Using Pine in Four Easy Steps

Getting into Pine

1)Reading

2)Writing

3)Address Book

4)Signature Files

First, do you know how to get to Pine?

  1. Double click on the tele-communications icon (1) with pc's, this will look like a little computer set-up that is labeled, "Telnet WSUV") or 2) with Mac, this w ill look like a little monitor with arrows going left and right labeled "WSU Vancouver") on the computer screen if you are in the lab, or dial in if you are from home.

  2. Logon with your Logon name

  3. Press Enter

  4. Type in your password

    Press Enter

  5. When the computer responds with "Term = (VT100)", just press Enter

  6. Now at the $ sign you type pine

  7. When you are finished, remember to type exit at the $ prompt to close your account.

Readingand writing email using Pine

This is the basic communication that you are required to learn. For those of you that are familar with Pine, help other students just starting out. Susan Melchert will be in the Vancouver computer lab Tuesday nights from 4:00 until 8:00pm or check in with any of the lab assistants.
If you want to read your in-coming mail:

You can then use the following commands:

  1. <return>Read the current, highlighted message

  2. <space> Scroll down a page

  3. -(hyphen) Scroll back up a page

  4. N Move the cursor to the next message

  5. P Move the cursor to the previous message

  6. R Reply to the current message

  7. F Forward the message to another person

  8. D Delete the current message

  9. S Save the message to a folder

  10. M Return to the Main menu

While reading a message, you can press s to save it to a folder.

Folders are useful for grouping messages together according to topic, similar to how you would use file folders to organize papers. For example, I create one folder for each of my classes: Organ Beh, Finance, Accounting, etc.

Type L at the opening menu or g from within a mail index to go to the list of folders.

You can then add, delete, rename, or open these folders.

You can also press e to extract a message to a file in your home directory. This is usef ul if you want to download the message using ftp.

In order to send someone an email message from Pine:
  1. Press c for compose.

  2. Fill out the information much like a memo. In the To: line, type intheir email address. (If you are writing someone else who has an accountat the same location, just the username is fine . If you are at WSU-Vancouver, the computer assumes that the user is at WSU-V and will add the vancouver.wsu.edu extension.
  3. Similarly, you can send a carbon copy (Cc:) to someone.

  4. The attchmnt: line is what you would use to send files. In our situation, we will be sending documets through Netscape.

  5. Add an appropriate subject heading to get the reader's atttention or to address an assignment. In our situation, this is where your would indentify who you are. Write your last name, followed by your emial address. For example: goodstei, goodstei@vancouver.wsu.edu

When you are done composing a message (and running the spell checker by typing ^t )(the ^ means control or ctrl, it is the button to the far left of your keyboard) send the message by pressing ^x and answer y at the prompt which asks if you want to send it.

Alternatively, you can press ^c at any point to cancel a message or "^o to postpone.

Address Book

Pine includes a very useful address book feature.
  1. From the main menu, press a to access the address book
  2. then a to add addresses. Pine will prompt you for a nickname or alias, the person's real name, and their email address.

This is a useful feature for keeping track of your email contacts. There are three ways to use these addre sses:

  1. From the main menu press a to go into the address book, high-light the person you wish to write, and press c (for compose). This will bring up the message composer with that address in the To: line.
  2. Yo u can simply type in a nickname from your address book on the To: or Cc: when you are composing a message. It will then expand into the full address, like magic.
  3. While on a To: or Cc: line, press ^t which will take you into your address boo k. You can then select an address, press <enter>, and that address will be pasted into the To: or Cc: line.
Another short cut is to just press t while reading a message you can automatically create a nickname for the author of that message which you can then use in the future.

I would sugest to find out more about Pine, just click on pine.

If you have any questions or suggestions please drop me a line with Pine!

melchert@vancouver.wsu.edu

For those of you that are familar with Pine and wish to learn more read on, or just click on any of the highlighted Pines. The rest is not required for the class.

There are many options in Pine which you can set-up from the Setup menu.

For example, you can create a signature file which will always be appended to the bottom of your messages or have Pine automatically sort incoming mailing messages into different folders. In order to use the signature feature, select Con figure from Pine's Setup menu.

Cursor down to the "signature-file" line, press Aadd, and type in .signature. Press <enter> and then Exit the configuration menu and Quit out of Pine.

At the dollar sign (Unix prompt) "$", type pico .signature (the dot before signatu re is critical) at the system prompt. Type into that file anything you want to appear at the bottom of your outgoing mail messages.

This file should be no longer than four lines as long signatures are frowned upon; generally your name, institutio nal affiliation, and email address are sufficient. Press ^x to exit and save the .pinerc file.

There are many other options using Pine. To explore, just click on any of the highlighted Pines.