Lab 4 Using the Pine Mail System
Pine is a mail system on Unix/Linux systems (and other operating systems?) that
is more friendly than the regular Unix mail system. The regular Unix mail
system uses a small set of commands that you have to know, although you can find
them from the mail "help" command. However, the Pine mail system is menu
driven, and it is screen formatted with the menu options displayed at the bottom
of the screen. Pine stands for "Program for Internet News and Email".
Starting pine and the Main Menu screen
To start pine on a Unix/Linux system, type
> pine
and you will have the main menu screen displayed in a format somewhat like the
following:
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
PINE 4.44 MAIN MENU
Folder: (CLOSED) No Messages
? HELP
‑ Get help using Pine
C COMPOSE MESSAGE ‑
Compose and send a message
I MESSAGE INDEX
‑ View messages in current folder
L FOLDER LIST
‑ Select a folder to view
A ADDRESS BOOK
‑ Update address book
S SETUP
‑ Configure Pine Options
Q QUIT
‑ Leave the Pine program
Copyright 1989‑2002. PINE is a trademark of the University of Washington.
[No folder opened]
? Help
P PrevCmd
R RelNotes
O OTHER CMDS > [ListFldrs]
N NextCmd
K KBLock
‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑
Options for this menu are listed across the bottom of the screen in a format
that specifies the key that you press with a brief explanation of the purpose of
each menu option. To select a menu option, press the key for the specified letter of that option.
For example, to list the messages in your in box, press the I key. The
INBOX screen looks like this:
‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑
PINE 4.05 MESSAGE INDEX
Folder: INBOX Message 1 of 1 NEW
+ N 1 Jun 8 Kent Foster
(1,251) A message to the 208 students
(some blank lines here)
[Already on first message]
? Help < FldrList P PrevMsg
‑ PrevPage D Delete R Reply
O OTHER CMDS > [ViewMsg] N NextMsg Spc NextPage U
Undelete F Forward
‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑
Approximately 20 blank lines have been deleted from the above screen display.
This INBOX screen has a menu displayed at the bottom of the screen, as will
every pine screen. There is one message in this INBOX, and it is a "N"ew
message, not yet read. Since this message line is the highlighted line,
just press RETURN, or press the ">" key, to read it. This is an example of
the screen that displays a message. Note the menu for this screen.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Tue, 8 Jun 1999 15:15:17 -0400 (EDT)
From: Peter Jones <jonesp@tampa.winthrop.edu>
To: Robert Smith <smithr@houston.winthrop.edu>
Subject: hi
This is a practice message.
(some blank lines here)
[ALL of message]
? Help < MsgIndex P PrevMsg
- PrevPage D Delete R Reply
> ViewAttch N NextMsg Spc NextPage U Undelete
F Forward
-----------------------------------------------------------
Exiting pine
To exit pine, you return to the main menu, usually by selecting the "Main Menu"
choice of some menu by pressing "M", and then selecting the "Quit" item of the
main menu (by pressing "Q").
Press "Q" now, and note what happens.
The message displayed in the response bar is
Really quit pine? (y/n) [y]:
and if you want to quit then type "Y" (or "y"). Otherwise, pine will not
terminate.
Composing a message
You create a message and send it with the "Compose" option of the main menu.
Press "C", and the screen displays the following:
‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑
To :
Cc :
Attchmnt:
Subject :
‑‑‑‑‑ Message Text ‑‑‑‑‑
(a number of blank lines here where you enter the message)
^G Get Help ^X Send ^R Rich Hdr ^Y
PrvPg/Top ^K Cut Line ^O Postpone
^C Cancel ^D Del Char ^J Attach ^V
NxtPg/End ^U UnDel Line^T To AddrBk
‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑
The cursor is placed after the "To :" prompt. Type in the
pretend username "smithr" here,
To : smithr
and then press RETURN. Since there is no such user, you made a mistake,
but it is easy to correct. Press the up arrow key, and the cursor moves up
to the "To :" prompt line. Now change the username to your
username. Then press the downarrow key. In fact, press down-arrow
several times so that the cursor moves down under the
"‑‑‑‑‑ Message Text ‑‑‑‑‑" banner. Now press the up-arrow to move
the cursor up to the "Subject :" prompt line. Type in a subject line.
Then press RETURN (or down-arrow). Nice, isn't it? Finally, type a
brief message to yourself.
Editing the message in the composer
Notice at the bottom of the compose screen there are several menu items that are
message editing options. Some of these options are
^C Cancel
^X Send
^K Cut Line
^U UnDel Line
^T To AddrBk
where each of these is meant to be a "control" key, that is, the "^X" means that
you press "CTRL‑X" for that option.
ex. move your cursor to some line of your message and press "^K" (CTLR‑K).
The line is deleted.
Press ^U and the line is undeleted.
Sending the message
When you have finished typing the text of the message, you then send it by
using the send option of the composer menu. Press ^X, and pine displays
the prompt in the response bar
Send message? [y] :
and press RETURN (or "y" or "Y") to send the message and anything else to cancel
the send operation.
Use Pine to send an email to dannellys@winthrop.edu with a subject line of
lab4 and a brief message of your choosing.