






                    Pine Technical Notes
9                Version 3.85, September 1993



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          Pine is a trademark of the University of  Washing-
          ton

          Copyright 1989-1993  University of Washington

          PC-Pine and  UNIX  Pine  are  still  under  active
          development.   The  core functionality in Pine has
          been in testing for many  months,  but  there  are
          also     significant     new     features    (e.g.
          multiple/remote folder collections) which have not
          yet  been  extensively tested.  Therefore we still
          consider this an experimental version.   New  ver-
          sions  will  be  released  as  bug  fixes  and new
          features become available.

          Permission to use, copy,  modify,  and  distribute
          this  software  and its documentation for any pur-
          pose and without fee to the University of Washing-
          ton  is  hereby  granted,  provided that the above
          copyright notice appears in all  copies  and  that
          both  the  above copyright notice and this permis-
          sion notice appear  in  supporting  documentation,
          and  that the name of the University of Washington
          not be used in advertising or publicity pertaining
          to  distribution of the software without specific,
          written prior permission.  This software  is  made
          available as is.

          THE UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON DISCLAIMS ALL WARRAN-
          TIES,  EXPRESS  OR  IMPLIED,  WITH  REGARD TO THIS
          SOFTWARE, INCLUDING WITHOUT LIMITATION ALL IMPLIED
          WARRANTIES  OF  MERCHANTABILITY  AND FITNESS FOR A
          PARTICULAR PURPOSE, AND  IN  NO  EVENT  SHALL  THE
          UNIVERSITY  OF  WASHINGTON  BE LIABLE FOR ANY SPE-
          CIAL, INDIRECT OR  CONSEQUENTIAL  DAMAGES  OR  ANY
          DAMAGES  WHATSOEVER  RESULTING  FROM  LOSS OF USE,
          DATA OR PROFITS, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT,
          TORT  (INCLUDING  NEGLIGENCE) OR STRICT LIABILITY,
          ARISING OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH  THE  USE  OR
          PERFORMANCE OF THIS SOFTWARE.












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                  - Pine Technical Notes -


                       _S_e_c_t_i_o_n _1 - _I_n_t_r_o_d_u_c_t_i_o_n



          _D_e_s_i_g_n _G_o_a_l_s

          Pine was originally conceived in 1989 as a simple,
          easy-to-use mailer for administrative staff at the
          University of Washington in Seattle. The goal  was
          to  provide  a  mailer  that naive users could use
          without fear of making  mistakes.   We  wanted  to
          cater  to  users who were less interested in using
          electronic mail than in doing  their  jobs;  users
          who  perhaps  had  some computer anxiety.  We felt
          the way to do this was  to  build  a  system  that
          didn't do surprising things the user didn't under-
          stand, a mailer that had limited, well-thought-out
          functionality.   At  the  time,  there was no such
          UNIX mailer commercially or freely available.  Elm
          seemed  closest to the goal, so we started modify-
          ing it.

          One of the greatest problems with most mailers  on
          UNIX  systems  is  the  editor.  One  can normally
          choose between _e_m_a_c_s and _v_i. We experimented  with
          some  versions  of  emacs  and settled on a hacked
          version of  micro  emacs.   Eventually  it  became
          heavily  modified  and tightly integrated with the
          rest of Pine.  One of the main features of  having
          a  tightly coupled editor is that it can guide the
          user through editing the header  of  the  message,
          and  Pine takes great care to do this. A very sim-
          ple and efficient interface to the UNIX spell com-
          mand  was also added. The emacs-style key bindings
          were retained, though most of the other  wild  and
          wonderful  emacs functions were not. The Pine com-
          position editor is also available as a very simple
          stand alone editor named "pico".

          Throughout Pine development, we have had to strike
          a  balance  between  the  need to include features
          which advanced users require and the need to  keep
          things simple for beginning users.  To strike this
          balance, we have tried to adhere to  these  design
          principles:


               - The underlying model presented to the  user
               has  to be simple and clear.  Underlying sys-
               tem operation is hidden as much as possible.

               - It's better to have a few easily understood
               commands  that  can  be repeated than to have


                           - 3 -







                  - Pine Technical Notes -


               some more sophisticated command that will  do
               the job all at once.

               - Whenever the user has to select a  command,
               file  name,  address, etc., the user is given
               or can get a menu  from  which  to  make  the
               selection.  Menus are complete, small, organ-
               ized and well thought out.

               - Pine provides immediate  feedback  for  the
               user with each operation.

               - Pine must be very tolerant of user  errors.
               Any  time  a  user  is  about  to  perform an
               irreversible act  (send  a  message,  expunge
               messages  from  a folder), Pine asks for con-
               firmation.

               - Users can learn by exploration without fear
               of  doing  anything wrong.  This is an impor-
               tant feature so  the  user  can  get  started
               quickly  without  reading  any manuals and so
               fewer manuals are required.

               - The size  of  Pine  should  be  kept  to  a
               minimum  so  users  don't  feel "lost" in all
               these commands and concepts.


          Just as there were goals relating to the look  and
          feel  of  Pine, there were equally important goals
          having to do with Pine's structure-the things that
          users  never see but still rely on every time they
          use Pine.  While Pine can be used as a stand-alone
          mail  user  agent,  one of its strongest assets is
          its use of the Interactive  Mail  Access  Protocol
          (IMAP)  for  accessing  remote  email folders.  In
          addition, Pine was one of the  first  programs  to
          support  the Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions
          (MIME) specification.  With MIME, Pine  users  can
          reliably  send any binary file to any other person
          on the Internet who uses a  MIME  compliant  email
          program.

          The choices to  use  IMAP  and  MIME  reflect  the
          importance  of  interoperability,  standardization
          and robustness in Pine.  As  you  work  with  Pine
          more,  you  will  see other features which reflect
          the same values. For example, Pine enforces strict
          compliance  with RFC-822, implements a strong mail
          folder locking mechanism and  verifies  a  process
          before  overwriting  any  files (e.g. addressbook,
          expunging messages).


                           - 4 -







                  - Pine Technical Notes -


          _P_i_n_e _C_o_m_p_o_n_e_n_t_s

          If you have picked up the Pine distribution,  then
          you  already  know  that  Pine comes in a few dif-
          ferent pieces.  They are:


          _P_i_n_e This main code from which the Pine program is
               compiled.


          _P_i_c_o Pico is the name for the Pine composer.   The
               Pico  code  is  used  in two ways:  (1) it is
               compiled on its own to be a stand-alone  edi-
               tor  or (2) compiled as a library for Pine to
               support composition of messages within  Pine.
               Pico  is  Pine's internal editor invoked when
               users need to fill in header  lines  or  type
               the text of an email message.


          _I_m_a_p An  API  for  IMAP.   Includes  the  C-Client
               library, which is compiled into Pine, and the
               IMAP server IMAPd.  C-Client  implements  the
               IMAP  protocol and also negotiates all access
               between Pine and the mail folders it operates
               on.  The C-Client routines are used for email
               folder parsing  and  interpreting  MIME  mes-
               sages.  IMAPd  is a separate server that han-
               dles IMAP connections from any IMAP compliant
               email  program.   When Pine accesses a remote
               mailbox, the Pine program is the IMAP  client
               and the IMAPd program is the IMAP server.



















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                  - Pine Technical Notes -


                      _S_e_c_t_i_o_n _2 - _B_a_c_k_g_r_o_u_n_d _D_e_t_a_i_l_s




          _D_o_m_a_i_n _N_a_m_e_s

          Domain names are used to uniquely name  each  host
          on  the  Internet.   A domain name has a number of
          parts separated by periods.  Each label represents
          a  level  in  the hierarchy.  An example of a name
          is:

                       _o_l_i_v_e._c_a_c._w_a_s_h_i_n_g_t_o_n._e_d_u

          In this domain name the top-level  label  is  _e_d_u,
          indicating  it  is  at an educational institution,
          the second-level label is  _w_a_s_h_i_n_g_t_o_n,  indicating
          the  University  of Washington.  _c_a_c is a specific
          department within the  University  of  Washington,
          and  _o_l_i_v_e  is the host name.  The top-level names
          are assigned by Internet organizations, and  other
          names  are assigned at the appropriate level.  The
          Domain Name Service, DNS, is the distributed data-
          base used to look up these names.

          Pine relies on domain names in multiple places.  A
          domain  name  is embedded into the message-id line
          generated for each piece of email.  A domain  name
          is  needed to contact an IMAP server to get access
          to remote INBOXes and folders.  Most  importantly,
          domain  names  are  needed  to construct the From:
          line of your outgoing messages so that  people  on
          the  Internet  will  be  able to get email back to
          you.

          On UNIX systems, you can set the  domain  via  the
          _u_s_e_r-_d_o_m_a_i_n  variable  in  the  Pine configuration
          file, or rely on the file /_e_t_c/_h_o_s_t_s which usually
          sets  the  name of the local host.  While Pine can
          often deliver email without the domain name  being
          properly  configured,  it is best to have this set
          right. Problems can usually be solved by adjusting
          the  system's  entry  in the /_e_t_c/_h_o_s_t_s file.  The
          fully-qualified name should be listed  before  any
          abbreviations.

              128.95.112.99   olive.cac.washington.edu   olive

                          is preferred over

              128.95.112.99   olive   olive.cac.washington.edu
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                  - Pine Technical Notes -


          On PCs, the task of configuring the domain name is
          a  bit  different.   Often  times, PCs do not have
          domain names-they have IP addresses.  IP addresses
          are the numbers which uniquely identify a computer
          on the network.  The way  you  configure  your  IP
          address  depends  on the networking software which
          you use on the PC.  You can refer to the  documen-
          tation which came with your networking software or
          see the PC specific installation  notes  for  help
          configuring  the  IP  address  with  your  network
          software.

          With PCs, it is vital that users set the  variable
          _u_s_e_r-_d_o_m_a_i_n   in   the   Pine  configuration  file
          (_P_I_N_E_R_C).

          Details on configuring Pine  with  correct  domain
          names  can be found in the Domain Settings section
          of this document.


          _R_F_C-_8_2_2 _C_o_m_p_l_i_a_n_c_e

          Pine tries to adhere  to  RFC-822  a  little  more
          strongly  than  some  other  mailers  and uses the
          "full  name  <address>"  format  rather  than  the
          "address  (full  name)" format.  The intent of the
          standard is that parentheses should  only  be  for
          comments.   Pine  displays and generates the newer
          format, but will parse the old format and  attempt
          to turn it into the new one.

          As  far  as  outgoing  email  is  concerned,  Pine
          fully-qualifies addresses whenever possible.  They
          are even displayed in fully-qualified form on  the
          terminal  as  the  user  composes a message.  This
          makes addresses more clear and gives a hint to the
          user  that  the  network  extends beyond the local
          organization.   Pine  implements   fully-qualified
          domain names by tacking on the local domain to all
          unqualified addresses which a user types in.   Any
          address which does not contain a "@" is considered
          unqualified.

          The newer format for addresses  allow  for  spaces
          and  special  characters  in  the  full name of an
          address.  For this reason, commas are required  to
          separate  addresses.  If any special characters as
          defined in RFC-822 appear in the full name, quotes
          are required around the address.  Pine will insert
          the quotes automatically.  The common cases  where
          this  happens  are with periods after initials and
          parentheses.


                           - 7 -







                  - Pine Technical Notes -


          Because Pine fully complies with  RFC-822,  it  is
          sometimes  difficult  to  use non-Internet address
          formats  such  as  UUCP's  _h_o_s_t!_u_s_e_r  or  DECNet's
          _U_S_E_R::_H_O_S_T  with  Pine.   People  who  run Pine on
          these systems have  made  local  modifications  to
          Pine  or  to  the mail transport agent (e.g. send-
          mail) to make things work for them.  Another  spe-
          cial  case  that  Pine  does not allow for are the
          sites in the  United  Kingdom  which  require  two
          "local"     domains     (one     in    the    form
          _m_a_c_h_i_n_e._s_i_t_e._a_c._u_k for use outside the UK and  the
          other  _u_k._a_c._s_i_t_e._m_a_c_h_i_n_e  for use inside the UK).
          This special case requires local modifications  to
          Pine.

          Pine expects dates to be in the  standard  RFC-822
          format which is something like:

               [www, ] dd mmm yy hh:mm[:ss] [timezone]

          It will attempt to parse dates  that  are  not  in
          this  format.   When an unparsable date is encoun-
          tered it is displayed as _x_x_x _x_x when shown in  the
          FOLDER INDEX screen.



          _S_M_T_P _a_n_d _S_e_n_d_m_a_i_l

          Pine is a _u_s_e_r _a_g_e_n_t not a _m_e_s_s_a_g_e _t_r_a_n_s_f_e_r _a_g_e_n_t.
          In  plain  English,  that means Pine does not know
          how to interact with other computers on the Inter-
          net  to  deliver  or receive email. What Pine does
          know how to do is help users  read,  organize  and
          create  email.  The "dirty work" of delivering and
          accepting email is handled by other programs.

          All outgoing email is delivered to a mail transfer
          program  or  to  an  SMTP server.  The most common
          mail transfer program is _s_e_n_d_m_a_i_l.  When Pine on a
          UNIX  computer  uses  the local _s_e_n_d_m_a_i_l, it first
          writes the message to a temporary  file  in  /_t_m_p.
          Then Pine runs a shell in the background that runs
          _s_e_n_d_m_a_i_l on the temporary file  and  then  removes
          it.   This  is done with a shell in the background
          so the user doesn't have to wait for  _s_e_n_d_m_a_i_l  to
          finish.   By default, _s_e_n_d_m_a_i_l is invoked with the
          -_t flag to cause it to read and parse  the  header
          to  determine  the  recipients;  the  -_o_e_m flag to
          cause errors to be mailed back; and the  -_o_i  flag
          to  ignore  dots  in  incoming  messages.  Systems
          administrators can choose to configure Pine to use
          a different mail transfer program or even _s_e_n_d_m_a_i_l


                           - 8 -







                  - Pine Technical Notes -


          with different flags.  See  the  section  on  UNIX
          Pine  Compile-time  Options  for  more  details on
          this.

          Pine can also operate  as  an  SMTP  client.  SMTP
          stands  for  _S_i_m_p_l_e  _M_a_i_l  _T_r_a_n_s_f_e_r  _P_r_o_t_o_c_o_l;  it
          specifies the rules  by  which  computers  on  the
          Internet pass email to one another.  In this case,
          Pine passes outgoing email messages  to  a  desig-
          nated  SMTP  server  instead of to a mail transfer
          program on the local machine.  A  program  on  the
          server  then takes care of delivering the message.
          To make Pine operate as an SMTP client, the  _s_m_t_p-
          _s_e_r_v_e_r  variable  must be set to the IP address or
          host name of the SMTP server within your organiza-
          tion.   This  variable  accepts  a comma separated
          list of servers, so you can specify multiple  SMTP
          servers.  PC-Pine only runs as an SMTP client.


          _I_n_t_e_r_a_c_t_i_v_e _M_a_i_l _A_c_c_e_s_s _P_r_o_t_o_c_o_l (_I_M_A_P)

          IMAP is a mail access protocol.  Pine uses IMAP to
          get at messages and folders which reside on remote
          machines.  With IMAP,  all messages  are  kept  on
          the  server.   An  IMAP  client (such as Pine) can
          request specific messages, headers, message struc-
          tures,  etc.   The  client can also issue commands
          which delete messages from folders on the  server.
          IMAP's  closest kin is POP, the Post Office Proto-
          col, which works by transferring an entire mailbox
          to  the  client where all the mail is kept.  For a
          complete comparison of IMAP and POP, see the paper
          _C_o_m_p_a_r_i_n_g _T_w_o _A_p_p_r_o_a_c_h_e_s _t_o _R_e_m_o_t_e _M_a_i_l_b_o_x _A_c_c_e_s_s:
          _I_M_A_P _v_s. _P_O_P by Terry  Gray.   The  paper  can  be
          found  as the file doc/imap.vs.pop in the standard
          Pine distribution.


          IMAP Features:

               Allows access to mail folders from more  than
               one client computer.

               Works well over low-bandwidth  lines  because
               information is sent in small pieces as needed
               by the user.

               Email can be delivered and stored on a  well-
               maintained   and  reliable  server  which  is
               "always-up".

9

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                  - Pine Technical Notes -


               Folders can be accessed and manipulated  from
               anywhere on the Internet.

               Users can get to messages stored on different
               folders within the same Pine session.

               Allows use of IMAP server for  searching  and
               parsing.


          IMAP2 is defined in RFC-1176.  IMAP2bis, the  pro-
          posed  extension  to  IMAP2,  is  described in the
          document imap2bis-draft-XX.txt in the /mail direc-
          tory  of ftp.cac.washington.edu.  IMAP2bis will be
          formally documented in an upcoming RFC.  Pine 3.85
          is  an  IMAP2bis client. It takes advantage of the
          extensions to  IMAP2  and  should  work  with  any
          IMAP2bis server software.



          _M_u_l_t_i_p_u_r_p_o_s_e _I_n_t_e_r_n_e_t _M_a_i_l _E_x_t_e_n_s_i_o_n_s (_M_I_M_E)

          MIME is a way  of  encoding  a  multipart  message
          structure  into a standard Internet email message.
          The parts may be nested and may be of  seven  dif-
          ferent types:  Text, Audio, Image, Video, Message,
          Application  and  Multipart  (nested).   The  MIME
          specification  allows  email programs such as Pine
          to  reliably  and  simply  exchange  binary   data
          (images, spreadsheets, etc.) MIME includes support
          for international  character  sets,  tagging  each
          part  of  a  message  with the character set it is
          written in, and providing 7-bit encoding of  8-bit
          character  sets.  It  also  provides a simple rich
          text format for marking text as bold,  underlined,
          and so on. There is a mechanism for splitting mes-
          sages into multiple parts and reassembling them at
          the receiving end.

          MIME is still relatively new, but already  we  are
          seeing  it  used  widely  throughout the Internet.
          The MIME standard was officially published in June
          of  1992  as  RFC  1341.   Pine 3.0 was one of the
          first email  programs  to  Implement  MIME.   Now,
          there  are  a dozen public MIME email programs and
          nearly that many commercial MIME  email  programs.
          In addition, MIME is being added to newsreaders so
          MIME messages can be posted  and  read  in  USENET
          newsgroups.

          An actual MIME message looks something like this:
9

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                  - Pine Technical Notes -


              From lgl@olive.cac.washington.edu Tue Jul 14 17:55:17 1992
              Date: Tue, 14 Jul 1992 17:55:17 -0700 (PDT)
              From: Laurence Lundblade <lgl@cac.washington.edu>
              Subject: Test MIME message
              To: Laurence Lundblade <lgl@cac.washington.edu>

              --16820115-1435684063-711161753:#2306
              Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII

              The text of the message would go here. It is readable if
              one doesn't mind wading around a little bit of the MIME
              formatting. After this is a binary file in base 64
              encoding. It has been shortened for this example. The
              Base 64 stuff looks dorky in PostScript because
              troff -me doesn't have a fixed font like courier.

              Laurence Lundblade                       206-543-5617
                lgl@cac.washington.edu
                   Computing and Communications, University of Washington

              --16820115-1435684063-711161753:#2306
              Content-Type: TEXT/plain; name=login
              Content-Transfer-Encoding: BASE64
              Content-Description: NeXT login program

              AYAAAABAAAAAQAAAAQAAAL4AAAAAQAAAAEAAAJYAAAAAAAAAAAA
              AAAAAAAABfsAAADFAAAFswAAAAHAAAABwAAAAgAAAAAX190ZXh0
              AAAAF9fVEVYVAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAQpAAAAxQAAAABAAAA
              AAAAAAAAAAAAABfX2Z2bWxpYl9pbml0MAAAX19URVhUAAAAAAAA
              KQAAAEwAAATuAAAAAIAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAF9fZnZt
              XQxAABfX1RFWFQAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAR1AAAAAAAABToAAAAAgAA
              AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAX19jc3RyaW5nAAAAAAAAAF9fVEVYVAAAAAAA
              BHUAAADQQAAFOgAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACAAAAAAAAAABfX2Nv
              AAAAAAAX19URVhUAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAFRgAAACsAAAYLAAAAAIA
              AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAF9fZGF0YQAAAAAAAAAAAABfX0RBVEEAAAAA
              AAVxAAAAQgAABjYAAAAAgAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAX19i
              AAAAAAAAF9fREFUQQAAAAAAAAAAAAAAABbMAAAADAAAAAAAAAAC
              AAAAAABAAAAAAAAAABfX2NvbW1vbgAAAAAAAAAAX19EQVRBAAAA
              CAlcwAlZCBMT0dJTiBGQUlMVVJFJXMgT04gJXMsICVzAHN1AGxv
              Wxsb2Mgb3V0IG9mIG1lbW9yeQoAJXMgdG9vIGxvbmcNCgAvZXRj
              3Vzci9hZG0vd3RtcAAAAABAKCMpUFJPR1JBTTpsb2dpbiAgUFJP
              WRzLTQyICBERVZFTE9QRVI6cm9vdCAgQlVJTFQ6U3VuIE5vdiAx
              zoyMSBQU1QgMTk5MAoAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
              AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
              AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAQCgjKSBDb3B5cmlnaHQgKGMp
              DE5ODcsIDE5ODggVGhlIFJlZ2VudHMgb2YgdGhlIFVuaXZlcnNp
              2FsaWZvcm5pYS4KIEFsbCByaWdodHMgcmVzZXJ2ZWQuCgBAKCMp
              wk1LjQwIChCZXJrZWxleSkgNS85Lzg5AAAAABHUAAAR1f//////
              wAAEdQAABHUAAAR1AAAEdQAAAEsAxwREwT/GhkSDxcWAAAR2gAA
              AAR5gAAEeoAABHuAAAR8gAAEfYAABH6AAAR/gAAEgIAABIGAAAA
              AAB

              --16820115-1435684063-711161753:#2306--


                           - 11 -







                  - Pine Technical Notes -


          For more information about MIME, see RFC  1341  or
          the  FAQ  in  the  newsgroup comp.mail.mime or the
          paper _M_I_M_E _O_v_e_r_v_i_e_w by Mark Grand.  You  can  find
          the  paper  via  ftp  on adad.premenos.sf.ca.us as
          pub/mime.ps or /pub/mime.txt.  For  details  about
          Pine's  implementation  of  MIME, see the two MIME
          sections later in this document.


          _F_o_l_d_e_r _C_o_l_l_e_c_t_i_o_n_s

          Folder Collections are Pine's way of dealing  with
          more  than a single group of folders.  With advent
          of PC-Pine and the  development  of  tools  within
          IMAP to better manage remote folders, the time was
          ripe to provide a mechanism for defining  a  group
          of  remote  folders.   PC-Pine forced the issue in
          that many potential PC-Pine users would be migrat-
          ing  from  UNIX pine in a time sharing environment
          and, thus, would have  some  investment  in  their
          archived messages on that host.

          Currently, pine has no way to  dynamically  create
          or  define  collections,  but  there  is much work
          still going on in this area.  The hope is to  pro-
          vide a general way to define, display and navigate
          remote folder  collections  in  a  consistent  way
          across platforms and applications.  Stay tuned!

          For a more complete description of Folder  Collec-
          tions,  see  the  section  on  "Syntax for Collec-
          tions".




















9

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                  - Pine Technical Notes -


                _S_e_c_t_i_o_n _3 - _B_u_i_l_d_i_n_g _a_n_d _I_n_s_t_a_l_l_a_t_i_o_n



          The Pine distribution is designed  to  require  as
          little configuration and effort at compile time as
          possible.  Still, there are  some  Pine  behaviors
          which  are  set at the time you compile Pine.  For
          each of these, there is a reasonable (our opinion)
          default  built  into  the  code,  so  most systems
          administrators will have no need for these steps.



          _U_N_I_X _P_i_n_e _C_o_m_p_i_l_e-_t_i_m_e _O_p_t_i_o_n_s

          The   files   you   may   need   to   modify   are
          ./_p_i_n_e/_m_a_k_e_f_i_l_e._x_x_x    and   ./_p_i_n_e/_o_s_d_e_p/_o_s-_x_x_x._h
          where "xxx" is the 3-letter code  for  your  plat-
          form.   You can give the command _b_u_i_l_d _h_e_l_p to see
          the list of ports incorporated into Pine and their
          associated     3-letter     codes.     The    file
          ./_p_i_n_e/_m_a_k_e_f_i_l_e._x_x_x is where you  would  set  your
          compiler  options.   By default, Pine will be com-
          piled with debugging on, optimization and  profile
          off.   Note  that  if  you compile with DEBUG off,
          then Pine will not create its normal debug  files,
          no  matter  how  the debug-level and debug command
          line flag are set.

          Most of Pine's  behaviors  are  set  in  the  file
          ./_p_i_n_e/_o_s_d_e_p/_o_s-_x_x_x._h,   which  includes  comments
          that explain each setting.  Some of these can only
          be  set when you compile.  Others, however, can be
          overridden by command-line flags to Pine  or  set-
          tings  in  Pine's  user  or  system  configuration
          files.  Some of the options which can be set  when
          compiling:

               USE_QUOTAS:  Determines  whether  quotas  are
               checked on startup.  Default for most systems
               is to check the quota.

               DEFAULT_DEBUG: Sets the  level  of  debugging
               output create in Pine's debug files.

               NEW_MAIL_TIME:   Interval  between   new-mail
               checks.   Default  for  most  systems  is  30
               seconds.

               OVERLAP: Number of lines  overlap  when  user
               views the next page of a message.  Default on
               most systems is 2.


                           - 13 -







                  - Pine Technical Notes -


               USE_TERMINFO: Instructs Pine to use the  ter-
               minfo  database  instead of termcap.  Default
               varies by system.

               SENDMAIL and SENDMAILFLAGS: Sets the name and
               flags  for  the  local  program  that will be
               called to handle outgoing email.  Default  is
               /_u_s_r/_l_i_b/_s_e_n_d_m_a_i_l  -_o_i  -_o_e_m  -_t on most UNIX
               systems.

               SYSTEM_PINERC: The name  of  the  file  which
               holds  Pine configuration information for all
               users on the system.  Default on UNIX systems
               is /_u_s_r/_l_o_c_a_l/_l_i_b/_p_i_n_e._c_o_n_f.

          There are a couple of more obscure  options  which
          are  in  the source code because a few people have
          asked for them or because  we  changed  our  minds
          about them being a good idea in general.

               ENCODE_FROMS: Use  Quoted-printable  encoding
               so  that  _F_r_o_m'_s  at  the  beginning of lines
               don't end up being escaped by >'s.  Most peo-
               ple  seem  to  dislike  the Q-P encoding more
               than the > escapes.

               NO_KEYBOARD_LOCK: Disable the keyboard  lock-
               ing function in the main menu.



          _P_i_c_o _C_o_m_p_i_l_e-_t_i_m_e _O_p_t_i_o_n_s

               There are even fewer options needed when com-
          piling  Pico.   The  two  interesting ones are for
          UNIX Pico versions only.  The file that  may  need
          some  changing  is  ./_p_i_c_o/_o_s__u_n_i_x._h.  Whatever is
          set will effect the behavior of  the  Pico  stand-
          alone program as well as the composer within Pine.

               SPELLER: Names the program called to do "nor-
               mal" spell-checking.

               TERMCAP and  TERMINFO:  Determines  which  of
               these terminal databases will be used.



          _I_M_A_P_d _C_o_m_p_i_l_e-_t_i_m_e _O_p_t_i_o_n_s

          There are no options or settings required for  the
          version  of  IMAPd  distributed with Pine.  If you
          need to be doing  more  complex  modifications  to


                           - 14 -







                  - Pine Technical Notes -


          IMAP, then you should pick up the IMAP development
          package and work with that code.  The  developer's
          version  of  IMAP  is  available for anonymous ftp
          from _f_t_p._c_a_c._w_a_s_h_i_n_g_t_o_n._e_d_u in the directory _m_a_i_l.
          The file is called _i_m_a_p._t_a_r._Z.



          _B_u_i_l_d_i_n_g _t_h_e _P_i_n_e _P_r_o_g_r_a_m_s

               You may have already compiled Pine and  tried
          it out.  If so, great!  If not, you should be able
          to do it without too  much  trouble  by  following
          these step-by-step instructions:

          1.   Figure out what platform you're building for.
               You  can  give  the command _b_u_i_l_d _h_e_l_p to see
               the list of  ports  incorporated  into  Pine.
               What  you  need  is the three letter code for
               the platform.  Some examples are  _n_x_t  for  a
               Next operating system and _u_l_t for Ultrix.  If
               your platform is not in the  list  of  ports,
               then  you  might have some work ahead of you.
               First, check the file _d_o_c/_p_i_n_e-_p_o_r_t_s.  to see
               if  there  are  others  working on a port for
               your platform  or  to  see  if  the  port  is
               included  in  the  "contrib"  section  of the
               source code. Ports in the  _c_o_n_t_r_i_b  directory
               were  contributed by Pine administrators from
               around the world, but  the  Pine  development
               team  has  not been able to test the code. If
               Pine has not yet been ported to your platform
               at  all,  read the section on Porting Pine in
               this document.


          2.   Make sure you're in  the  root  of  the  Pine
               source.   When you type _l_s you should see the
               following files and directories (or something
               close to it):

                   README  build   doc     makefile           pine
                   bin             contrib imap    pico



          3.   Make sure you're getting  a  clean  start  by
               giving  the command _b_u_i_l_d _c_l_e_a_n.  This should
               take only a few seconds to run.


          4.   Give the command _b_u_i_l_d _x_x_x where _x_x_x  is  the
               three  letter code you picked in step 1.  The


                           - 15 -







                  - Pine Technical Notes -


               compiler should grind away for a few minutes.


          5.   When the compilation is complete the sizes of
               the  four binaries built (pine, mtest, imapd,
               pico) will be displayed.  The actual binaries
               are  in  the  various  various  source direc-
               tories.  In addition, the _b_i_n directory  con-
               tains  a  link  to each program compiled. You
               can just copy them out of  _b_i_n  or  try  them
               from there.



          _I_n_s_t_a_l_l_i_n_g _P_i_n_e _a_n_d _P_i_c_o _o_n _U_N_I_X _P_l_a_t_f_o_r_m_s

          Installing Pine and  Pico  is  remarkably  simple.
          You  take  the  program  files which you have just
          transferred or built and  you  move  them  to  the
          correct  directory on your system.  Most often the
          binaries go  in  /_u_s_r/_l_o_c_a_l/_b_i_n  though  sometimes
          they are placed in /_u_s_r/_b_i_n.  All the help text is
          compiled into Pine so there are no _r_e_q_u_i_r_e_d  auxi-
          liary files.

          There are, however, two optional auxiliary  files:
          /_u_s_r/_l_o_c_a_l/_l_i_b/_p_i_n_e._i_n_f_o                       and
          /_u_s_r/_l_o_c_a_l/_l_i_b/_p_i_n_e._c_o_n_f.  The file _p_i_n_e._i_n_f_o con-
          tains text on how to get further help on the local
          system.  It is presented as the first page of  the
          help  text  for  the main menu and should probably
          refer  to  the  local  help  desk  or  the  system
          administrator.   If this file doesn't exist a gen-
          eric version which suggests "talking to  the  com-
          puter  support  staff at your site" is shown.  The
          file _p_i_n_e._c_o_n_f is used to set system-wide  default
          configurations  for Pine.  See the section on Pine
          Configuration later in this document  for  details
          about the _p_i_n_e._c_o_n_f file.



          _I_n_s_t_a_l_l_i_n_g _P_C-_P_i_n_e

          Most of the PC-Pine configuration involves  making
          sure PC-Pine can interact correctly with your net-
          working software.  PC-Pine runs on top of whatever
          TCP/IP   networking   stack   you   already  have.
          Currently, PC-Pine  operates  with  FTP's  PC/TCP,
          Novell's  LAN  Workplace  for  DOS  and WATTCP for
          packet drivers.  Work is  underway  to  develop  a
          version  of  Pine  that works with Sun's PC/NFS as
          well.   PC-Pine  needs  to  be  able  to  interact


                           - 16 -







                  - Pine Technical Notes -


          closely  with the stack loaded on your PC. Most of
          the time,  this  occurs  automatically.   However,
          there are certain modifications that need be made.


          LAN Workplace for DOS Version 4.1
               Set the environment variable _E_X_C_E_L_A_N  in  the
               PC's  _A_U_T_O_E_X_E_C._B_A_T  file.   This provides the
               necessary links so that LAN Workplace for DOS
               4.1  can translate domain names to IP numbers
               correctly.  It is  needed  because  Pine  was
               developed  for   LAN  Workplace  4.0 and this
               particular variable is treated differently in
               4.1  than  in 4.0.  The _E_X_C_E_L_A_N variable must
               point to the directory in which LAN Workplace
               is installed.

          PC/TCP versions before 2.2
               You need a file called _P_C_T_C_P._I_N_I  which  con-
               tains  a  bare-minimum  2-line description of
               the PC's configuration.  It looks like this:

                                   [pctcp ifcust 0]
                                   ip-address=_x_x._x_x._x_x._x_x


               Where _x_x._x_x._x_x._x_x is the IP  address  of  the
               PC.  Pine  also requires an environment vari-
               able, _P_C_T_C_P, which points to this file.   For
               example:

                                   set PCTCP=C:\PINE\PCTCP.INI


          Packet Drivers
               Pine needs to be made aware of the PC's  net-
               work  configuration  file.   Simply  edit the
               file _W_A_T_T_C_P._C_F_G included in the Pine  distri-
               bution.   The  file  includes 5 configuration
               settings--IP-address,    gateway,    netmask,
               nameserver(s)  and domainslist. If you have a
               network configuration file  for  NCSA  Telnet
               then  _W_A_T_T_C_P._C_F_G is just a pared down version
               of the  _C_O_N_F_I_G._T_E_L  file  you  already  made.
               Take a look at _C_O_N_F_I_G._T_E_L to find the correct
               settings for _W_A_T_T_C_P._C_F_G.  Once the configura-
               tion  file is made, the DOS environment vari-
               able _W_A_T_T_C_P._C_F_G needs to point  at  it.   For
               example:

                                   set WATTCP.CFG=C:\PINE

9

9                           - 17 -







                  - Pine Technical Notes -


          In addition to  networking  software  issues,  you
          might  need  to  worry about setting the timezone.
          PC-Pine includes the timezone as part of  outgoing
          email.  There is a generic way for PC applications
          to get the timezone, but, because PC-Pine  is  one
          of  a  very  few  applications which requires this
          information, timezone might not be previously con-
          figured.

          The trick is to add an environment  variable,  _T_Z,
          to your PC's _A_U_T_O_E_X_E_C._B_A_T file. The format for the
          _T_Z environment variable is as follows:

                         ZZZ[+H]H[:MM:SSTTT]


          First is the 3-letter code for your standard time,
          then  a  "+" or a "-" for direction of offset from
          GMT, then the amount of  offset  (hours,  minutes,
          seconds)  and  finally  the 3-letter code for your
          summer- or daylight savings time.   Everything  in
          [] brackets is optional.

          The default timezone is "PST-8PDT"  (U.S.  Pacific
          Time).  Coincidentally, Microsoft is headquartered
          in that timezone.

          As an example, people in the Eastern part  of  the
          US  should  add  this  line  to their _A_U_T_O_E_X_E_C._B_A_T
          files:

                             TZ=EST-5EDT



          _I_n_s_t_a_l_l_i_n_g _I_M_A_P_d

          When the Pine distribution is built on a UNIX sta-
          tion,  the IMAP server binary, _i_m_a_p_d, is compiled.
          Installing _i_m_a_p_d requires placing  the  binary  in
          the  appropriate  directory, usually /_u_s_r/_e_t_c, and
          adding    entries     to     /_e_t_c/_s_e_r_v_i_c_e_s     and
          /_e_t_c/_i_n_e_t_d._c_o_n_f  or  their counterparts.  The fol-
          lowing line is appropriate for /_e_t_c/_s_e_r_v_i_c_e_s:

            _i_m_a_p         _1_4_3/_t_c_p         # _M_a_i_l _t_r_a_n_s_f_e_r

          and   the   next   line   is    appropriate    for
          /_e_t_c/_i_n_e_t_d._c_o_n_f:

            _i_m_a_p     _s_t_r_e_a_m     _t_c_p         _n_o_w_a_i_t      _r_o_o_t
          /_u_s_r/_e_t_c/_i_m_a_p_d _i_m_a_p_d
9

9                           - 18 -







                  - Pine Technical Notes -


          The /_e_t_c/_i_n_e_t_d._c_o_n_f file entry may  vary  on  dif-
          ferent  versions  of  UNIX.   Some have a slightly
          different set of fields.   Also  the  pathname  in
          /_e_t_c/_i_n_e_t_d._c_o_n_f must match the path where _i_m_a_p_d is
          installed.

          With this  configuration,  the  IMAP  server  runs
          without pre-authentication.  Each new IMAP connec-
          tion requires a  correct  username  and  password.
          IMAP can also be run with pre-authentication based
          on the standard _r_s_h mechanism.   To  enable  this,
          the user account on the IMAP server must contain a
          valid file  which  grants  access  to  the  client
          machine.  Enabling _r_i_m_a_p authentication is done by
          creating  a  link  called  /_e_t_c/_r_i_m_a_p_d  to  _i_m_a_p_d.
          Basically,  what is happening is that Pine is tak-
          ing advantage of the ability that _r_s_h has  to  use
          privileged  TCP ports so it doesn't have to run in
          privileged  mode.   If  the  _r_i_m_a_p  authentication
          fails  it will drop back to plain password authen-
          tication.

          PC-Pine cannot take advantage of _r_i_m_a_p authentica-
          tion.   Also,  if  your  system uses a distributed
          configuration database, like NIS, Yellow Pages  or
          Netinfo,  be sure that appropriate steps are taken
          to  ensure  the  above  mentioned  information  is
          updated.



          _S_u_p_p_o_r_t _F_i_l_e_s: _U_N_I_X _P_i_n_e

          This section lists the various  files  which  Pine
          uses  which  are  not email folders.  All of these
          are the default names  of  files,  they  may  vary
          based on Pine's configuration.

          /usr/local/lib/pine.conf
               Pine's global configuration file.

          ~/.pinerc
               Personal configuration file for each user.

          ~/.addressbook
               Personal addressbook

          ~/.newsrc
               Personal USENET subscription list.   This  is
               shared with other newsreading programs.

          ~/.pine-debugX
               The  files   created   for   debugging   Pine


                           - 19 -







                  - Pine Technical Notes -


               problems. By default, there are 4 .pine-debug
               files kept at any time.

          ~/.signature
               A signature file which will  be  included  in
               all outgoing email messages.

          ~/mail/interrupted-mail
               The text of a message which  was  interrupted
               by some unexpected error which Pine detected.

          ~/mail/postponed-mail
               The text of a message which the user chose to
               postpone.

          /etc/imapdrc
               Imapd global configuration file.

          ~/.imapdrc
               Personal imapd configuration file.



          _S_u_p_p_o_r_t _F_i_l_e_s: _P_C-_P_i_n_e

          This section lists the various files which PC-Pine
          uses  which  are  not email folders.  All of these
          are the default names  of  files,  they  may  vary
          based on Pine's configuration.

          $HOME\PINE\PINERC
               Personal configuration file for each user.

          $HOME\PINE\ADDRBOOK
               Personal addressbook

          $HOME\PINE\PINE.SIG
               A signature file which will  be  included  in
               all outgoing email messages.

          $HOME\PINE\PINE.HLP
               File containing Pine's internal help text.

          $HOME\PINE\PINE.NDX
               Index of Pine's help text used by PC-Pine  to
               locate entries.

          $HOME\NEWSRC
               Personal USENET subscription list.   This  is
               shared with other newsreading programs.

          $HOME\MAIL\INTRUPTD
               The text of a message which  was  interrupted


                           - 20 -







                  - Pine Technical Notes -


               by some unexpected error which Pine detected.

          $HOME\MAIL\POSTPONE
               The text of a message which the user chose to
               postpone.

          PC-Pine  maintains  its  files  in  two  different
          directories  by  default, all relative to the _H_O_M_E
          environment variable.  When not set, the   default
          is  the  root  of  the current working drive.  The
          _P_I_N_E_R_C file's default location can  be  overridden
          by the _P_I_N_E_R_C environment variable.  This variable
          defines the path and name of the _P_I_N_E_R_C file  used
          by  pine.   It also defines where the _P_I_N_E._S_I_G and
          _A_D_D_R_B_O_O_K files are to be found, unless fully qual-
          ified in the _P_I_N_E_R_C configuration file.

          In the absense of  environment  variables  and  no
          \_P_I_N_E  directory on the current working drive, the
          _P_I_N_E_R_C is expected to reside in the same directory
          as the _P_I_N_E._E_X_E executable.

          PC-Pine's help text and help text index file,  are
          expected  to  reside  in the same directory as the
          _P_I_N_E_R_C (based on the above  rules).   If  missing,
          the  files  are  expected  to  reside  in the same
          directory as the _P_I_N_E._E_X_E executable.  These rules
          can  be  overridden  with the _P_I_N_E_H_O_M_E environment
          variable.  This variable  should  be  set  to  the
          directory where the _P_I_N_E._H_L_P and _P_I_N_E._N_D_X reside.






















9

9                           - 21 -







                  - Pine Technical Notes -


                  _S_e_c_t_i_o_n _4 - _C_o_m_m_a_n_d _L_i_n_e _A_r_g_u_m_e_n_t_s



          Pine and PC-Pine can accept quite a  few  command-
          line  arguments.   Many of these arguments overlap
          with variables in the Pine configuration file.  If
          there  is  an  difference,  then a flag set in the
          command line takes precedence.  Both Pine and  PC-
          Pine  expect command line arguments to be preceded
          by the "-" (dash) standardly  used  by  UNIX  pro-
          grams.


          -d   Debug Level:  Sets  the  level  of  debugging
               information  written by Pine. debug-level can
               be set to any integer 0-9.  A debug level  of
               0 turns off debugging for the session.


          -f   Startup folder:  Pine will open  this  folder
               in place of the standard INBOX.


          -i   Initial Keystrokes:  Pine will  execute  this
               comma-separated  sequence  of  commands  upon
               startup.  This allows users to  get  Pine  to
               start  in any of its menus/screens.  You can-
               not include any input into  the  composer  in
               the  initial keystrokes.  The key <Return> is
               represented by a "CR" in the keystroke  list;
               the  spacebar  is  designated  by the letters
               "SPACE".  If -i is used with  no  keystrokes,
               Pine   will  start-up  in  the  FOLDER  INDEX
               screen.  Configuration  equivalent:  _i_n_i_t_i_a_l-
               _k_e_y_s_t_r_o_k_e-_l_i_s_t


          -k   Function-Key Mode: When invoked in this  way,
               Pine  expects  the  input  of  commands to be
               function-keys.    Otherwise,   commands   are
               linked to the regular character keys.  Confi-
               guration    equivalent:     _u_s_e-_f_u_n_c_t_i_o_n-_k_e_y_s
               included in _f_e_a_t_u_r_e-_l_i_s_t.


          -l   Folder-List: With "-l" set, Pine will default
               to  an  expanded folder list. This means that
               the FOLDER LIST screen will always  show  all
               folders  in  all  collections.  Default is to
               show the folders in  the  current  collection
               only.   Configuration  equivalent:  _e_x_p_a_n_d_e_d-
               _v_i_e_w-_o_f-_f_o_l_d_e_r_s in _f_e_a_t_u_r_e-_l_i_s_t.


                           - 22 -







                  - Pine Technical Notes -


          -n   Message-Number: When specified,  Pine  starts
               up  in  the  FOLDER  INDEX  screen  with  the
               current message being the designated  message
               number.


          -o   Opens  the  specified   folder   (or   INBOX)
               readonly.


          -p   Uses the named file as  the  personal  confi-
               guration   file   instead   of   ~/_p_i_n_e_r_c  or
               $_H_O_M_E\_P_I_N_E\_P_I_N_E_R_C.


          -P   Uses the named file as the system wide confi-
               guration        file        instead        of
               /_u_s_r/_l_o_c_a_l/_l_i_b/_p_i_n_e._c_o_n_f.  UNIX Pine only.


          -r   Restricted Mode:  For UNIX Pine  only.   Pine
               in  restricted  mode  can  only send email to
               itself.  Save and export are limited.


          -sort
               Sort-Key: Specifies the order  messages  will
               be  displayed in for the FOLDER INDEX screen.
               Key can have the following  values:  subject,
               arrival,  date,  from, size, subject/reverse,
               arrival/reverse, date/reverse,  from/reverse,
               size/reverse.     The    default   value   is
               "arrival".   The   key   value   reverse   is
               equivalent  to  arrival/reverse.  This option
               will be expanded in the future to allow sort-
               ing   on   "to"   and   "cc".   Configuration
               equivalent: _s_o_r_t-_k_e_y.


          -z   Enable Suspend:  When run with this flag, the
               key  sequence  ctrl-z  will  suspend the Pine
               session.  Configuration  equivalent:  _e_n_a_b_l_e-
               _s_u_s_p_e_n_d included in _f_e_a_t_u_r_e-_l_i_s_t.



          _S_p_e_c_i_a_l _P_i_n_e _C_o_m_m_a_n_d-_L_i_n_e _M_o_d_e_s


          [address]
               Send-to:  If you put  an  unqualified  string
               (or  strings) in the command line, Pine reads
               them as email address.  Pine will startup  in


                           - 23 -







                  - Pine Technical Notes -


               the  composer  with  a message started to the
               person/people specified.  Once the message is
               sent, the Pine session closes.


          -h   Help:  Prints the list of available  command-
               line arguments to the screen.


          -conf
               Configuration: Prints a sample system  confi-
               guration  file to the screen or standard out-
               put.  UNIX Pine only.







































9

9                           - 24 -







                  - Pine Technical Notes -


                 _S_e_c_t_i_o_n _5 - _C_o_n_f_i_g_u_r_a_t_i_o_n _a_n_d _P_r_e_f_e_r_e_n_c_e_s




          _P_i_n_e _C_o_n_f_i_g_u_r_a_t_i_o_n

          There is very little in Pine which requires confi-
          guration.   In  almost every case, the compiled-in
          preferences will suit users just fine.  When  run-
          ning  Pine  on  a UNIX system, the built-in confi-
          guration can be changed by  setting  variables  in
          the        system        configuration       file,
          /_u_s_r/_l_o_c_a_l/_l_i_b/_p_i_n_e._c_o_n_f. Both  Pine  and  PC-Pine
          also   use   personal  (user-based)  configuration
          files. On UNIX machines, the  personal  configura-
          tion file is the file ~/._p_i_n_e_r_c.  For PC-Pine sys-
          tems,  the  personal  configuration  file  is   in
          \_P_I_N_E\_P_I_N_E_R_C.

          The syntax of a configuration variable is this:

              <variable> = <value>

          If the value is absent then the variable is unset.
          To set a variable to the empty value the syntax is
          "".  This is equivalent to an absent value  except
          that  it  overrides any system-wide value that may
          be set.  Quotes may be used around any value.  All
          values  are strings and end at the end of the line
          or the closing quote.  Leading and trailing  space
          is  ignored  unless  it is included in the quotes.
          For some variables the only appropriate values are
          _y_e_s  and  _n_o.  There is also a second valid syntax
          which has been introduced since the  last  version
          of Pine.  Some variables are now lists.  A list is
          a comma-separated list of values.  The syntax  for
          a list is:

              <variable> = <value> [, <value> , ... ]

          A list can be continued  on  subsequent  lines  by
          beginning  the  line  with  white-space.  Both the
          per-user and global configuration files  may  con-
          tain comments which are lines beginning with a #.

          For UNIX Pine, There are  four  ways  in  which  a
          variable  can be set.  In decreasing order of pre-
          cedence they are:

              (1) a command line argument
              (2) the personal configuration file
              (3) the system-wide configuration file


                           - 25 -







                  - Pine Technical Notes -


              (4) default in the source code.

          So, command line flags always take precedence over
          per-user  settings,  which  take  precedence  over
          system-wide  configuration  settings,  which  take
          precedence over source code defaults.  PC-Pine has
          the same precedence, but it does not us a  system-
          wide configuration file.

          You may get a sample/fresh copy of the system con-
          figuration file by running _p_i_n_e -_c_o_n_f.  The result
          will be printed on the standard output  with  com-
          ments   describing   each   variable.   Pine  will
          automatically create  the  personal  configuration
          file the first time it is run, so there is no need
          to generate a sample.  Pine reads and  writes  the
          personal  configuration  file  occasionally during
          normal operation.  The  user  may  add  additional
          comments  to  the  personal configuration file and
          they will be retained.  Pine  always  writes  this
          file  at  least  once when running so you can tell
          when a user last invoked Pine by checking the date
          on this file.

          References  to  environment   variables   may   be
          included in the Pine configuration file.  The for-
          mat is $_v_a_r_i_a_b_l_e or ${_v_a_r_i_a_b_l_e}.  The character  ~
          will  be  expanded  to the $_H_O_M_E environment vari-
          able.  Currently, most of these variables have  to
          be set by hand with an editor.

          When environment variables are used for Pine  set-
          tings  which  take  lists  (_f_e_a_t_u_r_e-_l_i_s_t,  _f_o_l_d_e_r-
          _c_o_l_l_e_c_t_i_o_n_s), you must have an  environment  vari-
          able  set for each member of the list.  Pine won't
          properly recognize  an  environment  variable  set
          equal  to  a  comma-delimitted  list.  It is OK to
          reference unset environment variables in the  Pine
          configuration file.


          _G_e_n_e_r_a_l _C_o_n_f_i_g_u_r_a_t_i_o_n _V_a_r_i_a_b_l_e_s

          The following variables can be found in  any  Pine
          configuration  file-be it UNIX or DOS, system-wide
          or personal.


          _u_s_e_r-_d_o_m_a_i_n
               Sets the domain or host name  for  the  user,
               overriding  the  system  host or domain name.
               See the domain name section.
9

9                           - 26 -







                  - Pine Technical Notes -


          _u_s_e-_o_n_l_y-_d_o_m_a_i_n-_n_a_m_e
               Can be set to _y_e_s or _n_o.  At this point  any-
               thing  but  _y_e_s  means _n_o.  If set to _y_e_s the
               first label in the host name will  be  lopped
               off  to  get  the  domain name and the domain
               name will be used for outgoing mail and such.
               That    is,    if    the    host    name   is
               _c_a_r_s_o_n._u._e_x_a_m_p_l_e._e_d_u and this variable is set
               to  _y_e_s,  then  _u._e_x_a_m_p_l_e._e_d_u will be used on
               outgoing  mail.   Only  meaningful  if  _u_s_e_r-
               _d_o_m_a_i_n is NOT set.


          _i_n_b_o_x-_p_a_t_h
               This specifies the name of the folder to  use
               for the INBOX.  Normally this is unset so the
               system's default is used.   The  most  common
               reason  for  setting  this is to open an IMAP
               mailbox  for   the   INBOX.    For   example,
               {_i_m_a_p_5._u._e_x_a_m_p_l_e._e_d_u}_i_n_b_o_x   will   open  the
               user's standard _I_N_B_O_X  on  the  mail  server,
               imap5.


          _d_e_f_a_u_l_t-_f_c_c
               The name of the folder to which all  outgoing
               mail  goes  is  set  here.   The  compiled-in
               default  is  _s_e_n_t-_m_a_i_l  (UNIX)  or   _s_e_n_t_m_a_i_l
               (DOS).   It  can  be  set  to  "" (two double
               quotes with nothing between them) to turn off
               saving  copies  of  outgoing  mail.   If  the
               default-fcc is a relative filename,  then  it
               is  relative  to  your default collection for
               saves (see _f_o_l_d_e_r-_c_o_l_l_e_c_t_i_o_n_s).


          _s_m_t_p-_s_e_r_v_e_r
               One or more SMTP servers  (host  name  or  IP
               address)  which  Pine  will  use for outgoing
               mail.  If not set, Pine passes outgoing email
               to the _s_e_n_d_m_a_i_l program on the local machine.
               PC-Pine users must have this variable set  in
               order  to  send mail as they have no _s_e_n_d_m_a_i_l
               program.


          _i_m_a_g_e-_v_i_e_w_e_r
               This variable names the program to  call  for
               displaying  parts  of a MIME message that are
               of type image.  In a future version  of  Pine
               this  configuration  will  be replaced by the
               more general _m_a_i_l_c_a_p.
9

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                  - Pine Technical Notes -


          _s_i_g_n_a_t_u_r_e-_f_i_l_e
               Names the file to be included as  the  signa-
               ture.   This defaults to ~/._s_i_g_n_a_t_u_r_e on UNIX
               and $_H_O_M_E\_P_I_N_E\_P_I_N_E._S_I_G on DOS.


          _m_a_i_l-_d_i_r_e_c_t_o_r_y
               This variable was more important in  previous
               versions of Pine.  Now it is used only as the
               directory for storing  postponed  and  inter-
               rupted  messages temporarily.  The default is
               ~/_m_a_i_l on UNIX and $_H_O_M_E\_M_A_I_L on DOS.


          _c_h_a_r_a_c_t_e_r-_s_e_t
               This sets the character set used by the  ter-
               minal.   Currently appropriate values are US-
               ASCII,  ISO-8859-1  through  ISO-8859-9   and
               ISO-2022-JP. See the section on international
               character sets for more details. The  default
               is US-ASCII.


          _i_n_c_o_m_i_n_g-_f_o_l_d_e_r_s
               This is a list of one or more  folders  other
               than  _I_N_B_O_X  that  may  receive new messages.
               This list is slightly special in that  it  is
               always expanded in the folder lister.  In the
               future, it  may  become  more  special.   For
               example, it would be nice if Pine would moni-
               tor the folders in this list for new mail.


          _f_o_l_d_e_r-_c_o_l_l_e_c_t_i_o_n_s
               This is a list of  one  or  more  collections
               where saved mail is stored.  See the sections
               describing folder collections and  collection
               syntax  for more information.  The first col-
               lection in this list is the  default  collec-
               tion for saves.


          _n_e_w_s-_c_o_l_l_e_c_t_i_o_n_s
               This is a  list  of  collections  where  news
               folders   are   located.    See  the  section
               describing collections for more information.


          _i_n_i_t_i_a_l-_k_e_y_s_t_r_o_k_e-_l_i_s_t
               This is a comma-separated list of  keystrokes
               which Pine executes on startup.  Items in the
               list are usually just characters,  but  there
               are some special values.  _S_P_A_C_E and _C_R mean a


                           - 28 -







                  - Pine Technical Notes -


               space  character  and  a   carriage   return,
               respectively.   _F_1  through _F_1_2 stand for the
               twelve function keys.  _U_P,  _D_O_W_N,  _L_E_F_T,  and
               _R_I_G_H_T  stand  for the arrow keys.  A restric-
               tion is that you can't mix function keys  and
               character  keys  in this list even though you
               can, in some cases,  mix  them  when  running
               Pine.   A  user  can always use all character
               keys in the startup list even if he or she is
               using function keys normally, or vice versa.


          _f_e_a_t_u_r_e-_l_i_s_t
               This is a list of  features  (options)  which
               should  be  turned  on.   You  may  also turn
               features off (the default) by prepending  the
               characters  _n_o-  to any of the features.  The
               _f_e_a_t_u_r_e-_l_i_s_t is additive.  That is, first the
               system-wide _f_e_a_t_u_r_e-_l_i_s_t is read and then the
               user's _f_e_a_t_u_r_e-_l_i_s_t is read.  This  makes  it
               possible  for the system manager to turn some
               of the features on  by  default  while  still
               allowing  the  user  to  cancel that default.
               However, some of  the  documentation  assumes
               that  all of the features are off by default,
               so use this with care.  Here is  the  current
               list of possible features with brief descrip-
               tions:

                   enable-full-header-cmd          _H_d_r_M_o_d_e command enabled
                   enable-unix-pipe-cmd            piping message to Unix enabled (not implemented yet)
                   enable-bounce-cmd               _B_o_u_n_c_e mail to someone else (not implemented yet)
                   enable-alternate-editor-cmd     ^_ command enabled
                   enable-suspend                  ^_Z job control enabled
                   enable-tab-completion           _T_A_B completion enabled for folder opening and saving
                   enable-jump-shortcut            can type just a number to _J_u_m_p in index
                   quit-without-confirm            won't ask for confirmation when quitting
                   enable-goto-cmd                 _G_o_t_o_F_l_d_r command enabled
                   enable-apply-cmd                _A_p_p_l_y command enabled (not implemented yet)
                   enable-flag-cmd                 _F_l_a_g command enabled (not implemented yet)
                   enable-zoom-cmd                 _Z_o_o_m command enabled
                   enable-forward-as-MIME          will ask if forwarded message should be attached
                   expanded-view-of-folders                folder lists pre-expanded in folder lister
                   use-function-keys               same as -_k flag
                   include-header-in-reply         when replying, include header lines from message
                   signature-at-bottom             signature comes at bottom instead of top
                   delete-skips-deleted            _D_e_l_e_t_e will skip to next undeleted message



          _s_o_r_t-_k_e_y
               This variable sets up the default index sort-
               ing.   The  default  is  to  sort  by arrival


                           - 29 -







                  - Pine Technical Notes -


               order.  It has the same functionality as  the
               -_s_o_r_t command line argument and the $ command
               in the folder index.  If a _s_o_r_t-_k_e_y  is  set,
               then all folders open during the session will
               have that as the default sort order.


          _s_a_v_e_d-_m_s_g-_n_a_m_e-_r_u_l_e
               Determines default folder name  when  saving.
               Currently,   Pine   will  accept  the  values
               "default-folder" or "by-sender".  If  set  to
               _d_e_f_a_u_l_t-_f_o_l_d_e_r,  then  Pine  will  offer  the
               folder "saved-messages" (UNIX) or  "SAVEMAIL"
               (DOS)  for  saving  messages.   If set to _b_y-
               _s_e_n_d_e_r, then Pine will offer to save the mes-
               sage  in  a  folder with the same name as the
               sender.  If set to  "last-folder-used",  then
               Pine  will  offer  to save in whatever folder
               you used previously.   We  expect  to  expand
               this list so that Pine can save messages with
               the rule "by recipient".


          _r_e_a_d-_m_e_s_s_a_g_e-_f_o_l_d_e_r
               If set, mail in the _I_N_B_O_X that has been  read
               but not deleted is moved here, or rather, the
               user is asked whether or not he or she  wants
               to move it here upon quitting Pine.



          _S_p_e_c_i_a_l _C_o_n_f_i_g_u_r_a_t_i_o_n _V_a_r_i_a_b_l_e_s

          Some configurations only make sense in  a  system-
          wide  file,  others  only make sense in a personal
          configuration file.  Also, there are certain  set-
          tings required in PC-Pine and others which make no
          sense there.  These are the variables you may need
          to  configure,  depending  on  which configuration
          file you are working with.


          _u_s_e_r-_i_d
               PC-Pine only.   Sets  the  username  that  is
               placed on all outgoing messages.


          _p_e_r_s_o_n_a_l-_n_a_m_e
               Personal  configuration  file  only.   User's
               full  personal  name.   On  UNIX systems, the
               default is taken from the accounts data  base
               (/etc/passwd).
9

9                           - 30 -







                  - Pine Technical Notes -


          _p_r_i_n_t_e_r
               UNIX Pine only.  This is the current  setting
               for  a  user's printer.  This variable is set
               from  Pine's  printer-setup  function.    The
               value must be either

                   "attached-to-ansi"      -or-
                   the value of _p_e_r_s_o_n_a_l-_p_r_i_n_t-_c_o_m_m_a_n_d         -or-
                   the value of _s_t_a_n_d_a_r_d-_p_r_i_n_t_e_r from the system-wide configuration



          _s_t_a_n_d_a_r_d-_p_r_i_n_t_e_r
               System-wide configuration file only.   Speci-
               fies the command for printer selection number
               2 on the printer menu.


          _p_e_r_s_o_n_a_l-_p_r_i_n_t-_c_o_m_m_a_n_d
               UNIX personal configuration file only.   This
               corresponds  to  item  3 in the printer menu.
               This variable retains the value of  _p_e_r_s_o_n_a_l-
               _p_r_i_n_t-_c_o_m_m_a_n_d  when  the  printer  is  set to
               something other than item 3.   The  _p_e_r_s_o_n_a_l-
               _p_r_i_n_t-_c_o_m_m_a_n_d  can  be  set within Pine using
               the printer setup menu.


          _l_a_s_t-_t_i_m_e-_p_r_u_n_e-_q_u_e_s_t_i_o_n_e_d
               Personal configuration file only.  This vari-
               able  records  the  month  the  user was last
               asked if his/her sent-mail folders should  be
               pruned.   The   format  is  _y_y._m_m.   This  is
               automatically updated by Pine  when  the  the
               pruning is done or declined.


          _b_u_g_s-_n_i_c_k_n_a_m_e, _b_u_g_s-_f_u_l_l_n_a_m_e _a_n_d _b_u_g_s-_a_d_d_r_e_s_s
               System-wide configuration  file  only.   This
               trio  specifies an entry for the address book
               that is always inserted if found absent.   It
               is  a way to put the address to send requests
               for help to in  everyone's  address  book  so
               users  can  find  it  easily.   There  is  no
               default value.


          _e_d_i_t_o_r
               UNIX Pine only.  Sets the name of the  alter-
               nate  editor for composing mail (message text
               only, not headers). It will be  invoked  with
               the "^_" command.
9

9                           - 31 -







                  - Pine Technical Notes -


          _l_a_s_t-_v_e_r_s_i_o_n-_u_s_e_d
               Personal configuration file  only.   This  is
               set  automatically  by  Pine.   It is used to
               keep track of the last version of  Pine  that
               was  run  by  the user.  Whenever the version
               changes, a new  version  message  is  printed
               out.   If  you  toggle back and forth between
               two versions you'll  get  the  message  every
               time, since it just checks for equality.




          _R_e_t_i_r_e_d _V_a_r_i_a_b_l_e_s

          Variables that are no longer used by  the  current
          Pine   version.   When  an  obsolete  variable  is
          encountered, its  value  is  applied  to  any  new
          corresponding  setting  and  a  comment  is  place
          before it noting that it is  no  longer  in  used.
          Several of the replaced values at the time of this
          document include:


          _e_l_m-_s_t_y_l_e-_s_a_v_e
               Replaced by _s_a_v_e_d-_m_s_g-_n_a_m_e-_r_u_l_e


          _h_e_a_d_e_r-_i_n-_r_e_p_l_y
               Replaced by  _i_n_c_l_u_d_e-_h_e_a_d_e_r-_i_n-_r_e_p_l_y  in  the
               _f_e_a_t_u_r_e-_l_i_s_t.


          _f_e_a_t_u_r_e-_l_e_v_e_l
               Replaced by _f_e_a_t_u_r_e-_l_i_s_t.


          _o_l_d-_s_t_y_l_e-_r_e_p_l_y
               Replaced  by   _s_i_g_n_a_t_u_r_e-_a_t-_b_o_t_t_o_m   in   the
               _f_e_a_t_u_r_e-_l_i_s_t.


          _s_a_v_e-_b_y-_s_e_n_d_e_r
               Replaced by _s_a_v_e_d-_m_s_g-_n_a_m_e-_r_u_l_e.



          _P_i_n_e _i_n _F_u_n_c_t_i_o_n _K_e_y _M_o_d_e

          The standard Pine uses alphabetic  keys  for  most
          commands,   and  control  keys  in  the  composer.
          Despite possible appearances, the current bindings
          are  the  result  of  much discussion and thought.


                           - 32 -







                  - Pine Technical Notes -


          All the commands in the composer are  single  con-
          trol  characters.  This keeps things very neat and
          simple for users.  Two character commands  in  the
          composer  are  a  possibility, but we're trying to
          avoid them because of the added complexity for the
          user.

          Pine can also operate in a function-key mode.   To
          go  into this mode invoke _p_i_n_e -_k or (on some UNIX
          systems) _p_i_n_e_f.  On a UNIX system, you can link or
          copy  the  _p_i_n_e  executable  to  _p_i_n_e_f  to install
          _p_i_n_e_f.  Alternatively, users and systems  adminis-
          trators  can  set the _u_s_e-_f_u_n_c_t_i_o_n-_k_e_y_s feature in
          the personal  or  system-wide  Pine  configuration
          file.   The  command  menus  at  the bottom of the
          screen will show _F_1-_F_1_2 instead of the  alphabetic
          commands.   In  addition, the help screens will be
          written in terms of function keys and  not  alpha-
          betic keys.

          One of the results of using Pine  in  function-key
          mode  is  that  users  can only choose from twelve
          commands at any  given  time.   In  alphabetic-key
          mode, a user can press a key for a command (say, q
          to quit) and that command can  be  fulfilled.   In
          function-key  mode, the command must be visible on
          the bottom key-menu in order to  be  used.   There
          are  some  screens  where  34  commands are opera-
          tional; function-key users can get to all of them,
          just not all at once.


          _D_o_m_a_i_n _S_e_t_t_i_n_g_s

          Pine uses the default domain for a  few  different
          tasks.   First,  it is tacked onto the user-id for
          outgoing email.  Second, it  is  tacked  onto  all
          "local"  addresses in the "To:" or "Cc:" fields of
          messages being composed.  The domain name is  also
          used  to generate message-id lines for each outgo-
          ing message and to  allow  Pine  to  check  if  an
          address is that of the current Pine user.

          Pine  determines  the  domain  name  according  to
          whichever  of  these it finds. The list here is in
          decreasing order of precedence.

               (1) Value of the variable  _u_s_e_r-_d_o_m_a_i_n  in  a
               personal configuration file

               (2) Value of the variable  _u_s_e_r-_d_o_m_a_i_n  is  a
               system-wide configuration file
9

9                           - 33 -







                  - Pine Technical Notes -


               (3) Value from a local configuration database
               (/_e_t_c/_h_o_s_t_s,  DNS, NIS) as modified by a per-
               sonal configuration file if  _u_s_e-_d_o_m_a_i_n-_n_a_m_e-
               _o_n_l_y set to "yes"

               (4) Value from a local configuration database
               (/_e_t_c/_h_o_s_t_s,  DNS, NIS) as modified by a sys-
               tem configuration  file  if  _u_s_e-_d_o_m_a_i_n-_n_a_m_e-
               _o_n_l_y set to "yes"

               (5) Unmodified value from a local  configura-
               tion database


          The easiest way for this system  to  work  is  for
          PC-Pine  users and UNIX Pine system administrators
          to set the  _u_s_e_r-_d_o_m_a_i_n  variable.   The  variable
          _u_s_e-_d_o_m_a_i_n-_n_a_m_e-_o_n_l_y   is  helpful  if  your  site
          supports/requires hostless addressing but for some
          reason you don't want to use the _u_s_e_r-_d_o_m_a_i_n vari-
          able.



          _S_y_n_t_a_x _f_o_r _C_o_l_l_e_c_t_i_o_n_s

          In many environments, it is quite common  to  have
          collections  of  archived  mail  on  various hosts
          around the network.   Using  the  new  collections
          facility  within Pine, access to these archives is
          just as simple as  access  to  folders  on  Pine's
          local disk.

          "Collection"  is  the  word  we  use  in  Pine  to
          describe  a  set  of  folders.  Folders  within  a
          defined collection  can  be  manipulated  (opened,
          saved-to,  etc) using just their simple name.  Any
          number of folder collections can be  defined,  and
          pine  will  adjust  its  menus and prompts to help
          navigate them.

          The way collections are defined in  Pine  is  with
          the _f_o_l_d_e_r-_c_o_l_l_e_c_t_i_o_n_s variable in the Pine confi-
          guration file.  _F_o_l_d_e_r-_c_o_l_l_e_c_t_i_o_n_s takes a list of
          one  or  more  collections, each (optionally) pre-
          ceded by a user-defined logical name.   Once  col-
          lections  are  defined, Pine adjusts its menus and
          behavior to allow choosing files by  their  simple
          name   within  the  collection.   Collections  are
          always defined in the configuration file; there is
          no  time  that Pine will ever ask a question which
          requires a user to input a collection specifier.
9

9                           - 34 -







                  - Pine Technical Notes -


          Consider the following:

                 folder-collections=  Local-Mail      C:MAIL[],
                                      Remote-Mail     {imap.u.example.edu}mail/[]


          The example shows two collections defined (a comma
          separated  list;  newlines  in  the list are OK if
          there's one or more spaces before the next entry),
          one  local  and  one remote.  Each collection is a
          space-delimited pair of elements-first an optional
          logical-name  and second the collection specifier.
          The logical-name can have spaces if it has  quotes
          around  it (but keeping the logical name short and
          descriptive  works  best).  Pine  will   use   the
          logical-name  (if provided) to reference all fold-
          ers in the collection, so the user  never  has  to
          see the ugliness of the collection specifier.

          The collection specifier can be thought of  as  an
          extended  IMAP  format  (see  the "Remote Folders"
          section for a description of IMAP  format  names).
          Basically, a pair of square-brackets are placed in
          the fully qualified IMAP  path  where  the  simple
          folder  name  (the  part  without the hostname and
          path) would appear.  Like IMAP, the  path  can  be
          either  fully qualified (i.e., with a leading '/')
          or relative to your home directory.

          An advanced feature of this  notation  is  that  a
          pattern within the square brackets allows the user
          to define a collection to be a subset of a  direc-
          tory.   For example, a collection defined with the
          specifier:

                                      M-Mail          C:MAIL[m*]

          will provide a view in the folder  lister  of  all
          folders  in the PC's "C:MAIL" directory that start
          with the letter 'm' (case insensitive  under  DOS,
          of  course).   Further, the wildcard matching will
          honor characters trailing the '*' in the pattern.

          From within Pine, the FOLDER LIST display will  be
          adjusted  to  allow browsing of the folders in any
          defined collection.  Even more, you'll  notice  in
          the  Goto  and  Save  commands  a pair of new sub-
          commands to toggle through  the  list  of  logical
          collection  names,  so  only a simple name need be
          used to operate on a folder in any collection.

          The first  collection  specified  in  the  _f_o_l_d_e_r-
          _c_o_l_l_e_c_t_i_o_n_s has special signifigance.  That folder


                           - 35 -







                  - Pine Technical Notes -


          is the "default collection for saves".   In  cases
          where  the  user does not specify which collection
          should be used to save a message, the default col-
          lection  for  saves  will  be  used.  Also, if the
          _d_e_f_a_u_l_t-_f_c_c is a relative file name,  then  it  is
          relative to the default collection for saves.

          The notion of collections encompasses  both  email
          folders  and news reading.  The current version of
          Pine supports very basic news reading.  The  vari-
          able  _n_e_w_s-_c_o_l_l_e_c_t_i_o_n_s uses nearly the same format
          as _f_o_l_d_e_r-_c_o_l_l_e_c_t_i_o_n_s.  Newsgroups can be  defined
          for  convenient  access  via  either IMAP or NNTP.
          There are advantages  and  disadvantages  to  both
          access  methods.   In  the  IMAP  case,  your news
          environment state is maintained on the server and,
          thus, will be seen by any client.  The downside is
          that, at the moment, you must have an  account  on
          the  server.   In  the NNTP case, server access is
          mostly anonymous and no state/accounting  need  be
          maintained  on  it.   The  downside  is  that each
          client, for now, must individually  maintain  news
          environment state.

          An example pinerc entry might be:

                   news-collections=  Remote-State    *{news.u.example.edu}[],
                                      Local-State     *{news.u.example.edu/nntp}[]

          Note that each news collection must be preceded by
          a  '*'  to  indicate  non-mail access.  Only news-
          groups to which you are subscribed are included in
          the collection.

          The pattern matching facility can be applied so as
          to  define  a news collection which is a subset of
          all the newsgroups you subscribe to.  For example,
          this could be a valid collection:

                                      Newsfeed-News   *{news.u.example.edu/nntp}[clari.*]


          We are in the process of fleshing out news reading
          (subscription  management,  quasi-threading,  etc)
          and hope to make it available as  early  as  Fall,
          1993.

          Collection handling is a tough problem to solve in
          a  general  way, and the explanation of the syntax
          is a bit ugly.  The upside is, hopefully, that for
          a little complexity in the Pine configuration file
          you get simple management of multiple  folders  in
          diverse locations.


                           - 36 -







                  - Pine Technical Notes -


          _S_y_n_t_a_x _f_o_r _R_e_m_o_t_e _F_o_l_d_e_r_s

          Remote folders are distinguished from local  fold-
          ers  by  a  leading  hostname bracketed by '{' and
          '}'.  The path and folder name immediately follow-
          ing  the  closing  bracket, '}', is interpreted by
          the IMAP server and is in a form  compatible  with
          that server (i.e., path delimiters and naming syn-
          tax relative to that server).

          Typically, a folder name without any path descrip-
          tion  is  understood to reside in the user's "home
          directory" (i.e., in some way the user's personal,
          writable file area), as are incomplete path desig-
          nations.  An example of a remote folder specifica-
          tion would be,

                      {mailhost.cac.washington.edu}mail/saved-messages

          This  example  simply  specifies  a  folder  named
          "saved-messages"     on     the     imap    server
          "mailhost.cac.washington.edu", in the "mail"  sub-
          directory  of  the  user's  home  directory.  Easy
          isn't it?

          To confuse things a bit, qualifiers  are  permited
          within  the  brackets  following  the  host  name.
          These qualifiers consist of a slash, '/' character
          followed  by a keyword or keyword and value equal-
          ity, and have the effect of modifying how the con-
          nection is made to the host specified.  An example
          of such a specification might be,

                  *{pine.cac.washington.edu/anonymous}updates

              Another example might be,

                  *{news.u.washington.edu/nntp}comp.mail.mime


          Both  of these examples illustrate a different
          qualifier.  The first, specifying  "anonymous"
          access     to     the     IMAP    server    on
          "pine.cac.washington.edu".  The second is  in-
          teresting  in  that it specifies an altogether
          different access method: access via  the  Net-
          work News Transport Protocol (NNTP).  Both ex-
          amples bring to light one remaining  subtlety.
          The leading "*" tells pine to treat the remote
          folder as a Bulletin-Board (i.e., typically  a
          shared, read-only resource) and to adjusts its
          behavior accordingly.
9

9                           - 37 -







                  - Pine Technical Notes -


          _S_o_r_t_i_n_g _a _F_o_l_d_e_r

          The mail index may be sorted by subject, size,
          sender,  date,  or  arrival  order.  Each sort
          order can also be  reversed.   The  $  command
          will  prompt the user for the sort order.  The
          sort order can also be specified on  the  com-
          mand  line with the -_s_o_r_t flag or (equivalent-
          ly) with the _s_o_r_t-_k_e_y variable in the  ._p_i_n_e_r_c
          file.   When  a user changes folders, the sort
          order will go back to the original sort order.
          The command line (-_s_o_r_t) or configuration file
          sort specification (_s_o_r_t-_k_e_y) changes the ori-
          ginal sort order.

          When a folder is sorted and new  mail  arrives
          in the folder it will be inserted in its prop-
          erly sorted place.  This can be a  little  odd
          when  the  folder  is sorted by something like
          the subject.  It can also be a little slow  if
          you  are  viewing a large, sorted INBOX, since
          the INBOX will have to be  re-sorted  whenever
          new mail arrives.

          The sorts are all independent of case and  ig-
          nore  leading  or  trailing  white space.  The
          subject sort ignores "Re:"  at  the  beginning
          and  "(fwd)"  at  the end.  The sort by sender
          sorts by the userid, not the full  name.   The
          arrival  sort  is basically no sort at all and
          the date sort depends on  the  format  of  the
          date.   Some  dates are in strange formats and
          are unparsable.  The time zone is  also  taken
          into account.

          Sorting large mail folders can  be  very  slow
          since  it requires fetching all the headers of
          the mail messages.  With UNIX Pine,  only  the
          first  sort is slow since Pine keeps a copy of
          all the headers.  One exception is sorting  in
          reverse  arrival  order.  This is fast because
          no headers have to  be  examined.   Pine  will
          show progress as it is sorting.


          _A_l_t_e_r_n_a_t_e _E_d_i_t_o_r

          In the Pine composer you can use any text edi-
          tor,  such  as  _v_i or _e_m_a_c_s, for composing the
          message text.  The addresses and subject still
          must  be  edited  using the standard Pine com-
          poser.  It operates in one of  two  ways.   If
          you   include  the  feature  _e_n_a_b_l_e-_a_l_t_e_r_n_a_t_e-


                           - 38 -







                  - Pine Technical Notes -


          _e_d_i_t_o_r-_c_m_d in your ._p_i_n_e_r_c  you  can  type  ^_
          while  in the composer and be prompted for the
          editor.  If you also set the  _e_d_i_t_o_r  variable
          in  your  ._p_i_n_e_r_c then ^_ will invoke the con-
          figured editor when you type it.

          We know that many people would like to use the
          custom editor to edit the mail header as well.
          We considered several  designs  for  this  and
          didn't come up with one that we liked and that
          was easy to implement.  One of the main  prob-
          lems  is  that  you lose access to the address
          book.  We also  understand  that  many  people
          would  like an option for the alternate editor
          to be invoked automatically.  There will prob-
          ably be further discussion on this!


          _S_i_g_n_a_t_u_r_e_s _a_n_d _S_i_g_n_a_t_u_r_e _P_l_a_c_e_m_e_n_t

          If   the   file   ~/._s_i_g_n_a_t_u_r_e    (UNIX)    or
          $_H_O_M_E\_P_I_N_E\_P_I_N_E._S_I_G  (DOS)  exists, it will be
          included in all outgoing messages.  It is  in-
          cluded  before  composition starts so that the
          user has a chance to edit it out if he or  she
          likes.  The file name for the signature can be
          changed by setting the _s_i_g_n_a_t_u_r_e-_f_i_l_e variable
          in  the ._p_i_n_e_r_c.  There is no way to have Pine
          include different signatures in different out-
          going messages automatically.  You can do this
          by hand, however, by having multiple signature
          files  (.sig1, .sig2, .sig3, etc) and choosing
          to include (^R in the  composer)  the  correct
          one for the message being sent.

          Pine encourages the user to  put  his  or  her
          contribution  before the inclusion of the ori-
          ginal text of the message being  forwarded  or
          replied  to,  This is contrary to some conven-
          tions, but makes the conversation  more  read-
          able  when a long original message is included
          in a reply for context.   The  reader  doesn't
          have  to scroll through the original text that
          he or she has probably already  seen  to  find
          the new text.  If the reader wishes to see the
          old message(s), the reader can scroll  further
          into  the  message.   Users  who perfer to add
          their input at the end of  a  messaage  should
          set  the  _s_i_g_n_a_t_u_r_e-_a_t-_b_o_t_t_o_m  feature  in the
          _f_e_a_t_u_r_e-_l_i_s_t.  The signature will then be  ap-
          pended to the end of the message after any in-
          cluded text.
9

9                           - 39 -







                  - Pine Technical Notes -


          _F_e_a_t_u_r_e _L_i_s_t _V_a_r_i_a_b_l_e

          Pine used to have  _f_e_a_t_u_r_e  _l_e_v_e_l_s  for  users
          with  different  amounts  of  experience.   We
          found that this was too restrictive.  Pine now
          has  a  _f_e_a_t_u_r_e-_l_i_s_t instead.  The old feature
          _f_e_a_t_u_r_e-_l_e_v_e_l=_o_l_d-_g_r_o_w_t_h is still supported as
          a  macro  by  translating it into a particular
          set of features, but it is now  also  possible
          for   each  user  to  pick  and  choose  which
          features  they  would  like   enabled.    More
          features  (options)  will no doubt continue to
          be added.



          _A_d_d_i_t_i_o_n_a_l _N_o_t_e_s _o_n _P_C-_P_i_n_e

          Below are a few odds and ends worth mentioning
          about  PC-Pine.   They  have  to  do with DOS-
          specific behavior that is either necessary  or
          useful (and sometimes both!).

          As PC-Pine runs in an environment with limited
          access control, accounting or auditing, either
          of two additional lines are automatically  in-
          serted  into  the header of mail messages gen-
          erated by PC-Pine.  These lines are

                      X-Warning: UNAuthenticated Sender

              and

                          X-Sender: <userid>@<imap.host>


          Which of the two headers is  inserted  depends
          on  whether  a successful imapd login has been
          established at the time the message  is  sent.
          This feature can only be disabled by recompil-
          ing PC-Pine.  Also, this should  not  be  con-
          sidered a rigorous form of authentication.  It
          is extremely lightweight, and  is  not  a  re-
          placement for true authentication.

          Hand in hand with authentication and  account-
          ing  is user information. Since PC-Pine has no
          user  database   to   consult   for   user-id,
          personal-name,   etc.,  necessary  information
          must be provided by the user/installer  before
          PC-Pine  can properly construct the "From" ad-
          dress required for outbound messages.  As  re-
          quired editing of the _P_I_N_E_R_C is somewhat clum-


                           - 40 -







                  - Pine Technical Notes -


          sy, PC-Pine will, by default, prompt  for  the
          requisite pieces as they are needed.  This in-
          formation corresponds to the _P_I_N_E_R_C  variables
          user-id,   personal-name,   user-domain,   and
          smtp-server.

          The user is then asked whether or not this in-
          formation should automatically be saved to the
          _P_I_N_E_R_C.  This is useful behavior  in  general,
          but  can  lead  to  problems in a lab or other
          shared environment.  Hence, these prompts  and
          automatic   saving  of  configuration  can  be
          turned off on an entry by entry basis by  set-
          ting  any of the above values in the _P_I_N_E_R_C to
          the  null  string  (i.e.,  a  pair  of  double
          quotes).   This  means  that  the user will be
          prompted for the information once during  each
          pine  session, and no opportunity to save them
          in the _P_I_N_E_R_C will be offered.


          Along similar lines, a  feature  allowing  au-
          tomatic  login  to  the imap-server containing
          the user's  _I_N_B_O_X  has  also  been  requested.
          This  feature  is  not enabled by default, but
          requires  the  existance  of  the  file  named
          _P_I_N_E._P_W_D  in the same directory as the _P_I_N_E_R_C.
          Even with the existance of this file, the user
          must  still  acknowledge  a  prompt before the
          password is saved to the file.

          _W_A_R_N_I_N_G!  Use this feature  with  caution!  It
          effectively  makes  the  user's  mail  no more
          secure  than  the  physical  security  of  the
          machine  running  PC-Pine.  What's more, while
          the password is cloaked by a mild (some  might
          say, feeble) encryption scheme, it is nonethe-
          less sitting in a file on the  PC's  disk  and
          subject  to  cracking by anyone with access to
          it.  _B_E_W_A_R_E!


          Another feature of DOS is the lack of standard
          scratch  area for temporary files.  During the
          course  of  a  session,  PC-Pine  may  require
          numerous temporary files (large message texts,
          various caches, etc.).  Where to  create  them
          can  be  a  problem, particularly when running
          under certain network operating systems.   PC-
          Pine  observes  the  _T_M_P  and _T_E_M_P environment
          variables, and creates temporary files in  the
          directory  specified  by either.  In their ab-
          sense, PC-Pine creates these files in the root


                           - 41 -







                  - Pine Technical Notes -


          of the current working drive.



















































9

9                           - 42 -







                  - Pine Technical Notes -


                   _S_e_c_t_i_o_n _6-_B_e_h_i_n_d _t_h_e _S_c_e_n_e_s



          Many people ask how certain Pine features  are
          implemented.   This  section  outlines some of
          the more interesting details.  For more infor-
          mation,  you  would have to ask the developers
          or take a look at the source code.



          _A_d_d_r_e_s_s _B_o_o_k_s

          The address book is stored in the user's  home
          directory  in  the file ._a_d_d_r_e_s_s_b_o_o_k (UNIX) or
          in the \_P_I_N_E directory as  the  file  _A_D_D_R_B_O_O_K
          (DOS).   In either case, the address book is a
          simple text file.  The lines are of  the  for-
          mat:

                        <nickname>TAB<fullname>TAB<address>

              If the entry is an address list then <address> is of the format:

                            (<address>,<address>,<address>,......)

                  Normally entries are one per line unless it is a list and then the
                  entry extends until the closing parenthesis.
                  If lines are encountered
                  in the address book that don't fit the format (they don't have
                  two tabs) they are ignored.
                  An older format is also supported where
                  the address lists don't have parentheses.
                  Spaces are not allowed in nick names.

          Entries in the address book may refer to other
          entries  in  the  address  book.  Lists may be
          nested.  If addresses refer to each other in a
          loop  this  is  detected and flagged.  The ad-
          dress will be changed to  "****  address  loop
          ****".

          The address book file  is  rewritten  by  Pine
          frequently  in  the format it thinks proper so
          comments or other formatting introduced with a
          text editor will not be maintained.

          The address book format is simple, so  writing
          script  and  programs to modify and/or convert
          address books should  be  simple.   Some  such
          conversion  programs  are included in the Pine
          distribution in the _c_o_n_t_r_i_b directory.


                           - 43 -







                  - Pine Technical Notes -


          The address book is kept sorted  in  order  by
          the  full name field.  In order for this to be
          sensible the full names should be  last  name,
          then  comma,  then  first name.  Pine makes an
          attempt to encourage use of this  format.   It
          will  reverse the order of any names that have
          a single comma in them when they  are  in  ad-
          dresses  on  outgoing  mail so that it will be
          formatted first name followed  by  last  name.
          The  _T_a_k_e_A_d_d_r  command that captures addresses
          off incoming messages also attempts to reverse
          the  name as it is inserted, though it doesn't
          always succeed.  The way it works can probably
          be improved.

          When the address book is written  out,  it  is
          first  written to a temporary file and if that
          write is successful it is  renamed  correctly.
          This  guards  against  errors writing the file
          that might destroy  the  whole  address  book.
          The address book is written after each change.

          There are two "known weaknesses" in  the  Pine
          address  book  scheme-both  of which are being
          worked on. First, a user can only have  1  ad-
          dress  book.  There is no way to have a global
          (system-wide) address book and a personal one.
          Secondly, the address book must be on the same
          machine as Pine.  You cannot, at  the  moment,
          share  an  address  book  between Pine and PC-
          Pine.


          _C_h_e_c_k_p_o_i_n_t_i_n_g

          Periodically Pine will  save  the  whole  mail
          folder  to disk to prevent loss of any mail or
          mail status in the case that Pine gets  inter-
          rupted,  disconnected, or crashes.  The period
          of time Pine waits to  do  the  checkpoint  is
          calculated  to  be  minimally  intrusive.  The
          timing can be changed (but usually  isn't)  at
          compile  time.   Folder  checkpointing happens
          for both local folders  and  those  being  ac-
          cessed with IMAP.  The delays are divided into
          three categories:


          Good Time:     This occurs when Pine has  been
                         idle  for more than 30 seconds.
                         In this case Pine  will  check-
                         point if 12 changes to the file
                         have been made or at least  one


                           - 44 -







                  - Pine Technical Notes -


                         change  has  been  made  and  a
                         checkpoint hasn't been done for
                         five minutes.


          Bad Time:      This occurs just after Pine has
                         executed  some  command.   Pine
                         will checkpoint if there are 36
                         outstanding changes to the mail
                         file or at least one change and
                         no checkpoint for ten minutes.


          Very Bad Time: Done when composing a  message.
                         In  this  case,  Pine will only
                         checkpoint  if  at   least   48
                         changes  have  been made or one
                         change has  been  made  in  the
                         last  twenty  minutes  with  no
                         checkpoint.



          _D_e_b_u_g _F_i_l_e_s

          If UNIX Pine is compiled with the compiler _D_E_-
          _B_U_G option on (the current default), then Pine
          will produce debugging output to a  file.  The
          file  is  normally  ._p_i_n_e-_d_e_b_u_g_X in the user's
          home directory where  _X  goes  from  1  to  4.
          Number 1 is always the most recent session and
          4 the oldest.  Four are  saved  because  often
          the  user  has  gone  in and out of Pine a few
          times after a problem has occurred before  the
          expert  actually  gets  to  look  at  it.  The
          amount of output in  the  debug  files  varies
          with the debug level set when Pine is compiled
          and/or as a command line flag.  The default is
          level  2.   This shows very general things and
          records  errors.   Level  9  produces  copious
          amounts of output for each keystroke.

          PC-Pine does not produce debug files.


          _F_i_l_t_e_r_s

          Pine is not designed to process email messages
          as  they are delivered; rather Pine depends on
          the fact that some  other  program  (sendmail,
          etc)  will  deliver  messages  and Pine simply
          reads the email  folders  which  that  "other"
          program creates.  For this reason, Pine cannot


                           - 45 -







                  - Pine Technical Notes -


          filter incoming email into different  folders.
          It  can,  however,  work alongside most of the
          programs available  over  the  Internet  which
          perform  this  task.  Pine is known to operate
          successfully with the Elm filter  program  and
          with Procmail.

          Design changes in Pine  3.8x  facilitate  Pine
          users  filtering email.  You still have to get
          a filtering program and configure it  correct-
          ly, but Pine now allows users to specify a set
          of _i_n_c_o_m_i_n_g-_f_o_l_d_e_r_s.  Pine will  separate  out
          all the folders listed as _i_n_c_o_m_i_n_g-_f_o_l_d_e_r_s and
          offer convenient access  to  these.   We  hope
          that  in the future Pine will be able to offer
          new message counts for  all  of  the  incoming
          folders.



          _F_o_l_d_e_r _F_o_r_m_a_t_s

          A folder is a group of messages.  The  default
          format  used by Pine is the Berkeley mail for-
          mat.  It is also used  by  the  standard  _m_a_i_l
          command  and  by  _e_l_m.   Pine also understands
          folders in other formats.   UNIX  Pine  under-
          stands  Tenex  and  netnews  as well.  PC-Pine
          reads and writes folders on the PC itself in a
          special  format  called  MTX.   Near as we can
          tell, PC-Pine is the only program to  use  the
          MTX  format. Pine has also been used with Car-
          mel, mh, MMDF and mbox format mailboxes.   For
          more  information about the carmel format, see
          the directory  ./_c_o_n_t_r_i_b/_c_a_r_m_e_l  in  the  Pine
          distribution.


          Berkeley
               This format comes to us from the  ancient
               UNIX mail program, /_b_i_n/_m_a_i_l.  (Note that
               this doesn't have  anything  to  do  with
               Berkeley,  but  we  call  it the Berkeley
               mail file format  anyway.)  This  program
               was  actually  used to interactively read
               mail at one time, and is  still  used  on
               many systems as the local delivery agent.
               In the Berkely mail format, a folder is a
               simple  text file.  Each message (includ-
               ing the first) must start with a  separa-
               tor  line  which  takes approximately the
               form:
9

9                           - 46 -







                  - Pine Technical Notes -


                           From juser@u.example.edu  Wed Aug 11 14:32:33 1993


               Each message ends with two  blank  lines.
               There   are  actually  several  different
               variations  in  the  date  part  of   the
               string, twenty at last count.  Because of
               the format of the separators, no lines in
               the  mail message can begin with "From ",
               space included, so they are  modified  to
               be ">From ".  You'll see this occasional-
               ly  in  mail   messages.    The   message
               delivery program (not Pine) enforces this
               restriction.   You  can  fool  Pine  into
               thinking  a  file is a mail folder by ad-
               ding a message separator at the beginning
               of the file and wherever you want message
               boundaries.  The vast majority of INBOXes
               Pine  reads  and folders it writes are of
               this format.


          Tenex and MTX Formats
               The Tenex format of file  uses  a  single
               file per folder.  Normally, the file name
               ends with ._t_x_t.  The file format consists
               of  a header line followed by the message
               text for each message.  The header is  in
               one of two forms:

                           dd-mmm-yy hh:mm:ss-zzz,n;ffffffffffff
                           dd-mmm-yyyy hh:mm:ss sssss,n;ffffffffffff


               and is immediately followed by a  newline
               (and the message text).


                       The fields in the formats are:
                           dd      two-digit day of month (leading space if a single-digit day)
                           mmm     three-letter English month name (Jan, Feb, etc.)
                           yy      two-digit year in 20th century (obsolete)
                           yyyy    four-digit year
                           hh      two-digit hour in 24-hour clock (leading zero if single-digit)
                           mm      two-digit minute (leading zero)
                           ss      two-digit second (leading zero)
                           zzz     three-letter North American timezone (obsolete)
                           sssss   signed four-digit international timezone as in RFC 822
                           n       one or more digits of the size of the following message in
                                   bytes
                           ffffffffffff
                                   twelve-digit octal flags value
9

9                           - 47 -







                  - Pine Technical Notes -


                   Punctuation is as given above.


               The time in the header is the  time  that
               message  was  written to the folder.  The
               flags are  interpreted  as  follows:  the
               high  order  30 bits are used to indicate
               user  flags,  the  next  two   bits   are
               reserved  for  future usage, the low four
               bits are used for  system  flags  (010  =
               answered,  04  =  flagged  urgent,  02  =
               deleted, 01 = seen).  Mail  is  automati-
               cally  moved  from  /_u_s_r/_s_p_o_o_l/_m_a_i_l  into
               _m_a_i_l._t_x_t in the user's home directory  if
               the _m_a_i_l._t_x_t file exists.


               The MTX format is identical to the  tenex
               format,  with  two exceptions: the folder
               name ends with ._M_T_X instead of ._t_x_t (this
               is  a requirement in the MTX format), and
               DOS-style CR/LF newlines are used instead
               of UNIX-style LF newlines.



          Netnews Format
               The netnews format is a read-only  format
               which      uses     directories     under
               /usr/spool/news    as    folders.     The
               /_u_s_r/_s_p_o_o_l/_n_e_w_s/  prefix  is  removed and
               all subsequent "/" (slash) characters are
               changed to "." (period). For example, the
               netnews folder name _c_o_m_p._m_a_i_l._m_i_s_c refers
               to        the        directory       name
               /_u_s_r/_s_p_o_o_l/_n_e_w_s/_c_o_m_p/_m_a_i_l/_m_i_s_c.  In addi-
               tion, the news folder name must appear in
               the file /usr/lib/news/active for  it  to
               be  recognized.   Individual messages are
               stored as files in that  directory,  with
               filenames  being  the  ASCII  form  of  a
               number assigned to that message.




          _F_o_l_d_e_r _L_o_c_k_i_n_g

          There are two kinds of locking which Pine  has
          to  worry  about.   The  first might be called
          program-contention locking.  This affects  the
          times  when a program is performing actual up-
          dates on a folder.  An update might be a  mes-


                           - 48 -







                  - Pine Technical Notes -


          sage  delivery  program  appending  a  message
          (_s_e_n_d_m_a_i_l delivering a message to  an  INBOX),
          status  changes (checkpoints by Pine every few
          minutes) or deletion of messages  (an  expunge
          in  Pine).   For moderate sized mail messages,
          these operations should not last for more than
          a few seconds.  The second kind of locking has
          to do with  user-contention  situations.  This
          would be the case when one folder is shared by
          a group of people  or  even  when  one  person
          starts  multiple  email  sessions all of which
          access the same folders and INBOX.

          There  are  two  standard  locking  mechanisms
          which  handle  program-contention locking.  To
          be on the safe side, Pine implements  both  of
          them.   The  older  mechanism  places  a  file
          _x_x_x_x._l_o_c_k (where _x_x_x_x is the name of the  file
          being  locked)  in  the  same directory as the
          file being locked. This makes use of the  fact
          that  directory  operations are atomic in UNIX
          and mostly works across NFS.   There  are  in-
          volved  algorithms used to determine if a lock
          has been held for an excessive amount of  time
          and  should  be  broken.   The second program-
          contention locking mechanism uses the  _f_l_o_c_k()
          system call on the mailbox.  This is much more
          efficient and the locks can't  get  stuck  be-
          cause  they  go  away  when  the  process that
          created them dies.  This is usually  found  on
          4BSD and related machines.

          In addition to  these,  Pine--through  the  c-
          client  library--provides robust locking which
          prevents several users (or  several  instances
          of the same user) having a mail file open (for
          update) at once.  This user-contention lock is
          held  the  entire  time  that the folder is in
          use.

          With IMAPd 7.3(63) and Pine 3.84  and  higher,
          the second Pine session which attempts to open
          a folder with Pine will "win." That is to say,
          the second session will have read/write access
          to the folder.  The first user's  folder  will
          become  read-only.  (Note that this is exactly
          the opposite of the  behavior  prior  to  Pine
          3.84  where  the  second  open  was read-only.
          Having the second open be read-write seems  to
          match  more closely with what users would like
          to have happen in this situation.) Pine's  ad-
          ditional  locking  is  only  effective against
          multiple uses of Pine or other programs  using


                           - 49 -







                  - Pine Technical Notes -


          the c-client library, such as _M_a_i_l_M_a_n_a_g_e_r, _m_s,
          _I_M_A_P_d and a few others.  Beginning  with  Pine
          3.85,  there is an -_o command line flag to in-
          tentionally open a mailbox read-only.

          Pine locking on UNIX systems works by creating
          lock    files    in    /_t_m_p    of   the   form
          \_u_s_r\_s_p_o_o_l\_m_a_i_l\_j_o_e.  The system call  _f_l_o_c_k()
          is  then used on these files; the existence of
          the file alone does  not  constitute  a  lock.
          This lock is created when the folder is opened
          and destroyed when it  is  closed.   When  the
          folder is actually being written, the standard
          UNIX locks are also created.

          If a folder is modified by some other  program
          while  Pine  has it open, Pine will give up on
          that mail file, concluding it's best not to do
          any  further  reads or writes. This can happen
          if another mailer that doesn't observe  Pine's
          user-contention  locks  (e.g.  _e_l_m or _m_a_i_l) is
          run while Pine has the mail folder open.  Pine
          checkpoints files every few minutes, so little
          data can be lost in these situations.

          PC-Pine does not do any  folder  locking.   It
          depends  on  IMAP servers to handle locking of
          remote folders.  It is assumed that  only  one
          Pine  session  can  be  running on the PC at a
          time, so there is no contention  issue  around
          folders on the PC itself.



          _I_N_B_O_X _a_n_d _S_p_e_c_i_a_l _F_o_l_d_e_r_s

          The _I_N_B_O_X folder is treated specially.  It  is
          normally  kept open constantly so that the ar-
          rival of new mail can be detected.   The  name
          _I_N_B_O_X refers to wherever new mail is retrieved
          on the system.  If the _i_n_b_o_x-_p_a_t_h variable  is
          set,  then _I_N_B_O_X refers to that.  IMAP servers
          understand the concept of _I_N_B_O_X, so specifying
          the  folder {_i_m_a_p._u._e_x_a_m_p_l_e._e_d_u}_I_N_B_O_X is mean-
          ingful. The case of the word INBOX is not  im-
          portant,  but  Pine tends to display it in all
          capital letters.

          The folders for sent mail and  saved  messages
          folders  are  also somewhat special.  They are
          automatically created if they are  absent  and
          recreated if they are deleted.
9

9                           - 50 -







                  - Pine Technical Notes -


          _I_n_t_e_r_n_a_l _H_e_l_p _F_i_l_e_s

          The file _p_i_n_e._h_l_p  in  the  _p_i_n_e  subdirectory
          contains all the help text for Pine.  On UNIX,
          it is compiled right into the Pine  binary  as
          strings.   This  is done to simplify installa-
          tion and configuration.  The _p_i_n_e._h_l_p file  is
          in  a special format that is documented at the
          beginning of the file.   It  is  divided  into
          sections, each with a name that winds up being
          referenced as a global variable.  Some special
          formatting rules are used to keep things lined
          up and to allow for substitutions in the  help
          text  depending  on  whether  the Pine session
          uses   function   keys   or    the    standard
          alphabetic/mnemonic  keys.   This file is pro-
          cessed by two awk scripts and  turned  into  C
          files that are compiled into Pine.

          This scheme can  increase  efficiency  because
          Pine  can  be  compiled to have the strings as
          part of shared, read-only text.   Rather  than
          each  process  having to read in the help text
          from a file, the strings are shared by all ex-
          ecuting  processes  on  the machine and demand
          paged.   This  works  on  machines  that  have
          separate  instruction  and  data space, but is
          only fully implemented in  the  NeXT  (tested)
          and Dynix (not tested) ports.

          PC-Pine, which tries to run on  machines  with
          as  little  as 640k of memory, leaves the Pine
          help text out of  the  executable.   _P_I_N_E._E_X_E,
          _P_I_N_E._H_L_P,  and _P_I_N_E._N_D_X are all needed for PC-
          Pine's help system.



          _I_n_t_e_r_n_a_t_i_o_n_a_l _C_h_a_r_a_c_t_e_r _S_e_t_s

          While Pine was designed in the U.S.  and  used
          mostly for English-language correspondence, it
          is a goal for Pine to handle email  in  almost
          any  language.  Many sites outside of the U.S.
          run Pine in their native  language.   The  de-
          fault  character  set  for  Pine  is US-ASCII.
          That  can  be  changed  in  the  personal   or
          system-wide  configuration file with the vari-
          able _c_h_a_r_a_c_t_e_r-_s_e_t.


          When reading incoming email, Pine  allows  all
          character  sets to pass through.  Pine doesn't


                           - 51 -







                  - Pine Technical Notes -


          actually display  the  characters  but  simply
          passes  them  through;  it is up to the actual
          display device to show the characters correct-
          ly.   When  composing  email, Pine will accept
          input in any language and tag the message  ac-
          cording to the _c_h_a_r_a_c_t_e_r-_s_e_t variable.  Again,
          it is up to the input device to  generate  the
          correct  sequences for the character set being
          used.  The outgoing message is checked to  see
          if  it  is  all US-ASCII text (and contains no
          escape characters).  In that  case,  the  text
          will  be  labeled  as  US-ASCII  even  if  the
          _c_h_a_r_a_c_t_e_r-_s_e_t variable  is  set  to  something
          else.   The  theory  is  that every reasonable
          character set will have US-ASCII as a  subset,
          and that it makes sense to label the text with
          the lowest-common-denominator  label  so  that
          more mailers will be able to display it.

          The character sets are:

              US-ASCII        Standard 7 bit English characters
              ISO-8859-1      8 bit European "latin 1" character set
              ISO-8859-2      8 bit European "latin 2" character set
              ISO-8859-3      8 bit European "latin 3" character set
              ISO-8859-4      8 bit European "latin 4" character set
              ISO-8859-5      8 bit Cyrillic
              ISO-8859-6      8 bit Arabic
              ISO-8859-7      8 bit Greek
              ISO-8859-8      8 bit European "latin 5"" character set
              ISO-8859-9      8 bit Hebrew
              ISO-2022-JP     Japanese


              In all of these except Japanese, the lower 7 bits are the same as US-ASCII.
              Even in Japanese, the character set is the same as US-ASCII unless it has been
              shifted to an alternate interpretation.

          Earlier versions of Pine made use of the char-
          acter set tags associated with text in MIME to
          decide if the text should be displayed or not.
          Depending  on  the  character  set tag and the
          _c_h_a_r_a_c_t_e_r-_s_e_t variable in Pine, the  text  was
          either  displayed  as  is, displayed with some
          characters filtered out, or not  displayed  at
          all.   The current version uses a much simpler
          algorithm in order to maximize the chance that
          useful  contents are readable by the user.  It
          simply displays all messages of type text  and
          makes no attempt to filter out characters that
          may be in the wrong  character  set.   If  the
          text  is  tagged  as  something other than US-
          ASCII and the tag does not match the character


                           - 52 -







                  - Pine Technical Notes -


          set that the _c_h_a_r_a_c_t_e_r-_s_e_t variable is set to,
          then a warning is printed at the start of  the
          message.   In  that  case, it is possible that
          the text will be displayed  incorrectly.   For
          example,  if  the  text is one variant of ISO-
          8859 and the display device is  another  vari-
          ant, some of the characters may show up on the
          screen as the wrong character.  Or if the text
          is  Japanese  and  the  display device is not,
          some parts of the message may be total gibber-
          ish  (which  will  look like ASCII gibberish).
          On the other hand, the parts of  the  Japanese
          message that really are US-ASCII will be read-
          able in the midst of the gibberish.

          In the case of PC-Pine, the  character  values
          cannot  be  passed  thru to the display device
          unaltered  since  MS-DOS  uses  various   non-
          standard character sets called "Code Pages".

          The mapping between DOS Code Page and standard
          character    set    is   controlled   by   the
          "character-set" variable in  the  PINERC  file
          and  the  PC's  installed  Code Page.  PC-Pine
          will automatically map  common  characters  in
          IBM  Code Pages 437, 850, 860, 863, and 865 to
          ISO-8859-1  and  back  when  the  PINERC   has
          "character-set=ISO-8859-1".   Pine  will  also
          map common characters for IBM Code Page 866 to
          ISO-8859-5  and  back when "character-set=ISO-
          8859-5".  The mappings are bi-directional, and
          applied  to  all saved text attachments in the
          defined character set, messages exported, etc.

          Alternatively, the translation tables  can  be
          configured  externally and applied at run time
          whenever the "character-set=" variable is  set
          to  something  other  then "US-ASCII" (the de-
          fault).  PC-Pine looks in the text file point-
          ed  to by the environment variable "ISO_TO_CP"
          for the table to use for mapping text matching
          the type defined by the "character-set=" vari-
          able into the local Code Page value.   PC-Pine
          looks  in  the text file pointed to by the en-
          vironment variable "CP_TO_ISO" for  the  table
          to use for mapping text in the local Code Page
          into   outbound   text   tagged    with    the
          "character-set=" variable's value.

          A text file containing a character set mapping
          table  is  expected  to  contain  256 elements
          where  each  element  is  a   decimal   number
          separated from the next element by white-space


                           - 53 -







                  - Pine Technical Notes -


          (space, tab or newline, but no commas!).   The
          index  of the element is the character's value
          in the source character set, and the element's
          value  is  the corresponding character's value
          in the destination character set.



          _I_n_t_e_r_r_r_u_p_t_e_d _a_n_d _P_o_s_t_p_o_n_e_d _M_e_s_s_a_g_e_s

          If the user is composing mail  and  is  inter-
          rupted  by being disconnected (SIGHUP, SIGTERM
          or end of file on the  standard  input),  Pine
          will  save the interrupted composition and al-
          low the user to continue it  when  he  or  she
          resumes   Pine.   As  the  next  Pine  session
          starts, a message will be given that an inter-
          rupted  message  can  be continued To continue
          the interrupted message, simply  go  into  the
          composer.   To get rid of the interrupted mes-
          sage, go into the composer and then cancel the
          message with ^_C.

          Composition of  a  half-done  message  may  be
          postponed  to  a  later  time by giving the ^_O
          command.  Other messages can be composed while
          a postponded message waits, but there can only
          be one message may be postponed at a time.  We
          would  like  Pine to be able to have more than
          one postponed message, but haven't got  around
          to  it  mostly because some work would have to
          be done to make the user interface nice. Post-
          poning is a good way to quickly reference oth-
          er messages while composing.

          There are some  problems  postponing  messages
          that  have MIME attachments or characters from
          non-US-ASCII  character  sets.   With  attach-
          ments, the postponed message will only store a
          reference to the file and not the actual file,
          so  the  file should not be deleted or renamed
          until the message is sent.   Non-file  attach-
          ments,  the  results of forwarding or replying
          to a MIME message, will be dropped. Postponded
          messages with non-US-ASCII characters will not
          be decoded upon resumption, so some odd things
          like "=D6" may appear where special characters
          were.

          The interrupted  and  postponed  messages  are
          saved  in  a  special  directory  on the local
          machine.  You can specify which  directory  by
          setting  the  _m_a_i_l-_d_i_r_e_c_t_o_r_y  variable  in the


                           - 54 -







                  - Pine Technical Notes -


          Pine configuration file.  Postponed and inter-
          rupted  messages  cannot  be  kept  on an IMAP
          server.


          _M_e_s_s_a_g_e _S_t_a_t_u_s

          The c-client library allows for several  flags
          or  status  marks  to be set for each message.
          Pine uses three of these flags: UNSEEN, DELET-
          ED, and ANSWERED. The "N" in Pine's FOLDER IN-
          DEX means that a message is unseen-it has  not
          been read from this folder yet.  The "D" means
          that a message is marked for  deletion.   Mes-
          sages  marked  with  "D"  are removed when the
          user _e_x_p_u_n_g_e_s the folder (which  usually  hap-
          pens  when  the  folder  is closed or the user
          quits Pine).  The "A" in Pine's  FOLDER  INDEX
          means  that  the  message  has bee replied-to.
          For  Berkeley  format  folders,  the   message
          status is written into the email folder itself
          on the header  lines  marked  _S_t_a_t_u_s:  and  _X-
          _S_t_a_t_u_s.   In Tenex and MTX folders, the status
          goes into the 36-bit octal flags.



          _M_I_M_E-_R_e_a_d_i_n_g _a _M_e_s_s_a_g_e

          Pine should be able to handle just  about  any
          MIME  message.   When  a  MIME  message is re-
          ceived, Pine will display a list  of  all  the
          parts, their types and sizes.  It will display
          the attachments when possible and  appropriate
          and allow users to save all other attachments.

          Messages which include rich text in  the  main
          body  will  be displayed in a very limited way
          (it will show bold and underlining).

          If Pine sees a message tagged  as  "image/gif"
          or  "image/jpeg", it will attempt to send that
          attachment to  an  appropriate  image  viewing
          program.  UNIX Pine will check the environment
          setting DISPLAY to see if Pine  is  on  an  X-
          terminal  (which  can  handle the images).  If
          so, Pine passes the image to a program such as
          _x_l_o_a_d_i_m_a_g_e  to  be  viewed.   You  can specify
          which program should be used  by  setting  the
          Pine configuration variable _i_m_a_g_e-_v_i_e_w_e_r.

          If an attachment is  just  text  (tagged  with
          "text/plain"  in  the  MIME header), then Pine


                           - 55 -







                  - Pine Technical Notes -


          will use an internal viewer module to  display
          the  attachment.  International character sets
          in attachments are handled in the same way  as
          they are in regular email messages.  Some text
          attachments, specifically those which are just
          other  email  messages  forwarded as MIME mes-
          sages, are displayed as part of the main  body
          of  the message.  This distinction allows easy
          display when possible  (the  forward  as  MIME
          case)  and  use  of  an attachment viewer when
          that is desirable (the plain text file attach-
          ment case).

          If the parts of a multipart message are alter-
          nate  versions  of  the  same  thing Pine will
          select and display the one best  suited.   For
          parts  of  type  "message/external-body",  the
          parameters showing the retrieval  method  will
          be displayed, but the retrieval process is not
          yet    automated.     Messages     of     type
          "message/partial" cannot currently be automat-
          ically reassembled or sent.  Lastly, Pine can-
          not  display  any attachments which are of the
          "application" type; these  must  be  saved  to
          files and then processed outside of Pine. In a
          future release, we intend to support the _m_a_i_l_-
          _c_a_p  facility to allow automatic processing of
          display of additional MIME types.




          _M_I_M_E-_S_e_n_d_i_n_g _a _M_e_s_s_a_g_e

          There are two important factors when trying to
          include  an  attachment in a message: encoding
          and labeling.  Pine  has  rules  for  both  of
          these  which  try  to  assure that the message
          goes out in a form that is robust and  can  be
          handled by other MIME mail readers.

          MIME has two  ways  of  encoding  data-Quoted-
          Printable and Base64.  Quoted-Printable leaves
          the ASCII text alone and  only  changes  8-bit
          characters  to "=" followed by the hex digits.
          For example, "=09" is a tab.  It has  the  ad-
          vantage that it is mostly readable and that it
          allows for end of line conversions between un-
          like  systems.   Base64 encoding is similar to
          _u_u_e_n_c_o_d_e or _b_t_o_a and just encodes  a  raw  bit
          stream.  This encoding is designed to get text
          and binary files through even the most improp-
          erly  implemented  and configured gateways in-


                           - 56 -







                  - Pine Technical Notes -


          tact, even those that distort uuencoded data.

          Starting with this (3.84) version of  Pine  we
          have  decided  to encode all attachments using
          Base64 encoding.  This is so that the  attach-
          ment  will arrive at the other end looking ex-
          actly like it did when  it  was  sent.   Since
          Base64  is  completely  unreadable  except  by
          MIME-capable mailers or programs, there is  an
          obvious tradeoff being made here.  We chose to
          ensure absolutely reliable  transport  of  at-
          tachments  at  the  cost  of requiring a MIME-
          capable mailer to  read  them.   If  the  user
          doesn't  want absolute integrity he or she may
          always _i_n_c_l_u_d_e text (with the ^_R  command)  in
          the body of a message instead of attaching it.
          With this new policy, the  only  time  quoted-
          printable  encoding  is  used is when the main
          body of a  message  includes  special  foreign
          language characters.

          When an attachment is to be sent, Pine  sniffs
          through  it  to  try  to  set  the right label
          (content-type  and  subtype).   An  attachment
          with  any  lines longer than 500 characters in
          it or more than 10% of the characters  are  8-
          bit  it  will be considered binary data.  Pine
          will recognize (and  correctly  label)  a  few
          special  types including GIF, JPEG, Postscript
          and some audio formats.

          If is not binary data (has only a  small  pro-
          portion  of  8-bit  characters in it,) the at-
          tachment is considered 8-bit text.  8-bit text
          attachments  are  labelled  "text/plain"  with
          charset  set  to  the  value  of  the   user's
          _c_h_a_r_a_c_t_e_r-_s_e_t  variable.   If an attachment is
          ASCII (no 8-bit characters)  and  contains  no
          _E_S_C_A_P_E,  ^_N,  or ^_O characters (the characters
          used by some  international  character  sets),
          then  it  is considered plain ASCII text. Such
          attachments   are   given   the   MIME   label
          "text/plain;  charset=US-ASCII", regardless of
          the setting of the user's _c_h_a_r_a_c_t_e_r-_s_e_t  vari-
          able.

          All other  attachments  are  unrecognized  and
          therefore   given   the   generic  MIME  label
          "application/octet-stream".



9

9                           - 57 -







                  - Pine Technical Notes -


          _N_e_w _M_a_i_l _N_o_t_i_f_i_c_a_t_i_o_n

          Pine checks for new mail in the _I_N_B_O_X  and  in
          the  currently  open  folder every 30 seconds.
          It only has to check the  time  stamp  on  the
          mail  file, so doing this doesn't place a load
          on the system.  If you really  don't  want  to
          wait  you  can  force  a new mail check by at-
          tempting to move the cursor off the end of the
          message index three times. It'll beep and com-
          plain as you do this, but it  will  check  for
          new mail on the third try.

          When there is new mail,  the  message(s)  will
          appear in the index, the screen will beep, and
          a notice showing the sender and  subject  will
          be  displayed. If there has been more than one
          new message since you last issued a command to
          Pine,  the  notice  will show the count of new
          messages and the sender  of  the  most  recent
          one.

          Questions have arisen  about  the  interaction
          between  Pine  and  external mail notification
          routines (biff, csh, login).  Firstly and  un-
          fortunately, we have found no PC based program
          that will check for email on  an  IMAP  server
          when PC-Pine is not running.  If you find one,
          please tell us.

          The UNIX case if more complicated.  Pine  sets
          the  modification  and  access  time on a file
          every  time  it  performs  a  write  operation
          (status  change  or expunge).  You need to see
          which of these your email notification program
          is  looking at to know how it will behave with
          Pine.


          _N_F_S

          It is possible  to  access  _N_F_S  mounted  mail
          folders  with  Pine,  but there are some draw-
          backs to doing this.  One is that  the  Pine's
          user-contention  locks don't work because /_t_m_p
          is usually not shared, and  even  if  it  was,
          _f_l_o_c_k() doesn't work across _N_F_S.

          The  implementation  of  the   standard   UNIX
          ".lock" file locking has been modified to work
          with _N_F_S as follows.  Standard  hitching  post
          locking is used so first a uniquely named file
          is    created,    usually    something    like


                           - 58 -







                  - Pine Technical Notes -


          _x_x_x_x._h_o_s_t._t_i_m_e._p_i_d.   Then  a  link  to  it is
          created named _x_x_x_x._l_o_c_k where the folder being
          locked  is  _x_x_x_x.   This  file constitutes the
          lock.  This is a standard UNIX locking scheme.
          After  the  link returns, a _s_t_a_t(_2) is done on
          the file.  If the file has two  links,  it  is
          concluded  that  the  lock succeeded and it is
          safe to proceed.

          It is mostly safe  to  access  mail  via  _N_F_S.
          Some problems may occur when two Pine sessions
          try to access the same mail folder  from  dif-
          ferent  hosts without using IMAP.  Imagine the
          scenario: Pine-A performs a write that changes
          the folder.  Pine-B then attempts to perform a
          write on the same  folder.   Pine-B  will  get
          upset  that the file has been changed from un-
          derneath it and abort operations on the  fold-
          er.  Pine-B will continue to display mail from
          the folder that it has in its internal  cache,
          but  it  will  not  read  or write any further
          data.  The only thing that will be lost out of
          the  Pine-B  session  when this happens is the
          last few status changes.

          If other mail readers  besides  Pine  are  in-
          volved,  all bets are off.  Typically, mailers
          don't take  any  precautions  against  a  user
          opening  a  mailbox more than once and no spe-
          cial precautions  are  taken  to  prevent  _N_F_S
          problems.



          _P_r_i_n_t_e_r_s _a_n_d _P_r_i_n_t_i_n_g

          UNIX Pine can print to the standard UNIX  line
          printers  or  to  generic printers attached to
          ANSI terminals using the escape  sequences  to
          turn  the  printer on and off.  The user has a
          choice of three printers in the configuration.

          The first setting, _a_t_t_a_c_h_e_d-_t_o-_a_n_s_i, makes use
          of  escape  sequences on ANSI/VT100 terminals.
          It uses "<ESC>[5i" to begin directing all out-
          put  sent  to  the terminal to the printer and
          then "<ESC>[6i" to  return  to  normal.   Pine
          will   send  these  escape  sequences  if  the
          printer  is  set  to  _a_t_t_a_c_h_e_d-_t_o-_a_n_s_i.   This
          works  with  most ANSI/VT100 emulators on Macs
          and PCs such as kermit, NCSA telnet, VersaTerm
          Pro,  and  WinQVT.  Various terminal emulators
          implement the print feature differently.   For


                           - 59 -







                  - Pine Technical Notes -


          example,  NCSA telnet requires "capfile = PRN"
          in  the  _c_o_n_f_i_g._t_e_l  file.    Attached-to-ansi
          printing  doesn't  work at all with the telnet
          provided with PC-NFS.

          The second  selection  is  the  standard  UNIX
          print command.  The default is _l_p_r, but it can
          be changed on a system basis  to  anything  so
          desired in /_u_s_r/_l_o_c_a_l/_l_i_b/_p_i_n_e._c_o_n_f.

          The third selection  is  the  user's  personal
          choice  for a UNIX print command.  The text to
          be printed is piped  into  the  command.   _E_n_-
          _s_c_r_i_p_t   or   _l_p_r  with  options  are  popular
          choices.  The actual command is retained  even
          if  one  of the other print selections is used
          for a while.

          If you have a Postscript attached to a  PC  or
          Macintosh, then you will need to use a utility
          called  _a_n_s_i_p_r_t  to  get  printouts  on   your
          printer.  _A_n_s_i_p_r_t  source code and details can
          be found in the  ./_c_o_n_t_r_i_b  directory  of  the
          Pine distribution.

          The three printer choices are  for  UNIX  Pine
          only.   PC-Pine  can only print to the locally
          attached printer.  All printing on PC-Pine  is
          done  via  ROM  BIOS Print Pervices (Int 17h).
          After  verifying  the  existance  of  a  local
          printer  via  the  BIOS Equipment-List Service
          (Int 11h), it simply sends the  message  text,
          character  by  character, to the first printer
          found using ASCII CR and  LF  at  the  end  of
          lines and followed by an ASCII FF.  Note, some
          system adjustments using the PC's "MODE"  com-
          mand  may be required if the printer is not on
          the first parallel port.  PC-Pine cannot  gen-
          erate  Postscript,  so printing to exclusively
          Postscript printers does not work.



          _S_a_v_e _a_n_d _E_x_p_o_r_t

          Pine users get two options for moving messages
          in  Pine:  _s_a_v_e _a_n_d _e_x_p_o_r_t.  Save is used when
          the message should remain "in the Pine realm."
          Saved  messages  include  the  complete header
          (including header  lines  normally  hidden  by
          Pine),  are placed in a Pine folder collection
          and accumulate in  a  standard  folder  format
          which  Pine can read.  In contrast, the _e_x_p_o_r_t


                           - 60 -







                  - Pine Technical Notes -


          command is used to write  the  contents  of  a
          message  to  a  file  for use outside of Pine.
          Messages which have been exported  are  placed
          in  the  user's  home directory, not in a Pine
          folder  collection.    All   delivery-oriented
          headers  are  stripped from the message.  Even
          with _e_x_p_o_r_t, Pine retains a folder format-that
          is, multiple messages can accumulate in a sin-
          gle file.  On UNIX systems, the _e_x_p_o_r_t command
          pays  attention  to the standard _u_m_a_s_k for the
          setting of the file permissions.



          _S_e_n_t _M_a_i_l

          Pine's default behavior is to keep a copy each
          outgoing  message  in  a  special  "sent mail"
          folder.  This folder is also  called  the  fcc
          for  "file carbon copy".  The existance, loca-
          tion and name of the sent mail folder are  all
          configurable.   Sent  mail  archiving  can  be
          turned off by setting the configuration  vari-
          able  _d_e_f_a_u_l_t-_f_c_c="".  The sent mail folder is
          assumed to be in the  default  collection  for
          saves,  which is the first collection named in
          _f_o_l_d_e_r-_c_o_l_l_e_c_t_i_o_n_s.  The name  of  the  folder
          can  be  chosen by entering a name in _d_e_f_a_u_l_t-
          _f_c_c.  With PC-Pine, this can be a bit  compli-
          cated.  If the default collection for saves is
          local (DOS), then the _d_e_f_a_u_l_t-_f_c_c_R _n_e_e_d_s _t_o _b_e
          "_S_E_N_T_M_A_I_L",  _w_h_i_c_h  _i_s  _s_y_n_t_a_x _f_o_r _a _D_O_S _f_i_l_e.
          _H_o_w_e_v_e_r, _i_f _t_h_e _d_e_f_a_u_l_t _c_o_l_l_e_c_t_i_o_n  _f_o_r  _s_a_v_e_s
          _i_s  _r_e_m_o_t_e,  _t_h_e_n  _t_h_e _d_e_f_a_u_l_t-_f_c_c needs to be
          "sent-mail" to match the UNIX syntax.

          The danger here is that the  sent  mail  could
          grow  without  bound.   For  this  reason,  we
          thought it useful to encourage  the  users  to
          periodically  prune  their  sent  mail folder.
          The first time Pine is used each month it will
          offer  to  archive  all messages sent from the
          month before.  Pine also offers to delete  all
          the  sent  mail archive folders which are more
          than 1 month old.  If the user or  system  has
          disabled  sent  mail archiving (by setting the
          configuration variable _d_e_f_a_u_l_t-_f_c_c="")  or  if
          the  fcc  folder  is a remote/IMAP folder then
          there will be no pruning question.

          It is likely that Pine  will  be  improved  so
          that  users  can  set  the  time increment for
          pruning (weekly, monthly, yearly,  never)  but


                           - 61 -







                  - Pine Technical Notes -


          that has not been implemented yet.




          _S_p_e_l_l _C_h_e_c_k_e_r

          Spell checking  is  available  for  UNIX  Pine
          only.   We  could  not  find an appropriate PC
          based spell  checker  to  hook  into  PC-Pine.
          Even  UNIX  Pine depends on the system for its
          spell checking and dictionary.  Pico, the text
          editor, uses the same spell checking scheme as
          Pine.

          Lines beginning with ">" (usually messages in-
          cluded  in replies) are not checked.  The mes-
          sage text to be checked is on the standard in-
          put  and  the  incorrect words are expected on
          the standard output.

          The default spell checker is UNIX _s_p_e_l_l.   You
          can replace this at compile time for the whole
          system.  Pine also  respects  the  environment
          variable  _S_P_E_L_L.   If it is set, Pine will use
          that as the spelling  checker.   The  spelling
          checker  reads  its words from a standard dic-
          tionary on the system.  Below  is  a  descrip-
          tion,  contributed by Bob Hurt, of how you can
          create your own personal dictionary with addi-
          tional "correct" words.


          Step 1:
               Make a file with all the words  you  want
               to include in your new dictionary.  I did
               mine with one word per line in alphabeti-
               cal  order.  Caps don't matter at all, as
               far as I know.

          Step 2:
               At the UNIX prompt, type "cat [word file]
               |  spellin  /usr/dict/hlista  > [new dict
               name]" where [word file] is the file  you
               just  created  and [new dict name] is the
               name of the new dictionary that Pine will
               look   at   instead   of   the   standard
               /_u_s_r/_d_i_c_t/_h_l_i_s_t_a.  I named my  word  file
               ._b_o_b_w_o_r_d_s  and my dictionary ._b_o_b_s_p_e_l_l so
               I don't have to see them when I do  a  _l_s
               command (_l_s doesn't list "dot" files).  I
               also put the above command into my ._a_l_i_a_s
               file as the command _m_a_k_e_d_i_c_t so I can add


                           - 62 -







                  - Pine Technical Notes -


               a word to my word  file  and  easily  re-
               create  my  dictionary.   NOTE:   the new
               dictionary  is  in  something  called   a
               "hashed"  format,  and can't be read nor-
               mally.

          Step 3:
               Check your new dictionary.  At  the  UNIX
               prompt,  type "cat [word file] | spellout
               [new dict name]" If  you  did  everything
               correctly, it should just give you anoth-
               er prompt.  If it lists any of the  words
               in  your file, something is wrong.  I can
               try to help if all else fails.

          Step 4:
               Now you have to tell  UNIX  to  use  your
               dictionary instead of the standard one by
               setting the environment variable _S_P_E_L_L to
               access  your  dictionary.   Go  into your
               ._l_o_g_i_n or ._c_s_h_r_c file in your home direc-
               tory  (it  doesn't seem to make a differ-
               ence which one you use) and add the line

                                   setenv SPELL "spell -d [new dict name]"



               I also created an alias for _S_P_E_L_L  in  my
               ._a_l_i_a_s  file  so I can use the UNIX _s_p_e_l_l
               command to spell-check a file outside  of
               Pine.   (The  ._a_l_i_a_s line is: alias spell
               'spell -d [new dict name]')

          Step 5:
               Now you need to logoff and log back on to
               let  UNIX look at your ._l_o_g_i_n (or ._c_s_h_r_c)
               file.





          _T_e_r_m_i_n_a_l _E_m_u_l_a_t_i_o_n _a_n_d _K_e_y _M_a_p_p_i_n_g

          Pine has been designed to require as little as
          possible  from  the terminal.  At the minimum,
          Pine requires cursor positioning, clear to end
          of  line,  and  inverse video.  Unfortunately,
          there are terminals that are missing  some  of
          these  such  as a vt52.  Pine makes no assump-
          tions as to  whether  the  terminal  wraps  or
          doesn't wrap.  If the terminal has other capa-


                           - 63 -







                  - Pine Technical Notes -


          bilities it will use  them.   Pine  won't  run
          well  on  older terminals that require a space
          on the screen to change video attributes, such
          as the Televideo 925.  One can get around this
          on some terminals by using  "protected  field"
          mode.   The  terminal  can  be made to go into
          protected mode for reverse video, and then re-
          verse video is assigned to protected mode.

          Pine handles screens  of  most  any  size  and
          resizing  on the fly.  It catches SIGWINCH and
          does the appropriate thing.  A screen one line
          high  will display only the new mail notifica-
          tion.  Screens that are less than ten  columns
          wide  don't  format  very nicely or work well,
          but will function fine again once  resized  to
          something  large.   Pine sets an internal max-
          imum screen size (currently 170x200)  and  de-
          cides  to  use either _t_e_r_m_c_a_p or _t_e_r_m_i_n_f_o when
          it is compiled.

          On the input side of things, Pine uses all the
          standard  keys,  most  of the control keys and
          (in  function-key  mode)  the  function  keys.
          Pine avoids certain control keys, specifically
          ^S, ^Q, ^H, and ^\  because  they  have  other
          meanings  outside  of  Pine (they control data
          flow, etc.) ^_H is  treated  the  same  as  the
          _d_e_l_e_t_e  key,  so  the _b_a_c_k_s_p_a_c_e or _d_e_l_e_t_e keys
          always works regardless of any  configuration.
          In  an  upcoming version, there will be an op-
          tion to have the _d_e_l_e_t_e  key  behave  like  ^D
          rather than ^H.

          When a function key is pressed and Pine is  in
          regular  (non-function  key)  mode, Pine traps
          escape sequences for a number of common  func-
          tion  keys so users don't get an error message
          or have an  unexpected  command  executed  for
          each  character  in  the function key's escape
          sequence.  Pine expects the  following  escape
          sequences from terminals defined as VT100:


                      ANSI/VT100
              F1:     <ESC>OP
              F2:     <ESC>OQ
              F3:     <ESC>OR
              F4:     <ESC>OS
              F5:     <ESC>Op
              F6:     <ESC>Oq
              F7:     <ESC>Or
              F8:     <ESC>Os


                           - 64 -







                  - Pine Technical Notes -


              F9:     <ESC>Ot
              F10:    <ESC>Ou
              F11:    <ESC>Ov



          Arrow keys are a special case.  Pine  has  the
          escape  sequences  for a number of conventions
          for arrow keys hard coded  and  does  not  use
          _t_e_r_m_c_a_p  to  discover  them.   This is because
          _t_e_r_m_c_a_p is sometimes  incorrect,  and  because
          many  users  have PC's running terminal emula-
          tors that don't conform exactly to  what  they
          claim  to emulate. Some arrow keys on old ter-
          minals send single control characters like  ^_K
          (one  even  sends  ^\).  These arrow keys will
          not work with Pine.  The most  popular  escape
          sequences for arrow keys are:


              Up:     <ESC>[A <ESC>?x <ESC>A  <ESC>OA
              Down:   <ESC>[B <ESC>?r <ESC>B  <ESC>OB
              Right:  <ESC>[C <ESC>?v <ESC>C  <ESC>OC
              Left:   <ESC>[D <ESC>?t <ESC>D  <ESC>OD



          It is possible to configure an NCD  X-terminal
          so  that  some  of  the  special keys operate.
          Brad Greer contributes these instructions:


          1.   In your ._X_d_e_f_a_u_l_t_s file, include the fol-
               lowing  "translations",  using  lower hex
               values:


                   Pine*VT100.Translations: #override \n\
                   <Key>Delete:    string(0x04)    \n\
                   <Key>End:       string(0x05)    \n\
                   <Key>Escape:    string(0x03)    \n\
                   <Key>Home:      string(0x01)    \n\
                   <Key>Next:      string(0x16)    \n\
                   <Key>Prior:     string(0x19)    \n\
                   <Key>KP_Enter:  string(0x18)    \n\




          2.   Start up Pine from an _x_t_e_r_m, and  specify
               a  "resource  name".   This resource name
               will allow the user to specify  resources
               for  Pine  (that  deviate  from  the  de-


                           - 65 -







                  - Pine Technical Notes -


               faults).  For example, _x_t_e_r_m  -_n_a_m_e  _P_i_n_e
               -_e   _p_i_n_e   &  (the  resource  name  _P_i_n_e
               corresponds to the translations just  ad-
               ded in the ._X_d_e_f_a_u_l_t_s file).
















































9

9                           - 66 -







                  - Pine Technical Notes -


               _S_e_c_t_i_o_n _7-_N_o_t_e_s _f_o_r _P_o_r_t_i_n_g _a_n_d _M_o_d_i_f_i_c_a_t_i_o_n



          _P_o_r_t_i_n_g _P_i_n_e _t_o _O_t_h_e_r _P_l_a_t_f_o_r_m_s

          Substantial  effort  has  gone   into   making
          Pine/Pico   portable.   There  are  still,  of
          course,  a  number  of  machine  dependencies.
          Some of the ports are well-tested and some are
          untested.  In  particular,  the  most  heavily
          used  ports are the Ultrix, NeXT, DOS, and PTX
          ports.

          Each platform is given  a  three  letter  name
          (see  the file _d_o_c/_p_i_n_e-_p_o_r_t_s).  Make up a new
          one for your new  port.   We've  attempted  to
          bring all potential platform dependencies into
          three   files:   _o_s-_x_x_x._h,    _o_s-_x_x_x._c,    and
          _m_a_k_e_f_i_l_e._x_x_x  where  _x_x_x  is  the three letter
          name of the port.   Thus  any  new  port  will
          hopefully just result in new versions of these
          files and some notes for the _p_i_n_e-_p_o_r_t_s  file.
          This  is actually nine new files because there
          is a set of these files in the c-client, Pico,
          and Pine source directories.  (As you can tell
          by reading this technical note, Pine originat-
          ed  on  Unix systems. There are still probably
          many Unix dependencies built in.  There is now
          a  _D_O_S  port, which is the only non-Unix port.
          The source code is full of instances of "ifdef
          DOS".   Most  of these are due to memory limit
          problems on _D_O_S as opposed  to  actual  system
          dependencies.)  A _V_M_S (or other) port would no
          doubt reveal  many  remaining  Unix  dependen-
          cies.)

          The  makefiles  are   kept   as   simple   and
          straight-forward  as  possible,  because  many
          previous attempts  at  automatically  figuring
          out what to do seem to have become complex and
          ineffective in what they set out to do:  which
          is  to  make compiling and installing the pro-
          gram  easy.   Each  port  is  for  a  specific
          hardware/software  platform, also because past
          attempts to generalize on versions of Unix  or
          some  CPU  architecture  don't  seem  to  have
          gained  much.   Thus,  there  is  a   separate
          makefile  for each platform that calls the ap-
          propriate compiler and  linker  with  the  ap-
          propriate  flags.  Most of these makefiles are
          pretty similar.  The makefile  also  specifies
          which  of  the  _o_s-_x_x_x._c and _o_s-_x_x_x._h files to


                           - 67 -







                  - Pine Technical Notes -


          use.  It is the root from which  all  platform
          dependencies  are selected.  In most cases the
          makefile also defines a symbol named after the
          platform on which there can be dependencies in
          the source code, though we've tried to  minim-
          ize  relying  on this where reasonable.  Pine,
          Pico, and the C-client don't quite  do  every-
          thing  the  same  (there  are  at  least three
          separate  authors  involved).   Basically,  to
          build  the  source  in one of the directories,
          run _m_a_k_e -_f  _m_a_k_e_f_i_l_e._x_x_x  where  _x_x_x  is  the
          three-letter name of the platform.  That's all
          the _b_u_i_l_d script does.  When  starting  a  new
          port in the _p_i_n_e directory, there is a generic
          makefile called _m_a_k_e_f_i_l_e._g_e_n which is  a  good
          starting point.

          The file _o_s-_x_x_x._h is used for general platform
          dependent  #_i_n_c_l_u_d_e's  and  #_d_e_f_i_n_e_s.   In the
          _p_i_n_e directory these ._h files are  located  in
          the _o_s_d_e_p subdirectory.  All the include files
          that have been found to vary from one platform
          to  another  are  also  included here.  In the
          case of Pico, there is only one _o_s-_x_x_x._h  file
          called _o_s-_u_n_x._h for most of the supported Unix
          ports and inside it are #_i_f_d_e_f_s based  on  the
          platform   specific   symbol  defined  in  the
          makefile.  On the other hand, Pine now  has  a
          separate  _o_s-_x_x_x._h  file  for  each  platform.
          There are a number of Pine configuration  set-
          tings  that are defined here, as well, such as
          the place it looks for certain files, defaults
          for  the printer and folder names, the maximum
          screen size, and so on.  For the Pine  portion
          of  the  port, start by looking at the generic
          _o_s-_g_e_n._h file and comparing it to some of  the
          specific _o_s-_x_x_x._h files in _o_s_d_e_p.

          The _o_s-_x_x_x._c file contains functions that  are
          potentially  platform  dependent.   Again, the
          idea is to gather all the dependencies in  one
          place.  Pico uses the same strategy here as it
          uses with _o_s-_u_n_x._h.  That is, there is a  sin-
          gle  _o_s-_u_n_x._c file for most of the Unix ports.
          Pine uses a complicated looking method to pro-
          duce  the _o_s-_x_x_x._c file from a set of included
          files.  Each included file usually contains  a
          single function and we've found that there are
          usually only a  couple  different  implementa-
          tions of each function in the ports we've done
          so far.  Hopefully, coming up with an _o_s-_x_x_x._c
          for a new port will usually be a matter of in-
          cluding the right set of these already written


                           - 68 -







                  - Pine Technical Notes -


          functions.   This is done by writing a new _o_s-
          _x_x_x._i_c file in the _o_s_d_e_p subdirectory.   Start
          with  the  generic  _o_s-_g_e_n._i_c, as you did with
          the _o_s-_g_e_n._h file above.

          We strongly encourage that no changes be  made
          to  the  general  source when porting and that
          all changes be  contained  in  the  three/nine
          system  dependent  files if possible.  The ob-
          ject is to maintain source code integrity  and
          assimilate  ports  to  new  platforms rapidly.
          The more conventional way to do this is with a
          large collection of #_i_f_d_e_f_s.  The problem with
          this is that adding a port for a new  platform
          implies  changing  the source code for all the
          other platforms  and  thereby  risks  breaking
          them.   (We readily admit that there are still
          too many _i_f_d_e_f_s in the code,  but  we  haven't
          had time to devote to fully cleaning that up.)

          If you do port Pine to a new platform we  hope
          that  you will send us the changes required so
          that we may attempt to include it in  a  later
          release.  Thanks!



          _T_e_s_t _C_h_e_c_k_l_i_s_t

          The following is a checklist of some things to
          check when testing a new port:


          ___  Sending mail, check  that  full  name  is
               correct
          ___  Sending mail with SMTP server
          ___  Replying to and forwarding a message
          ___  Postponing message under composition
          ___  Make sure local user names are expanded
          ___  Test spelling checker
          ___  Catching of SIGHUP while message is being
               composed
          ___  Setting of variables in ._p_i_n_e_r_c
          ___  New  mail  notification.   Should  happen
               with Pine idle to check timeouts
          ___  Reading mail
          ___  Deleting and undeleting
          ___  Expunge to empty folder
          ___  Make sure that ~ expansion works
          ___  Save message to folder, check error  con-
               ditions such as permission denied
          ___  Export message
9

9                           - 69 -







                  - Pine Technical Notes -


          ___  Checkpointing (make 20 status changes, or
               19 and wait 30 sec)
          ___  Open IMAP and RIMAP folders
          ___  Default-fcc on remote IMAP server
          ___  Test opening bogus folders: invalid  for-
               mat, no permission
          ___  Open  a  USENET  news  group,   list   in
               folder-lister, read news
          ___  Command line arguments
          ___  Change password
          ___  Lock keyboard
          ___  Address book operations
          ___  Take command
          ___  Send mail with empty address book
          ___  Make sure  that  SIGQUIT,  ^ confirmation
               works (check core dump too)
          ___  Test panic (Give '#' command on main menu
               with debug level > 8)
          ___  Make sure SIGSTP, ^Z works
          ___  Pinef
          ___  Sent-mail pruning
          ___  Printing using all three  printer  confi-
               gurations
          ___  View help text & news
          ___  Folder list operations  (rename,  create,
               delete...)
          ___  Screen redrawing (^L)
          ___  Window resizing
          ___  Error  messages  for  incorrect  terminal
               types (try "foo" and "vt52")
          ___  Reading of /_u_s_r/_l_o_c_a_l/_l_i_b/_p_i_n_e._c_o_n_f





















9

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                  - Pine Technical Notes -


                      - Pine Technical Notes -

                     Version 3.85, September 1993

               _S_e_c_t_i_o_n _1 - _I_n_t_r_o_d_u_c_t_i_o_n ...........    3
               Design Goals .......................    3
               Pine Components ....................    5
               _S_e_c_t_i_o_n _2 - _B_a_c_k_g_r_o_u_n_d _D_e_t_a_i_l_s .....    6
               Domain Names .......................    6
               RFC-822 Compliance .................    7
               SMTP and Sendmail ..................    8
               Interactive  Mail   Access   Protocol
                    (IMAP) ........................    9
               Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions
                    (MIME) ........................   10
               Folder Collections .................   12
               _S_e_c_t_i_o_n _3 - _B_u_i_l_d_i_n_g _a_n_d _I_n_s_t_a_l_l_a_t_i_o_n
                    ...............................   13
               UNIX Pine Compile-time Options .....   13
               Pico Compile-time Options ..........   14
               IMAPd Compile-time Options .........   14
               Buiding the Pine Programs ..........   15
               Installing  Pine  and  Pico  on  UNIX
                    Platforms .....................   16
               Installing PC-Pine .................   16
               Installing IMAPd ...................   18
               Support Files: UNIX Pine ...........   19
               Support Files: PC-Pine .............   20
               _S_e_c_t_i_o_n _4 - _C_o_m_m_a_n_d _L_i_n_e _A_r_g_u_m_e_n_t_s .   22
               _S_e_c_t_i_o_n _5 - _C_o_n_f_i_g_u_r_a_t_i_o_n _a_n_d _P_r_e_f_e_r-
                    _e_n_c_e_s .........................   25
               Pine Configuration .................   25
               General Configuration Variables ....   26
               Special Configuration Variables ....   30
               Retired Variables ..................   32
               Pine in Function Key Mode ..........   32
               Domain Settings ....................   33
               Syntax for Collections .............   34
               Syntax for Remote Folders ..........   37
               Sorting a Folder ...................   38
               Alternate Editor ...................   38
               Signatures and Signature Placement .   39
               Feature List Variable ..............   40
               Additional Notes on PC-Pine ........   40
               _S_e_c_t_i_o_n _6-_B_e_h_i_n_d _t_h_e _S_c_e_n_e_s ........   43
               Address Books ......................   43
               Checkpointing ......................   44
               Debug Files ........................   45
               Filters ............................   45
               Folder Formats .....................   46
               Folder Locking .....................   48
               INBOX and Special Folders ..........   50
               Internal Help Files ................   51


                           - 71 -







                  - Pine Technical Notes -


               International Character Sets .......   51
               Interrupted and Postponed Messages .   54
               Message Status .....................   55
               MIME-Reading a Message .............   55
               MIME-Sending a Message .............   56
               New Mail Notification ..............   58
               NFS ................................   58
               Printers and Printing ..............   59
               Save and Export ....................   60
               Sent Mail ..........................   61
               Spell Checker ......................   62
               Terminal Emulation and Key Mapping .   63
               _S_e_c_t_i_o_n  _7-_N_o_t_e_s  _f_o_r   _P_o_r_t_i_n_g   _a_n_d
                    _M_o_d_i_f_i_c_a_t_i_o_n ..................   67
               Porting Pine to Other Platforms ....   67
               Test Checklist .....................   69




































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9                           - 72 -



