[ILUG-BOM] Pine - II

[Philip S Tellis]

Making effective use of Pine - II
=================================

The last time we learnt how to use different mail headers in pine, and I
hope you've built up a sizeable address book.  Today we'll learn how to
use this address book effectively.  We'll also learn how to create our own
mail headers to maybe be a little naughty.

To start with, let's compose a mail to someone in our address book.  Enter
your address book, and scroll down to the person you want to compose a
mail to.  If your list is too long, you could always use the Where Is
command (W or Ctrl+W) to find it.  Press C to compose a mail to this
person, and voila, you're in compose mode with the person's email address
in the To: field.

At this point, it is probably important to understand when one uses
Ctrl+access key and when just a plain access key will do.  A little
thought provides the answer.  The only places where Ctrl is required, are
where the access key on its own would be valid input.  For example, in the
mail header, pressing R would just give us the letter R, which is why we
needed to use Ctrl+R for the Rich Header.  In the main menu, the only keys
we press must be access keys, so the Ctrl isn't required.  In general,
Ctrl will work everywhere, while plain access keys only work where they
wouldn't be valid data input.

Ctrl+W has some special searches too.  If you search for Ctrl+Y, you will
end up at the first line of the current section.  Similarly, Ctrl+V takes
you to the last line.  Ctrl+W a second time takes you to the start of the
paragraph, while Ctrl+O takes you to the end of the paragraph.  Ctrl+T
takes you to any line that you specify.

We now know one way of composing a mail to a person.  What happens if we
are already in compose mode, and don't remember the address of the
recipient?  We could always use his nickname, but what if we don't
remember that either?  What if we want to send mail to multiple
recipients?

Well, the only way to figure it out is to actually try it.  Get into
compose mode, and move to the To: field.  Have a look at the menu down
below.  You'll notice Ctrl+T takes you to the Address Book.  This is
similar to the attachment case where it took you to the file list.

Press Ctrl+T, and you get to the address book where you can select the
recipient's address.  But we still aren't able to mail multiple
recipients.  It's too much of a pain to have to type Ctrl+T and scroll
through the list for every recipient.  There must be an easier way, and in
fact, there is.  Well, press L in the address book, and voila, checkboxes
beside every entry.  Use X to select or de-select any entry.  When you're
done, use S to make the selection, or use E to exit the list without
making any selections.  A special select all can be done using A.  This is
a toggle key, so it also undoes what it just did.

Keep these commands in mind, because they are the same for all lists,
including newsgroups.

Now, let's look at creating distribution lists in our address book.

Get into your address book, and add a new entry.  Enter the nickname, and
full name fields.  Since we're creating a distribution list, we'll use the
convention of appending -list to the nick.  We'll make a list of close
friends and call it friends-list.  In the name field, enter `My Friends'.

Now, come down to the Addresses field, and type in the nicknames of all
your close friends as you have them in your address book.  Save the entry.

You might have noticed that the Fcc field showed up here as well.  This is
where you can specify a default fcc for a specific person or list.  All
mails sent to this person will be fcc'ed in that folder.  If left blank,
the default is used.  The comment entry is just an internal comment meant
for your use.  Pine does nothing except store this comment.

Now, get back to the compose screen, and enter friends-list in the To:
field.  Notice what happens when you move to the next field.  Delete all
the entries in the To: field.

To delete a line in pine, use Ctrl+K anywhere.  The current line is
deleted.  Use Ctrl+U to `Uncut' or paste the cut line to the current
cursor position.  Many versions of pine allow you to cut and uncut
multiple consecutive lines simultaneously.  Pine does not provide a copy
to clipboard function, but a single cut may be uncut multiple times to
simulate this.

Now, move down to the Lcc: field and type friends-list.  See what shows up
in the Lcc and To fields.  Your To field would have to have been empty
first for this to have shown up correctly.

Type your mail as you like.  To postpone your mail and continue with it
later, use Ctrl+O.  When you choose compose the next time, you will be
prompted to continue your postponed message.  Saying no here will not
cancel that message.

To cancel any message, you must be in compose mode for that message, and
type Ctrl+C.  Be careful though, because Ctrl+C is right next to Ctrl+X,
which is used to send the mail.  A careless person could cancel a long
mail by accident.  Pine always prompts you for confirmation before sending
or cancelling a mail, so you have time to check what you are about to do.

Finally, let's look at creating our own mail headers.  Go to the main
screen, and enter set up.  We want to set up certain pine configuration
features, so select Config from the list.  You'll see a lot of
configurable options, and you may want to experiment with a few of them.
For now though, we want to look for an option called customized-hdrs.
Search for this using the search access key.  You do remember what that
was don't you?

Press enter on this option to begin editing it.  You can type in your own
headers here.  Be careful though, because there are many headers that have
special meaning to mail servers and clients.  We'll use what are known as
eXtension headers.  They start with an X-, and have no special meaning.
Anyone can make up their own and use it anywhere.

Type X-Joke: and press enter.  You can enter a list of headers using
commas to separate them.  Now, when you are in compose mode, and you use
Ctrl+R, you'll also find X-Joke: showing up there.  You can type in the
joke for the day and send the mail.  Smart recipients will figure out how
to read this and commend you on your brilliance (you wish).

Wouldn't it be great though, if we could specify the default value of our
X-headers?  Well, turns out we can.  Go back to the customized-hdrs, press
enter, and after the X-Joke: enter `X-Men: there's more of them'.  Without
the quotes of course.  Then, this header will go out on all mails you
send.  Even if you don't use Ctrl+R.

That's it for today.  Before next time, you should probably read through
the help on whatever you can.  Experiment with options.  Ctrl+G or ? gets
you help in most places.  Check help on options we've already tried.

Next time we'll look at setting configuration options for best
performance.


-- 
I filled out an application that said, "In Case Of Emergency
Notify".  I wrote "Doctor"...  What's my mother going to do?
						-- Stephen Wright


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