ultrix, NeXT, DOS, and PTX ports.
Each platform is given a three letter name (see the file
doc/pine-ports). Make up a new one for your new port. We've attempted
to bring all potential platform dependencies into three files:
os-xxx.h, os-xxx.c, and makefile.xxx where xxx is the three letter
name of the port. Thus any new port will hopefully just result in new
versions of these files and some notes for the pine-ports file. There
are actually nine new files needed, because there is a set of these
files in the c-client, Pico, and Pine source directories. (As you can
tell by reading this technical note, Pine originated on Unix systems.
There are still probably many Unix dependencies built in, but these
should be diminishing now that there are DOS, Windows, and VMS ports.
Regrettably, the source code is full of instances of "ifdef DOS". Most
of these are due to memory limit problems on DOS as opposed to actual
system dependencies.
The makefiles are kept as simple and straight-forward as possible,
because many previous attempts at automatically figuring out what to
do seem to have become complex and ineffective in what they set out to
do: which is to make compiling and installing the program easy. Each
port is for a specific hardware/software platform, also because past
attempts to generalize on versions of Unix or some CPU architecture
don't seem to have gained much. Thus, there is a separate makefile for
each platform that calls the appropriate compiler and linker with the
appropriate flags. Most of these makefiles are pretty similar. The
makefile also specifies which of the os-xxx.c and os-xxx.h files to
use. It is the root from which all platform dependencies are selected.
In most cases the makefile also defines a symbol named after the
platform on which there can be dependencies in the source code, though
we've tried to minimize relying on this where reasonable. Pine, Pico,
and the C-client don't quite do everything the same (there are at
least three separate authors involved). Basically, to build the source
in one of the directories, run make -f makefile.xxx where xxx is the
three-letter name of the platform. That's all the build script does.
When starting a new port in the pine directory, there is a generic
makefile called makefile.gen which should be a good starting point.
The file os-xxx.h is used for general platform dependent #include's
and #defines. In the pine directory these .h files are located in the
osdep subdirectory. All the include files that have been found to vary
from one platform to another are also included here. In the case of
Pico, there is only one os-xxx.h file called os-unx.h for most of the
supported Unix ports and inside it are #ifdefs based on the platform
specific symbol defined in the makefile. On the other hand, Pine now
has a separate os-xxx.h file for each platform. There are a number of
Pine configuration settings that are defined here, as well, such as
the place it looks for certain files, defaults for the printer and
folder names, the maximum screen size, and so on. For the Pine portion
of the port, start by looking at the generic os-gen.h file and
comparing it to some of the specific os-xxx.h files in osdep.
The os-xxx.c file contains functions that are potentially platform
dependent. Again, the idea is to gather all the dependencies in one
place. Pico uses the same strategy here as it uses with os-unx.h. That
is, there is a single os-unx.c file for most of the Unix ports. Pine
uses a complicated looking method to produce the os-xxx.c file from a
set of included files. Each included file usually contains a single
function and we've found that there are usually only a couple
different implementations of each function in the ports we've done so
far. Hopefully, coming up with an os-xxx.c for a new port will usually
be a matter of including the right set of these already written
functions. This is done by writing a new os-xxx.ic file in the osdep
subdirectory. Start with the generic os-gen.ic, as you did with the
os-gen.h file above.
We strongly encourage that no changes be made to the general source
when porting and that all changes be contained in the three/nine
system dependent files if possible. The object is to maintain source
code integrity and assimilate ports to new platforms rapidly. The more
conventional way to do this is with a large collection of #ifdefs. The
problem with this is that adding a port for a new platform implies
changing the source code for all the other platforms and thereby risks
breaking them. (We readily admit that there are still too many ifdefs
in the code, but we haven't had time to devote to fully cleaning that
up.)
If you do port Pine to a new platform we hope that you will send us
the changes required so that we may attempt to include it in a later
release. Thanks!
_________________________________________________________________
Test Checklist
The following is a checklist of some things to check when testing a
new port:
___
Sending mail, check that headers are correct
___
Sending mail with attachments
___
Sending mail with SMTP server
___
Sending mail without SMTP server
___
Sending mail with list of two SMTP servers, first one doesn't
answer
___
Replying to and forwarding a message
___
Postponing messages under composition
___
Composer operations
___
Alternate editor, enable-alternate-editor-implicitly
___
Make sure local user names are expanded
___
Test spelling checker
___
Catching of SIGHUP while message is being composed
___
Setting of variables in .pinerc
___
New mail notification. Should happen with Pine idle to check
timeouts
___
Reading mail (attachments, MIME, MIME with mailcap viewers)
___
Deleting, undeleting, expunging, sorting
___
Expunge to empty folder
___
Make sure that ~ expansion works in config files
___
Make sure that $VAR expansion works in config files
___
Save message to folder, check error conditions such as
permission denied
___
Export message with FullHeaderMode on and off
___
Checkpointing (see the section on checkpointing)
___
Open IMAP and RIMAP folders
___
Default-fcc on remote IMAP server
___
Fcc-name-rule, fcc in addrbook (while composing)
___
Test opening bogus folders: invalid format, no permission
___
Open a USENET news group, list in folder-lister, read news,
post news
___
Command line arguments
___
Change password
___
Lock keyboard
___
Address book operations (edit, delete, add, lists, whereis,
composeto)
___
ReadOnly address book
___
Look at addrbook, change addrbook-sort-rule in Config, go back
to addrbook screen
___
No permission to write in same directory as addrbook, should
create addrbook.lu in a temp directory
___
Multiple address books
___
Address book loops from one addrbook to another and back
___
TakeAddr command with one address, with multiple addresses
___
TakeAddr command with ReadOnly address books
___
TakeAddr command with one of two address books ReadOnly
___
Send mail with empty address book
___
Config Screen operation, does pinerc get written?
___
Make sure SIGTSTP, ^Z works
___
Pinef
___
Sent-mail pruning (set back last-time-prune-questioned
variable)
___
Printing using all three printer configurations, various
screens
___
View help text and news
___
Folder list operations (rename, create, delete...)
___
Saved-msg-name-rule
___
Screen redrawing in various screens (^L)
___
Window resizing in various screens
___
Error messages for incorrect terminal types (try "foo" and
"vt52")
___
Reading of /usr/local/lib/pine.conf
___
Fixing variables and features in /usr/local/lib/pine.conf.fixed
___
Flag command (check message status changed in mail folder)
___
Initial-keystroke-list
___
Aggregate operations (save, delete, export, takeaddr, ...)
___
Build xxx from scratch, build clean
_________________________________________________________________