? Help - Get help using Pine
C Compose - Compose and send a message
I Folder Index - View messages in current folder
L Folder List - Select a folder to view
A Address Book - Update address book
S Setup - Configure or update Pine
Q Quit - Exit the Pine mail program
The bottom of each screen in Pine will show you keystrokes for the
various options. For example, if we want to more information about this
screen we could type a question mark (?) for "Help."
Press c for Compose. Throughout Pine you may type upper or lower case letters for commands. Pine will open a new message, place the cursor after the "To:" and provide a new assortment of commands at the bottom of the screen. These commands are slightly different from the commands on the previous screen. Notice that each command letter is preceded by a "^" mark. This means that you need to hold down the CTRL key, then press the letter. For example, to get Help on this screen you would hold down the CTRL key, then press G. We abbreviate these commands by saying CTRL- G.
To send a note to someone you must first enter their e-mail address. E- mail addresses consist of a user name, followed by an "@" sign, followed by a location. If you do not know the e-mail address of the person to whom you wish to send a note, ask them. Some examples of what e-mail addresses look like are:
mkapoodl@uvm.edu
john.smith@uvm.edu
kjones@zoo.uvm.edu@zoo.uvm.edu
143567.45678@compuserve.com
If you are composing a message to someone who has a zoo.uvm.edu account, you can
enter part of their name into the To: field, and our LDAP database will be
searched for people who have the name you typed in. For instance, if you
didn't know Myron's last name, but you know it started with a "K", you
could type "myron k" into the To: field. All entries on UVM's database
where "myron" appeared in the name, and one part of the name started with
the letter "K" would appear in a list. You could then scroll up and down
in the list with your arrow keys. If the entry you are looking for exists
and has an e-mail address associated with it, you can highlight it and
press enter. The address will be added to your To: field just like that.
Try to be as specific as possible. If you type a common name such "smith"
or "jennifer", you will only see the first 100 entries. If you enter a
name that doesn't exist in the database, the suffix @zoo.uvm.edu will be
added. This means that the account does not exist. Erase the entry and
try again. After typing the address, press the Return key. The cursor will move to the "cc" line. You may use this line to send a "carbon copy" of your message to someone else. Type in the e-mail address and press the Return key. You may also send a message to several people at once by typing in each mail address separated by a comma. Once you have filled in the "To:" and "cc:" sections, press the Return key twice to move to the "Subject:" line. Type in a short line describing the subject of this message. For example, you could say "Greetings from a New Pine User".
Press the Return key again to move into the "Message Text" area. Now type your message. Pine does not have a robust editor, so you may find that typing messages is not as easy as in a regular word processor. Basically, you can use the "Backspace" key to back-up and erase text that you have mistyped. You can use the arrow keys to move around your text, you can delete a letter by pressing CTRL-D, and you can delete an entire line by pressing CTRL-K. Some other options are:
^C - cancel the message
^J - realign the paragraph (justify)
^Y - move to a previous page
^V - move to the next page
^U - undelete a line that was deleted with ^K
^O - postpone this message and finish it at some other time.
^T - check the spelling in your message
Once you have typed your message, you can check the spelling by pressing
CTRL-T (hold down the CTRL key, press t). Pine will go through your
document and look for words that are not in its internal dictionary. Like
all spell checkers, it will stop when it sees a word it does not
recognize. This means it will also stop for words like proper names. When
it finds an unfamiliar word, it will stop and display a message at the
bottom of the screen asking you to edit the replacement. You may either
edit the word and press the Return key or, if you know the word is spelled
correctly, just press the Return key. You may cancel spell checking at any
time by pressing CTRL-C (^C). Be aware that, like all spell checkers, Pine
will only stop for words that are not in its dictionary. This means that
it will not pick up words that are used incorrectly. For example, Pine's
spell checker would see nothing wrong with this sentence: Their as know
fry launch (instead of: There is no free lunch). All the words
are recognizable to the spell checker! Now send the message. Press CTRL-X (^X) to send. Pine will prompt at the bottom of the screen "Send message? (y/n) [y]:" Whenever Pine asks a question like this you have three options. You can press "y" for yes, "n" for no, or you can press the Return key. If you press the Return key you will tell Pine to choose the letter in square brackets. In this case the "y" for Yes is in square brackets, so pressing the Return key is the same as pressing "y" for yes. Press Y for Yes. Your message will now be sent to everyone in the "To:" or "cc" area. If you mistyped an address, or if, for some reason, the mailer can't find the person to whom you sent the message, Pine will return the message with an explanation of what went wrong. Once the message has been sent you will be returned to the menu you were previously in.
M - to return to the Main Menu
I - to return to the Index or list of messages
P - to read a previous message
N - to go directly to the next message
F - forward this message to another person
R - reply to the sender of this message
D - delete this message
S - save this message in a special folder
You can also press the letter o which will give you even more options,
but for now let's press r to reply to the sender of this message.
Depending on where your message came from, Pine may give the following
prompt:
Use "Reply to:" address instead of "From:"address (y/n) [y]:Look at the address area at the top of the message. Sometimes the messages you receive will have originally been sent to someone else and then forwarded to you. The "From" address is who originally sent the message. The "Reply to:" address is who sent the message on to you. If you choose "y" for yes, your message will go to whoever is listed in the "Reply to:" area. If you choose "n" for no, your message will go to whoever is listed in the "From:" area. Now Pine will prompt:
Reply to all recipients (y/n) [y]:If you press y for yes, Pine will send your message directly to everyone listed in the Reply to: and From: areas.
Lastly, Pine will ask if you would like to include the original message in your reply. If you say yes the message will appear on the next screen where you will type your reply. If you say no the message will not be included. (Don't worry. If you say yes and then decide you do not want to include the original message, you can delete each line of the original message using CTRL-K.)
Press n for no. You will now see a screen that looks just like the "Compose" screen, with the exception that the "To:" and "Subject:" lines are already filled in. You may add names to the "cc" area if you wish, or you may simply type your message. When you are ready to send the message, press CTRL-X (^X). You will be asked if you want to send the message. Press y for yes.
If you chose to delete some messages, they will now appear on the Index preceded by the letter "D". They have not yet been deleted, only marked for deletion. If you decide you would rather not delete them, you may move the highlight bar to that message and press u for "undelete." If you are sure you would like to delete them, press x for "expunge." Expunge will wipe out all messages that have been marked for deletion, so be sure to check before pressing this command. (By the way, both the "d" and "x" commands appear on the screen reached by pressing "o" for Other Commands. However, you do not have to be on that screen for these commands to work. Most commands work on any screen, not just on the screen where those commands are listed.)
Another folder will be created for you as soon as you leave Pine. This is the "Received-Mail" folder. Each time you leave Pine, all the messages that are in your Inbox are automatically moved to this folder. To read these messages, simply press L at the Main Menu, and use the arrow keys to move the highlighter to the received-mail folder. Then press the Return key. You may read, forward, reply to, or delete these messages just as if they were in your Inbox.
To help you organize your e-mail, you may save messages in their own folders in Pine. In the Index, highlight the message to be saved and press s, or if you already reading the message, just press s. Pine will ask if you wish to save the message in the "saved messages" folder. You may press y for yes, or you may create a folder with a different name by pressing n for no. If you press n for No, Pine will ask for a new folder name. Type in any name you choose. If a folder by that name does not already exist, Pine will ask if it should create it. Press y for yes and the folder will be created. You can see it by going to Folder List. Messages saved in these folders can be treated like any other messages in Pine.
Let's start with a nickname. From the Main Menu, press a to go to the Address Book. Now press a to add a new nickname. You will be asked to type in the person's full name, last name first, then press the Return key. Next you will be asked to type in a nickname. It can be the first name or any name or short word that you choose. Type it in, then press the Return key. Next you will be prompted to type in the e-mail address. Type in the full address (including the username and the @ symbol, just as you would if you were sending a message to this person). This person will now be added to your address book. The next time you send them a message you can simply type their nickname in the "To:" area, instead of their full e-mail name and address. Pine will automatically go to the address book, find their address, and convert the nickname to the proper e-mail address.
Now let's create a distribution list. Press s for CreateList to create the list. You will first be asked for a descriptive name for the list. Type the name and press the Return key. Next you will be asked for a short name for the list. Type the name and press the Return key. Now you will be asked for the first address. Type each address, pressing the Return key after each one. Press the Return key twice to tell Pine that you are finished. Your new distribution list will be added to the address book. The next time you wish to send a message to everyone on that list you can just type the short name in the "To:" area. Pine will automatically insert all of the names included in that distribution list.
If you wish to add more names to a h2>Address Books Address books allow you to do two things: 1) you can create a "nickname" for someone so that you don't have to type their entire e-mail address each time you wish to send them a note, and 2) you can create a "distribution list" that contains several addresses.
Let's start with a nickname. From the Main Menu, press a to go to the Address Book. Now press a to add a new nickname. You will be asked to type in the person's full name, last name first, then press the Return key. Next you will be asked to type in a nickname. It can be the first name or any name or short word that you choose. Type it in, then press the Return key. Next you will be prompted to type in the e-mail address. Type in the full address (including the username and the @ symbol, just as you would if you were sending a message to this person). This person will now be added to your address book. The next time you send them a message you can simply type their nickname in the "To:" area, instead of their full e-mail name and address. Pine will automatically go to the address book, find their address, and convert the nickname to the proper e-mail address.
Now let's create a distribution list. Press s for CreateList to create the list. You will first be asked for a descriptive name for the list. Type the name and press the Return key. Next you will be asked for a short name for the list. Type the name and press the Return key. Now you will be asked for the first address. Type each address, pressing the Return key after each one. Press the Return key twice to tell Pine that you are finished. Your new distribution list will be added to the address book. The next time you wish to send a message to everyone on that list you can just type the short name in the "To:" area. Pine will automatically insert all of the names included in that distribution list.
If you wish to add more names to a distribution list that you have already created, highlight that distribution list and press t for Addtolist. You will be prompted to enter the address. You may also delete or edit names on the list.
You will be returned to the Zoo prompt.
If Pine's built-in Help can't answer your questions, contact the HelpLine by sending e-mail to helpline@uvm.edu or calling 656-2604.
Alternatively, extensive information and help is available from the University of Washington's Pine Information Center.
Last modified March 19 2003 06:47 PM