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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 a
- growing number of Internet sites has been encouraging.
-
- Pine's message composition editor, Pico, is also available as a separate
- stand-alone program. 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 (IMAP) as defined in RFC-1176 and revisions.
-
- - 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 versions, 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". There is also a
- Pine-specific Internet news group (comp.mail.pine).
-
- Unix Pine runs on a wide variety of systems including Ultrix, AIX, SunOS,
- SVR4, and Linux. PC-Pine for DOS is available for Packet Driver, Novell
- LWP, FTP PC/TCP, and Sun PC/NFS. PC-Pine for Windows/WinSock is a version
- with the same user interface, but compatible with the Winsock interface.
-
- For further information, send e-mail to pine@cac.washington.edu. Pine was
- originally based on Elm, but there is little if any Elm code left. Pine
- is the work of Mike Seibel, Mark Crispin, Steve Hubert, Sheryl Erez, David
- Miller and Laurence Lundblade* at the University of Washington Office of
- Computing and Communications. Pine and Pico are trademarks of the
- University of Washington. (* Laurence is now at Virginia Tech.)
-
- 94.8.24
-