Using Pine Mail

On grove and other Unix computers, start pine by entering the pine command at the Unix prompt:

pine

Pine is designed to be simple and efficient, and the easiest way to learn it is to use it. When you start pine, you'll see a menu of major functions.  Select any function by pressing the single letter key next to its description.

Pine will always show you a two-line menu of appropriate functions at the bottom on the screen. The functions are initiated by pressing the single letter key shown or by typing a control character. When a control character is required, it is shown with the ^ character:

^X means type Ctrl/x

Just above the two-line menu is the message line. Pine displays messages or questions on this line. Pine never does anything important without asking you first, so look here for confirmation questions. Usually, you will need to press the Y key for "yes" or the N key for "no".

Press the Q key to exit from pine.

Type Ctrl/g to get help in any pine screen.

Email addresses

An email address has two parts: the user id and an Internet address. The user id is what you use to log in to the computer. It's the part you can see when you log in, not the secret password. The Internet address is the computer network address of the computer that will receive the mail.

The Internet address has several parts separated by dots. All the Internet addresses connected to the UF computer network end in ufl.edu. Here are some typical Internet addresses:

grove.ufl.edu

ufcc.ufl.edu

cis.ufl.edu

aol.com

A complete email address has a user id and an address separated by the @ character. Here are some typical email addresses:

jsmith@grove.ufl.edu

ptprince@ufl.edu

afn01234@afn.org

Sending mail

To: an email address, or a list of addresses separated by commas

Cc: one or more additional recipients of the message

Attchmnt: see Advanced features below

Subject: the subject of the message

Type the text of the message in the blank area below the headings. If you don't what to do, use the arrow keys to move to a field and type Ctrl/g to see help screens.

In the compose screen you must use control keys for pine functions. The functions are shown at the bottom of the screen, but these are the two you'll use most often:

Ctrl/x to send the message

Ctrl/c to cancel the message

When you're composing a message, pine uses a simple text editor called pico, or Pine Composer. Pico can also be used as a general-purpose text editor to modify text files.

Reading your mail

Press the L key to see a list of your folders and to select the one you want to use. If you don't select a folder, pine assumes you want to use INBOX.

Press the I key to see a list of messages in the selected folder. A one-line description of each message in folder is displayed on the screen and at the left side of each description, single character codes describe the message:

+ means the message was sent directly to you, and is not a carbon-copy of a message to someone else.

N means it's a new message you haven't read.

A means you've already answered (replied) to this message.

D means it's a message marked to be deleted.

Depending on your terminal, one of the messages will be marked or highlighted. It will be either the first message you haven't read, or if you've read them all, the last message. While in this screen, use these keys to read your mail:

V or Return view the selected message

N or Down arrow select the next message

P or Up arrow select the previous message

Replying to a message

You'll be asked if you want to include the original text of the message in your reply. This makes it easy to annotate or comment on each part of the message.

Advanced features

pico .signature

Pine has an address book feature so you don't have to enter long email addresses for people you frequently send mail to. At the main pine menu, press the A key then A again at the Address Book screen. You'll be asked for names and addresses.

In the home directory of your Unix account, there's a file named .pinerc that you can modify to change the behavior of pine on your account. Use any text editor to change the file. For example, enter this command at the Unix prompt:

pico .pinerc

There's lots of comments in the file that will give you hints on what to change.

Pine supports MIME (Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions) for sending and receiving binary or other non-text files. To send attached files, enter the names of the files on the Attachmnt: line when you're composing a message. You can send attachments to someone only if they use a mail program that supports MIME.