From: Gopi Sundaram Newsgroups: comp.mail.pine,comp.answers,news.answers Followup-To: comp.mail.pine Subject: [comp.mail.pine] Welcome! Read this first Approved: news-answers-request@MIT.EDU Archive-name: mail/agents/pine/faq-resources URL: http://www.zrox.net/Mail/Pine/pip.txt Last-modified: 2004-07-30 Posting-Frequency: Twice monthly Welcome to comp.mail.pine, a newsgroup devoted to discussing the popular Pine mail and news client from the University of Washington. The purpose of this document is to acquaint new readers with the newsgroup, answer some frequently asked questions, and point readers to sources of further information. QUESTIONS 1. The Newsgroup 1.1 What is comp.mail.pine? 1.2 What kind of questions are welcome? 1.3 Are the discussions archived? 1.4 What other discussion fora are available? 2. The Program 2.1 Where can I get Pine? 2.2 What is the latest version? 2.3 What platforms is it available for? 3. FAQs 3.1 How do I change my From: header? 3.2 How do I set my Reply-To: header? 3.3 Can Pine read mail from a POP3 server? 3.4 Can Pine notify me when I get new mail? 3.5 Can I send mail from the command-line without using the composer? 3.6 Pine doesn't show my name in messages from me. How do I fix it? 3.7 My local username is different from the one on my remote server. How do I read/send mail/news? 4. Further information 5. Credits ANSWERS Section 1: The Newsgroup 1.1 What is comp.mail.pine? comp.mail.pine is a USENET newsgroup devoted to discussion of the Pine mail and news client. 1.2 What kind of questions are welcome? The newsgroup is intended for end-user questions, although more technical as well as administrative discussions also take place. Asking FAQs is frowned upon. 1.3 Are the discussions archived? Google Groups maintains an archive of most USENET newsgroups. The archive for comp.mail.pine is available at Etiquette suggests that you search the archive first to see if your question has been answered, before you ask the newsgroup. 1.4 What other discussion fora are available? In addition to comp.mail.pine, the University of Washington runs the pine-info mailing list. This mailing list is for administration issues regarding Pine. You can find subscription information, as well as the archives at Section 2: The Program 2.1 Where can I get Pine? Pine is available for download from the University of Washington's web site at . It is also available via anonymous FTP from their FTP site in the pine/ directory. The latest version is always pine.tar.Z or pine.tar.gz 2.2 What is the latest version? Version information, as well as changes since the last version are available from UW's page at 2.3 What platforms is it available for? Pine is currently available for various flavors of Unix as well as Linux, MacOS X, Microsoft Windows and other platforms. Earlier versions are available for MS-DOS. A complete list of ports is available at Section 3: FAQs This section touches only very briefly on a few of the most frequently asked questions. Please see the resources listed in Section 4. There are other frequently asked questions that are answered in those pages, and the questions answered here are dealt with in greater depth as well. 3.1 How do I change my From: header? In recent versions, you can go to (M)ain (S)etup (C)onfig and under customized-hdrs, add your address like this: From: "My Name" The most complete instructions are available from Infinite Ink's web page at . It includes instructions for earlier versions, and alternative ways to do it. 3.2 How do I set my Reply-To: header? In the configuration screen (Main, Setup, Config) scroll down to the customized-hdrs option, and add Reply-To as an entry. If you wish to always add the same address in that header, you can specify it like this: customized-hdrs = Reply-To: xyzzy@example.invalid If you do not set the value of the Reply-To: header as above, you can add it in when you compose a message, by moving into the header area of the composer and pressing ^R for rich headers. 3.3 Can Pine read mail from a POP3 server? Yes. Specify the server configuration as follows: {server.name.invalid/pop3} The /pop3 flag will tell Pine to use the POP3 protocol. If you use POP3, you will have issues with new mail notification. See question 3.4. You may also be interested in question 3.7. 3.4 Can Pine notify me when I get new mail? If you are accessing your inbox as a local spool or with the IMAP protocol, then Pine will notify you when you get new mail. If you use POP3, then you will not, because of a limitation in the protocol and Pine's support of it. Pine will check for mail in incoming folders when you press the key at the last message in the index. If you wish to check for new mail in a POP3 mailbox, you might want to add it as an incoming folder rather than as your inbox. 3.5 Can I send mail from the command-line without using the composer? No, not with Pine. You should use a command-line SMTP client for this, like mail or mailx for Unix. If you must use Pine, you can apply an unofficial patch by Eduardo Chappa for Unix Pine. It is available from his web page, listed below. 3.6 Pine doesn't show my name in messages from me. How do I fix it? It doesn't need to be fixed. Pine shows your messages like that only to you. Everyone else sees them fine. Pine shows them to you like that because for messages from you, it is presumably more interesting who the message is to, than who the message is from (you). If you really must change this behavior, go to the index-format setting in (M)ain (S)etup (C)onfig and read the help text. Copy the default index format from the help text, and change the "FROMORTO" token to "FROMORTONOTNEWS". 3.7 My local username is different from the one on my remote server. How do I read/send mail/news? In the server specification, add the user flag. For example, inbox = {mail.server.invalid/user=xyzzy} The /user flag can be added to any server specification, including IMAP, POP3 (in addition to the /pop3 flag), SMTP (only if SMTP authentication is necessary), NNTP etc. Section 4: Further information * The official Pine home page is at the University of Washington: It includes the Official Pine FAQ * Infinite Ink has a lot of detailed information on Pine, as well as tips for power users and novices alike. This site is maintained by Nancy McGough. The Power Pine page is at * Eduardo Chappa writes and maintains a list of unofficial patches to Pine. The patches are available from his site at He also has a Pine Help site, which is written more as a manual than as a series of questions and answers: * Gopi Sundaram's comp.mail.pine FAQ is a collection of answers to questions frequently seen in the newsgroup: * The Open Directory Project has a list of links related to Pine. Section 5: Credits This document was written primarily by Gopi Sundaram. It includes additions and input from members of the comp.mail.pine community including Eduardo Chappa, Jeffrey Goldberg, Sebastian Jester, Nancy McGough and others. -- (C) Copyright 2002, Gopi Sundaram, all rights reserved. Redistribution of this document is hereby freely granted so long as the document is redistributed in its entirety, with attributions and this copyright notice.