Using Pine - Advanced Commands

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Advanced Commands and Configuring in Pine

Pine Deluxe: Setting Up and Configuring

Even though PINE is configured to serve most needs on default, there are some personalizing changes you may want to make. This documentation should walk you through most of the changes you might want to make.

Configuring from Pine:

Configuring in Pine 3.91, which is the version of Pine used in William James, is fairly simple. Most useful changes can be made directly through the Pine program without editing extra files.

From the Main Menu, type S for setup. Pine will prompt, "Choose a setup task from the menu below," which includes Newpassword, [Printer], Config, and Update.

P allows you to change the printer set-up. You will see a screen with this text: (it will, of course, look slightly different if you're not using a Macintosh.)

   1. Printer attached to IBM PC or compatible, MacIntosh
      This may not work with all attached printers, and will depend on  
      the terminal emulation/communications software in use. It is known 
      to work with Kermit and the latest UW version of NCSA telnet on   
      Macs and PCs, Versaterm Pro on Macs, and WRQ Reflections on PCs.
          Command: attached-to-ansi

   2. Standard UNIX print command
      Using this option may require setting your "PRINTER" or "LPDEST"
      environment variable using the standard UNIX utilities.
          Command: lpr

   3. Personally selected print command
      The text to be printed will be piped into the command given here. 
      Some examples are: "prt", "lpr", "lp", or "enscript". The command 
      may be given with options, for example "enscript -2 -r" or "lpr   
      -Plpacc170". The commands and options on your system may be       
      different from these examples.
          Command:

The options you will be concerned with are 1 and 3. If you are are using a personal printer which is physically attached to your computer, you will want Option 1.

If you are printing to one of our networked printer (one where you have to log onto wjh to print), you will want Option 3, which will route your print job to one of the networked printers. To print to a networked printer, the print command is lpr -Pprintername, where printername is the name of the printer you wish to print to. (The 13th floor laser printer is called lw1372, so your print command would be lpr -Plw1372.) Make sure the method with which you wish to print is selected as the default print method. You can do this by going to your desired print option and pressing return.

N will allow you to change your password. It's a good idea to change your password about once a semester for security's sake -- just be sure to remember what you changed it to! Pine will ask you for your old password, then ask you to type in your new password twice.

C allows many configurable options. Most of them are self-explanatory; the first line, for example, personal-name, sets the name you want to use for your mail. These should be easy enough to figure out.

Creating a .Signature File

The .signature file allows you to create a customized signature tag. People often include their name, office, and e-mail address; although more or less information can be included, of course.
To create a .signature file, type pico .signature at the C$ prompt. (It's important to include the "." ) You will get a blank screen. Type in the information you want to include and hit control-X to exit the file. From now on, your messages will end with this customized tag. General e-mail etiquette suggests that you limit your .signature file to about 4 lines of text.

Explanations and Useful Commands

Composing a Letter

Cc:
Sends a carbon copy of the message to the address you specify.

Attachmt:
Type in the name of a file that you wish to be sent along with your e-mail message.

In order to see these options, you have to type control-R while the cursor is in the 'header' field.

Bcc:
Means blind carbon copy; it will send a copy of the message to a specified address without the person listed in the To: field's knowledge.

Fcc:
Will save the message to a specified folder in your account.

Mailing Lists:
You can set up a mailing list from the address book screen. This references a group of names and e-mail addresses under one group nickname, so you could send a messages to large stable groups without having to type in all the names every time.

S creates the list
Z adds new names to the list.

William James Hall Computer Services
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Last modified Mar 20, 1998, 15:11:47 EST