Pine is an old pre-Windows email system. We recommend staff and faculty use a more user-friendly program such as Outlook Express. See instructions at http://www.uccs.edu/helpdesk/outlookexp.htm. Students should use Webmail. Those instructions are at http://www.uccs.edu/~helpdesk/webmail.htm. If you must use Pine, we recommend the PC Pine version which makes working with attachments much easier. PC Pine instructions are found at http://www.uccs.edu/~helpdesk/pcpine.htm.

Starting Pine

To log into your Unix account from on campus, click on the Start button and select Run. Type "telnet brain" without the quotes, and click the OK button. Log into your Unix account and type pine at the prompt (must be lowercase).

Main Menu

The bottom two lines of the screen are always used to list the commands you can give. You press the keys that are highlighted to give the command. The commands for getting help and going back to the main menu are always present.

General Pine Commands

? Show Help Text
C Compose a message
I Message Index Screen
L Folder List screen
A Address Book screen
S Setup functions
Q Quit Pine

Main Menu Screen Commands

O Show all Other available commands
P Select Previous command up on menu
N Select Next command down on menu
R Display Pine Release Notes
K Lock Keyboard
G Go to a specified folder

Explanation of various commands:

Compose Message:- This command (available on Main Menu, Folder List, Message Index, and Message Text Screens) takes you into the Pine message composer and permits you to create and send a new message.

Message Index:- This command (available on Main Menu, Folder List, and Message Text screens) takes you to the Message Index screen which displays a summary caption for each message in the currently-open folder. One message will be highlighted; this is the "Current" message. The message commands available from this screen (e.g. View, Reply, Forward, Delete, Print, Save, etc.) apply to the current message.

Folder List:- This command (available on Main Menu, Message Index, and Message Text screens) takes you to the Folder List screen which displays the names of all your messages folders and allows you to view, rename, delete, and add folders. You can open (view) a different folder than the one currently open by highlighting the desired one (using the arrow keys or their control-key equivalents) and pressing Return. If you have multiple folder collections defined (see Help text for the Folder List screen to learn more about Collections), you may need to press Return to expand the collection and display all of the folders in it.

Other Commands:- The "Other Commands" function changes the keys you see at the bottom of any screen. In some cases, there are three different pages of keys which it toggles through. All commands are active, even if they are not currently showing at the bottom of your screen. In other words, you never need to prefix a command key with the 'O' key.

Control Key

When composing mail and in a few other places in Pine you have to use Control keys which means pressing the control key and the letter indicated at the same time. This is usually shown with a "^" in front of the letter; for example: ^C for cancel.

Writing and Sending a Message

1. In Pine, creating a mail message is known as Composing. On the Main Menu, it is called COMPOSE MESSAGE.

2. To begin, simply type the "C" key. You are presented with the composition screen. At the top is the header. Complete the information that is applicable:

To: Type the e-mail address(es) of the recipient(s)
Cc: A carbon copy will be sent to the address(es) entered here
Attchmnt: The name of the file you want to include with the message, if any
Message Text Enter the body of your message here

3. Once you have completed your message, you can either type "Ctrl-X" to send the message or "Ctrl-C" to cancel without sending.

4. If you are sending a message to a UCCS account, you can put just their login name (e.g. "jdoe" if the address is jdoe@uccs.edu) in the To: field and press return to display their full name name and email address.

5. If you find you need to delete a whole line of text when you are composing your message you can use "Ctrl-K" instead of your backspace key.

6. There is also a feature that allows you to postpone a message and resume editing later. To do this, type "Ctrl-O" while composing a message. Pine will save the message-in-progress and allow you to do something else - even exit pine. The next time you compose a message, Pine will first ask if you want to resume the previous message. Type "Y" to continue old message or "N" to start a new one. (Note, if you type N it will not delete the old message, but will store it until you are ready to complete it.)

Note: Help is available for each area of the screen. To get help on any subject, place the cursor (not with the mouse, but with the arrow keys) on the area that you wish to learn more about and press "Ctrl-G".

Sending Attachments

If you need to send someone an attachment, first you need to transfer the file from Windows to Unix using the SSH secure file transfer program. See http://www.uccs.edu/~helpdesk/ssh.htm (Use Fetch for Macintosh computers). Once the file is in your home directory in Unix, all you need to do while you are in Pine is to go to the line that says: Attchmnt: in Compose Message header screen.

Press Ctrl-J . At this point, Pine will ask: File to attach:. If you remember the name file you want to attach you can enter it here, if you don't...
Press Ctrl-T to browse the files and folders in your Unix directory. Pine will list the files in your home directory.
Select the file you want to attach using the arrow keys and press Return. Pine will ask you for Attachment comment:, you can either leave this blank or type a comment to be associated with the attachment.

When you are done attaching the file, send the e-mail as usual.

Spell Check

If you would like to spell check your message before sending it type "Ctrl-T". Pine will then look through the message and highlight any misspelled words and ask you to Edit a replacement:. You can either edit it by typing in what it should be and then hitting enter, or do nothing and hit enter if it doesn't need to be edited. Sorry, Pine will not give you a list of suggested corrections.

Reading Messages

By default, Pine creates three folders for you - INBOX, saved-messages, and sent-messages. When you receive mail, Pine will save the message to your INBOX folder. To read new mail, press the "I" key from the Main Menu when you start up Pine. To select another folder, select FOLDER LIST by pressing the "L" key. Use the arrow keys to highlight the name of the folder you want and press Return. Any messages in that folder will be displayed. To retrieve the text of any message, use the up and down arrow keys to highlight the message and press Return.

Reading Attachments

If you have been sent an e-mail with an attachment in Pine, open the e-mail that it is attached to.

Type "V", Pine will list all the attachments in the e-mail
Select the attachment you want
Press "S" to save the attachment to your home directory in Unix

The filename of the attachment will appear on the bar at the bottom of the screen, just press RETURN to save the file. Please note that Unix rejects filenames with spaces in them so you might need to edit some filenames before you save the attachment. To retrieve an attachment you need to use the SSH program or Fetch, which will help you transfer files between Unix and Windows. Once the attachment is in the Windows system you can manipulate it as you would with any other file.

Paging Up/Down

The "+" and "-" keys are used for moving to the next or previous page. The space bar is a synonym for "+". You may also use "Ctrl-V" to page down and "Ctrl-Y" to page up as you do in the message composer. On screens with a Where Is (search) command, "W" or "Ctrl-W" followed by "Ctrl-V" will move to the bottom of the message or list, and "W" or "Ctrl-W" followed by "Ctrl-Y" will move to the top of the message or list.

Saving a Mail Message

After you have read a message type the "S" key to save it. Pine will prompt you for the name of the folder you want to save the message to. You can either type in a name of an existing folder or type in a new name and Pine will create it for you.

Printing a Mail Message

Before you are able to print from Pine, you need to set it up so that is can print to windows. To do this, select "S" (setup) from the Main Menu, and then from the list of options, select "P" (Printer) this will open up a new screen. Under:

Printer attached to IBM PC or compatible Macintosh

go down to:

Printer: attached-to-ansi

Select attached-to-ansi and press Enter, you should get a message at the bottom of the screen that says:

[Default printer set to "attached-to-ansi"]

Press "E" to exit the settings and when prompted, press "Y" (Yes) to commit the changes. After these settings are complete, all you have to do to print an email message from within Pine is press "Y".

Your Personal Address Book

Pine has an address book where it keeps a list of e-mail addresses for you. The address book is also capable of creating distribution lists so one nickname can e-mail to a list of people.

To add a new address:

At the Main Menu:

Press the "A" key to enter the Address Book utility. You will be shown a screen that displays all the addresses you have previously entered, if any.
Press the "A" key to add an address.
Type in a nick name for the person you are adding in the Nickname: field. When composing a message, this word can be entered in the TO: or Cc: field and the full address will be displayed. Must be one word and unique from the others.
Type the person's full name in the Fullname: field and their email address in the Addresses : field. If the person has more than one email address that you would like to send mail to simultaneously you can put them in the addresses field separated by commas.

To add an address from a message:

To add an address from a message:

Select the message containing the address you want.
You will be prompted to:
- Enter new or existing nickname (one word and easy to remember):
- Type a nickname (short easy-to-remember name, initials or single word) for this entry in the address book and press RETURN.
When the new screen opens with the fullname and address filled out, press "Ctrl-X" to save and exit.

Note that if the message contains more that one email address, they will all be displayed in a list, simply select the one you want from the list to save to your address book.

To create a distribution list:

A distribution list is a roster of addresses that can be mailed at once. From the pine main menu:

Press "A" to get into the Address Book
Press "A" (AddNew) to add a new entry
In the Nickname: field, type a nickname for the list as described above
In the Fullname: field, type some kind of description for the list (e.g. classmates)
In the Addresses: field, type the email addresses separated by commas
When you are done typing the addresses, press Ctrl-X to save and exit from the list

You can exit from the address book by typing: "M" (Main Menu) to exit to the Main Menu.