On TFN, you have options as to which mail program you use. This HelpLink File will assist users in the use of the PINE Mailer on TFN. PINE Stands for Program for Internet News and Email. PINE was created at the University of Washington. Since Pine is a pretty simple program to use, I am going to give you a little information on it, then give users the basic commands for navigating it and configuring it for your use. PINE has changed so much since version 3.89 (my first experience with it) that most of the help documentation is within the program itself.

WHAT PINE IS Pine is the University of Washington's "Program for Internet News and Email". It is intended to be an easy-to-use program for sending, receiving, and filing Internet electronic mail messages and bulletin board (Netnews/Usenet) messages. Pine supports the following Internet protocols and specifications: SMTP (Simple Mail Transport Protocol), NNTP (Network News Transport Protocol), MIME (Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions), IMAP (Internet Message Access Protocol), and LDAP (Lightweight Directory Access Protocol).

Although originally designed for inexperienced email users, Pine has evolved to support many advanced features. There are an ever-growing number of configuration and personal-preference options, though which of them are available to you is determined by your local system managers.

WHAT PINE DOES... Pine is a "mail user agent" (MUA), which is a program that allows you to compose and read messages using Internet mail standards. (Whether you can correspond with others on the Internet depends on whether or not your computer is connected to the Internet.) Pine also allows reading and posting messages on the Internet "net news" system, provided that your site operates a suitable news server.

WHAT PINE DOES NOT DO... A "mail user agent" such as Pine is just one part of a messaging system. Here are some things that are not done by Pine, but require other programs:

Actual relaying of email... which is done by "message transfer agents"

Vacation messages... automatically responding to incoming messages

Anything to do with "talk"... which has nothing to do with email.

Anything to do with "irc"... which has nothing to do with email.

List processing... resending one message to a list of recipients.

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START UP PINE: To start PINE, simply type 'pine' (without quotes) at the shell prompt, and press enter. PINE willl start up, and you will see PINE's main menu screen. You will see the main menu has several options:

? 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 1989-2005. PINE is a trademark of the University of Washington.

? Help P PrevCmd R RelNotes

O OTHER CMDS > [ListFldrs] N NextCmd K KBLock

As you can see, the menu driven PINE program is very simple to use. To Get Help with PINE commands, simply hilight the ? from the Main Menu, and you will get menu driven help on PINE. To Compose a Message, Select "C" - Then you will be placed in the PINE program, where you can address and type a mail message. When done, Press Control+x and 'y' to send the message. Below on the status bar, you will see a list of commands, similar to those in the main menu, so you always will have commands for each screen.

Other Options that you can use Include 'I' to see messages in the current folder, 'L' to select what folder you wish to view, 'A' to manage your PINE addressbooks 'S' to Setup PINE Options and finally 'Q' to Quit PINE altogether.

FOLDERS IN PINE:users on TFN will need to remember that thier mailbox file will be stored in /home/your_userid as 'Mailbox' (without quotes) This will be your mailbox regardless of what mail program you use, or how you choose to get your mail on the system. The important thing to note will be that PINE will read your Mailbox file, and in PINE, it will be called 'INBOX'. If you make folders to store messages in PINE, these folders will be stored in /home/your_userid/mail/ - so you will have to go to your mail/ directory to get that mail that is saved in PINE - you can simply FTP the contents of the folder to your machine.