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- The Pine Message System
-
- BACKGROUND
-
- Pine(tm) --a Program for Internet News & Email-- is a tool for reading,
- sending, and managing electronic messages. It was designed specifically
- with novice computer users in mind, but can be tailored to accommodate the
- needs of "power users" as well. Pine uses Internet message protocols
- (e.g. RFC-822, SMTP, MIME, IMAP, NNTP) and runs on Unix and PCs.
-
- The guiding principles for Pine's user-interface were: careful limitation
- of features, one-character mnemonic commands, always-present command
- menus, immediate user feedback, and high tolerance for user mistakes. It
- is intended that Pine can be learned by exploration rather than reading
- manuals. Feedback from the University of Washington community and many
- thousands of Internet sites around the world has been encouraging.
-
- Pine's message composition editor (Pico) and its file browser (Pilot) are
- also available as separate stand-alone programs. Pico is a very simple
- and easy-to-use text editor offering paragraph justification, cut/paste,
- and a spelling checker.
-
- FEATURES
-
- - Online help specific to each screen and context.
-
- - Message index showing a message summary which includes the status,
- sender, size, date and subject of messages.
-
- - Commands to view and process messages: Forward, Reply, Save,
- Export, Print, Delete, capture address, and search.
-
- - Message composer with easy-to-use editor and spelling checker.
- The message composer also assists entering and formatting
- addresses and provides direct access to the address book.
-
- - Address book for saving long complex addresses and personal
- distribution lists under a nickname.
-
- - Message attachments via the Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions
- (MIME) specification. MIME allows sending/receiving non-text
- objects, such as binary files, spreadsheets, graphics, and sound.
-
- - Folder management commands for creating, deleting, listing, or
- renaming message folders. Folders may be local or on remote hosts.
-
- - Access to remote message folders and archives via the Internet
- Message Access Protocol version 4.1 (IMAP) as defined in RFC-2060.
-
- - Internet news support via either NNTP or IMAP.
-
- - Aggregate operations, e.g. saving a selected set of messages at once.
-
- AVAILABILITY
-
- Pine, Pico, and UW's IMAP server are copyrighted, but freely available.
- The latest version, including source code, can be found on the Internet
- host "ftp.cac.washington.edu" in the file "pine/pine.tar.Z" (accessible
- via anonymous FTP). To try Pine out from the Internet, you may telnet to
- "demo.cac.washington.edu" and login as "pinedemo".
-
- For further information, visit the Pine Information Center at
- http://www.washington.edu/pine/
-
- There is also a Pine-specific Internet news group (comp.mail.pine).
-
- Pine is brought to you by the Office of Computing & Communications at the
- University of Washington. Pine and Pico are registered trademarks of UW.
-
- 98.05.11
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