This tutorial is meant only as a brief introduction to Pine (Program for Internet News and Email). For extensive documentation, please visit the University of Washington's Pine Information Center at the following URL:
http://www.washington.edu/pine/
The above URL contains Tutorials, FAQs, and other general information about Pine.
Starting and Quitting Pine
To start Pine, open an SSH or Telnet session to your account and enter the pine command at the shell prompt, as shown below:
> pine
NOTE: The first time you connect to Pine, you will likely be greeted with a brief message asking you to send an anonymous email for statistics gathering purposes. Either press [ENTER] to send the message, or press E to exit the greeting without sending a message. The next page you see will be the Main Menu.
The Main Menu displays on the screen:
To quit Pine, choose q from the Main Menu. The following prompt appears:
Type y to confirm. Pine will then close and return you to your shell prompt:
Pine finished -- Closed empty folder "INBOX"
>
Selecting Menu Options
To select menu options in Pine, either type the letter that corresponds to that option or move the cursor to the menu item and press the [ENTER] key on your keyboard. You can also navigate the menus using the < and > keys.
Getting Help in Pine
You can get help with Pine at any time by typing the ? key from within the Pine program. The Help screen appears, as shown below:
Reading Messages
To read your email messages, go to the Inbox by typing I at the Main Menu. A list of messages (if any) appears, as shown below:
New (unread) messages are marked with an "N". Messages with an "A" are messages which have been answered. Messages marked with a "D" will be deleted when you exit Pine.
To read a particular message, press V or use the arrow keys to highlight the message and press the [ENTER] key.
Composing Messages
To create a new email message, choose C from the Main Menu. Or, if you are currently reading a message, you can reply to it by selecting R.
The Compose Message form contains the standard fields for email messages. As with all email programs, you must enter a valid destination email address for the message to be sent successfully. Multiple addresses can be listed in the "To:" and "Cc:" fields by separating the addresses with commas.
The following graphic displays a composed message that is ready to send:
You enter your message in the bottom half of the screen using the Pico editor. Once the message is entered, press ^X to send the message, or ^C to cancel it.