Configuration and Preferences

Pine Configuration

There is very little in Pine which requires compile-time configuration. In most cases, the compiled-in preferences will suit users and administrators just fine. When running Pine on a UNIX system, the default built-in configuration can be changed by setting variables in the system configuration files, /usr/local/lib/pine.conf or /usr/local/lib/pine.conf.fixed. Both Pine and PC-Pine also use personal (user-based) configuration files. On UNIX machines, the personal configuration file is the file ~/.pinerc. For PC-Pine systems, the personal configuration file is in $PINERC or $HOME\PINE\PINERC or <PINE.EXE dir>\PINERC.

The syntax of a non-list 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. There is one variable, use-only-domain-name, for which the only appropriate values are yes and no. That's because it is a variable from the early days of Pine before features existed.

There is also a second type of variable, 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 contain comments which are lines beginning with a #.

For UNIX Pine, there are five ways in which a variable can be set. In decreasing order of precedence they are:

  1. the system-wide fixed configuration file
  2. a command line argument
  3. the personal configuration file (which is usually set from the Config screen)
  4. the system-wide configuration file
  5. default in the source code.

So, system-wide fixed settings always take precedence over command line flags, which 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 list, except that it does not use a system-wide fixed configuration file.

You may get a sample/fresh copy of the system configuration file by running Pine -conf. The result will be printed on the standard output with short comments describing each variable. (The online help in the Setup screens provides longer comments.) If you need to fix some of the configuration variables, you would use the same template for the fixed configuration file as for the regular system-wide configuration file. (If it isn't clear, the purpose of the fixed configuration file is to allow system administrators to restrict the configurability of Pine. It is by no means a bullet-proof method.) 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. Users will not normally look at their personal configuration file, but will use the Setup screens from within Pine to set the values in this file. If a user does add additional comments to the personal configuration file they will be retained.

References to environment variables may be included in the Pine configuration files. The format is $variable or ${variable}. The character ~ will be expanded to the $HOME environment variable.

When environment variables are used for Pine settings which take lists, you must have an environment variable set for each member of the list. That is, Pine won't properly recognize an environment variable which is set equal to a comma-delimited list. It is OK to reference unset environment variables in the Pine configuration file, which will expand to nothing.


General Configuration Variables

The following is a list of all Pine configuration variables, in alphabetical order. Note that not all variables apply to all versions of Pine and that some variables are only applicable in a system configuration file and some are only applicable in a personal configuration file.

addrbook-sort-rule
This variable sets up the default address book sorting. Currently, Pine will accept the values dont-sort, fullname-with-lists-last, fullname, nickname-with-lists-last, and nickname. The default is to sort by fullname with lists last.

address-book
A list of personal address books. Each entry in the list is an optional nickname followed by a pathname or file name relative to the home directory. This list will be added to the global-address-book list to arrive at the complete set of address books.

addressbook-formats
This option specifies the format that address books are displayed in. By default, address books are displayed with the nicknames in the first column, the fullnames in the second column, and addresses in the third column. The system figures out reasonable defaults for the widths of the columns. An address book may be given a different format by listing special tokens in the order you want them to display. The possible tokens are NICKNAME, FULLNAME, ADDRESS, FCC, and COMMENT. More details are included in the online help for this variable.

alt-addresses
This option provides a place for you to list alternate email addresses you may have. If set, the option affects the behavior of the Reply command and the + symbol in the "Folder Index", which denotes that a message has been addressed specifically to you.

With respect to Reply, the Reply to All option will exclude addresses listed here.

bugs-additional-data
System-wide configuration files only. Program/Script used by Report Bug command. Output from the program/script is captured and attached to the bug report.

bugs-fullname, bugs-address, local-fullname, local-address, suggest-fullname, and suggest-address
System-wide configuration files only. These are used by the bug report commands which can be accessed from some of the Help screens.

character-set
This sets the character set used by the terminal. 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.

composer-wrap-column
This option specifies an aspect of Pine's Composer. This gives the maximum width that auto-wrapped lines will have. It's also the maximum width of lines justified using the ^J Justify command. The normal default is 74. The largest allowed setting is normally 80 in order to prevent very long lines from being sent in outgoing mail. When the mail is actually sent, trailing spaces will be stripped off of each line.

customized-hdrs
Add these custom headers when composing. Also possible to add default values to these custom headers or to any of the standard headers. This is a list variable. Each entry in the list is a header name (the actual header name that will appear in the message) followed by an optional colon and value. For example, if a Reply-to header was needed because it was different from the From address, that could be accomplished with:
customized-hdrs=Reply-to: fred_flintstone@bedrock.net
Leaving the optional value out allows the user to fill it in when composing a message. If it isn't filled in, it won't be included in the message.

default-composer-hdrs
Show only these headers (by default) when composing a message. This list may include headers defined in the customized-hdrs list.

default-fcc
The name of the folder to which all outgoing mail goes is set here. The compiled-in default is sent-mail (UNIX) or sentmail (PC). It can be set to "" (two double quotes with nothing between them) to turn off saving copies of outgoing mail. If default-fcc is a relative file name, then it is relative to your default collection for saves (see folder-collections).

default-saved-msg-folder
This option determines the default folder name for Saves... If this is not a path name, it will be in the default collection for saves. Any valid folder specification, local or IMAP, is allowed. This default folder only applies when the saved-msg-name-rule doesn't override it. Unix Pine default is normally saved-messages in the default folder collection. PC-Pine default is SAVEMAIL (normally stored as SAVEMAIL.MTX).

disable-these-drivers
This variable is a list of mail drivers which will be disabled. The candidates for disabling are listed below. There may be more in the future if you compile Pine with a newer version of the c-client library.

The mbox driver enables the following behavior: if there is a file called mbox in your home directory, and if that file is either empty or in Unix mailbox format, then every time you open INBOX the mbox driver will automatically transfer mail from the system mail spool directory into the mbox file and delete it from the spool directory. If you disable the mbox driver, this will not happen.

It is not recommended to disable the driver which supports the system default mailbox format. On most non-SCO systems, that driver is the unix driver. On most SCO systems, it is the mmdf driver. The system default driver may be configured to something else on your system; check with your system manager for additional information.

It is most likely not very useful for you to disable any of the drivers other than possibly mbox. You could disable some of the others if you know for certain that you don't need them but the performance gain in doing so is very modest.

display-filters
This option defines a list of text-filtering commands (programs or scripts) that may be used to filter text portions of received messages prior to their use (e.g., presentation in the "Message Text" display screen). For security reasons, the full path name of the filter command must be specified. See the online help text for further details.

download-command
This option affects the behavior of the Export command. It specifies a Unix program name, and any necessary command line arguments, that Pine can use to transfer the exported message to your personal computer's disk.

download-command-prefix
This option is used in conjunction with the download-command option. It defines text to be written to the terminal emulator (via standard output) immediately prior to starting the download command. This is useful for integrated serial line file transfer agents that permit command passing (e.g., Kermit's APC method).

editor
UNIX Pine only. Sets the name of the alternate editor for composing mail (message text only, not headers). It will be invoked with the "^_" command or it will be invoked automatically if the enable-alternate-editor-implicitly feature is set.

empty-header-message
When sending, if all of the To, Cc, and Newsgroups fields are empty, Pine will put a special address in the To line. The default value is "Undisclosed recipients: ;". The reason for this is to avoid embarrassment caused by some Internet mail transfer software that interprets a "missing" To: header as an error and replaces it with an Apparently-to: header that may contain the addresses you entered on the Bcc: line, defeating the purpose of the Bcc. You may change the part of this message that comes before the ": ;" by setting the empty-header-message variable to something else.

fcc-name-rule
Determines default folder name for fcc when composing. Currently, Pine will accept the values default-fcc, by-recipient, or last-fcc-used. If set to default-fcc, then Pine will use the value defined in the default-fcc variable (which itself has a default) for the Fcc header field. If set to by-recipient, then Pine will use the name of the recipient as a folder name for the fcc. The relevant recipient is the first address in the To field. If set to "last-fcc-used", then Pine will offer to Fcc to whatever folder you used previously. In all cases, the field can still be edited after it is initially assigned. If the fcc field in the address book is set for the first To address, that value over-rides any value derived from this rule.

feature-list
This is a list of the many features (options) which may be turned on or off. There is a separate section titled Configuration Features which explains each of the features. There is some additional explanation about the feature-list variable itself in Feature List Variable.

folder-collections
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 collection in this list is the default collection for Saves, including default-fcc's.

folder-extension
PC-Pine only. File extension used for local folder names. This is .MTX by default.

font-name
Winsock version of PC-Pine only.

font-size
Winsock version of PC-Pine only.

font-style
Winsock version of PC-Pine only.

forced-abook-entry
System-wide Pine configuration files only. Force these address book entries into all writable personal address books. This is a list variable. Each item in the list has the form:
Nickname | Fullname | Address
with optional whitespace in all the obvious places.

global-address-book
A list of shared address books. Each entry in the list is an optional nickname followed by a pathname or file name relative to the home directory. This list will be added to the address-book list to arrive at the complete set of address books. Global address books are defined to be ReadOnly.

goto-default-rule
This value affects Pine's behavior when using the Goto command. There are three possible values for this option:

inbox-or-folder-in-recent-collection
If the current folder is INBOX, Pine will offer the last open folder as the default. If the current folder is other than INBOX, INBOX is offered as the default.

inbox-or-folder-in-first-collection
The second accepted value is a variation on the default which again offers INBOX if it isn't currently open, but otherwise offers the most recently visited folder in the first collection found in the "Folder List" screen.

most-recent-folder
The last accepted value simply causes the most recently opened folder to be offered as the default regardless of the currently opened folder.

NOTE: The default while a newsgroup is open remains the same; the last open newsgroup.

image-viewer
This variable names the program to call for displaying parts of a MIME message that are of type IMAGE. If your system supports the mailcap system, you don't need to set this variable.

inbox-path
This specifies the name of the folder to use for the INBOX. By default this is unset and the system's default is used. The most common reason for setting this is to open an IMAP mailbox for the INBOX. For example, {imap5.u.example.edu}inbox will open the user's standard INBOX on the mail server, imap5.

incoming-archive-folders
This is like read-message-folder, only more general. This is a list of folder pairs, with the first separated from the second in the pair by a space. The first folder in a pair is the folder you want to archive, and the second folder is the folder that read messages from the first should be moved to. Depending on how you define the auto-move-read-messages" feature, you may or may not be asked when you leave the first folder if you want read messages to be moved to the second folder. In either case, moving the messages means they will be deleted from the first folder.

If these are not path names, they will be in the default collection for Saves. Any valid folder specification, local or remote (via IMAP), is allowed. There is no default.

incoming-folders
This is a list of one or more folders other than INBOX 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 monitor the folders in this list for new mail.

incoming-startup-rule
This rule affects Pine's behavior when opening the INBOX or another folder from the "INCOMING MESSAGE FOLDERS". This rule tells Pine which message to make the current message when an incoming folder is opened. There are three possible values for this option:

first-unseen
The current message will be the first unseen message which has not been marked deleted, or the last message if all of the messages have been seen. This is the default setting.

first-recent
This is similar to first-unseen. Instead of first unseen it is the first recent message. A message is considered to be recent if it arrived since the last time the folder was open (by any mail client, not just the current one). So this option causes the current message to be set to the first undeleted-recent message, or the last message if none is both undeleted and recent.

first
Set the current message to the first undeleted message unless all are deleted. In that case set it to the last message.

last
Set the current message to the last undeleted message unless all are deleted. In that case set it to the last message.

index-format
This option specifies the format that folder indexes are displayed in. Normally, the system figures out reasonable defaults for the widths of the columns of the index display. A non-standard display format can be used by listing special tokens in the order you want them to display. The tokens are STATUS, FULLSTATUS, MSGNO, DATE, SIZE, DESCRIPSIZE, SUBJECT, FROMORTO, FROM, and TO. The tokens are separated by spaces. Each of the tokens may also be optionally followed by parentheses with either a number or a percentage inside the parentheses.

initial-keystroke-list
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. SPACE, TAB, and CR mean a space character, tab character, and a carriage return, respectively. F1 through F12 stand for the twelve function keys. UP, DOWN, LEFT, and RIGHT stand for the arrow keys. Control characters are represented with ^<char>. A restriction 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 only character keys in the startup list even if he or she is using function keys normally, or vice versa. If an element in this list is a string surrounded by double quotes (") then it will be expanded into the individual characters in the string, excluding the double quotes.

kblock-passwd-count
System-wide Pine configuration files only. Number of times a user will have to enter a password when they run the keyboard lock command in the main menu.

last-time-prune-questioned
Personal configuration file only. This variable records the month the user was last asked if his or her sent-mail folders should be pruned. The format is yy.mm. This is automatically updated by Pine when the the pruning is done or declined. If a user wanted to make Pine stop asking this question he or she could set this time to something far in the future. This may not be set in the system-wide configuration files. Note: The yy year is actually the number of years since 1900, so it will be equal to 101 in the year 2001.

last-version-used
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 number increases, a new version message is printed out. This may not be set in the system-wide configuration files.

ldap-servers
This is only available if Pine was linked with an LDAP library when it was compiled. This variable is normally managed by Pine though it can be set in the system-wide configuration files as well as the personal configuration. It is a list variable. Each item in the list contains quite a bit of extra information besides just the server name. To put this into a system-wide config file the easiest thing to do is to configure a personal Pine for the LDAP server then copy the configuration line into the system-wide config file. Each item in the list looks like:
server_name[:port] "quoted stuff"
The server_name is just a hostname and it is followed by an optional colon and port number. The default port is 389. Following the server name is a single SPACE character followed by a bunch of characters inside double quotes. The part inside the quotes is a set of tag = value pairs. Each tag is preceded by a slash (/) and followed by an equal sign. The value for that tag is the text up to the next slash. An example of some quoted stuff is:
"/base=o=University of Washington, c=US/impl=0/.../nick=My Server"
This would set the search base for this server to o=University of Washington, c=US, set the implicit bit to zero, and set the nickname for the server to My Server. All of the tags correspond directly to items in the Setup/Directory screen so experiment with that if you want to see what the possible tags and values are.

mail-check-interval
This option specifies, in seconds, how often Pine will check for new mail. If set to zero, new-mail checking is disabled. There is a minimum value, normally 15 seconds. A side effect of disabling mail checking is that there will be situations in which the user's IMAP connection will be broken due to inactivity timers on the server. Another side effect is that the user-input-timeout option won't work.

mail-directory
This variable was more important in previous versions of Pine. Now it is used only as the default for storing personal folders (and only if there are no folder-collections defined). The default value is ~/mail on UNIX and $HOME\MAIL on a PC.

mailcap-search-path
This variable is used to replace Pine's default mailcap file search path. It takes one or more file names (full paths must be specified) in which to look for mail capability data.

mimetype-search-path
This variable is used to replace Pine's default mime.types file search path. It takes one or more file names (full paths must be specified) in which to look for file-name-extension to MIME type mapping data. See the Config Notes for details on Pine's usage of the MIME.Types File.

new-version-threshold
When a new version of Pine is run for the first time it offers a special explanatory screen to the user upon startup. This option helps control when and if that special screen appears for users that have previously run Pine. It takes as its value a Pine version number. Pine versions less than the specified value will supress this special screen while versions equal to or greater than that specified will behave normally.

news-active-file-path
This option tells Pine where to look for the "active file" for newsgroups when accessing news locally, rather than via NNTP. The default path is usually /usr/lib/news/active.

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

news-spool-directory
This option tells Pine where to look for the "news spool" for newsgroups when accessing news locally, rather than via NNTP. The default path is usually /usr/spool/news.

newsrc-path
This option overrides the default name Pine uses for your "newsrc" news status and subscription file. If set, Pine will take this value as the full pathname for the desired newsrc file.

nntp-server
One or more NNTP servers (host name or IP address) which Pine will use for reading and sending news. If you read and post news to and from a single NNTP server, you can get away with only setting the nntp-server variable and leaving the news-collections variable unset.

normal-background-color
PC-Pine only. Currently, Pine will accept the colors black, blue, green, cyan, red, magenta, yellow, or white.

normal-foreground-color
PC-Pine only. See normal-background-color for possible colors.

operating-dir
System-wide Pine configuration files only. This names the root of the tree to which the user is restricted when reading and writing folders and files. It is usually used in the fixed configuration file.

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

personal-print-category
Personal configuration file only. This is the category that the default print command belongs to. There are three categories. Category 1 is an attached printer which uses the ANSI escape sequence, category 2 is the standard system print command, and category 3 is the set of custom printer commands defined by the user. This just helps Pine figure out where to put the cursor when the user runs the Setup/Printer command. This is not used by PC-Pine.

personal-print-command
Personal configuration file only. This corresponds to the third category in the printer menu, the personally selected print commands. This variable contains the list of custom commands that the user has entered in the Setup/Printer screen. This is not used by PC-Pine.

postponed-folder
The folder where postponed messages are stored. The default is postponed-msgs (Unix) or POSTPOND (PC).

print-font-name
Winsock version of PC-Pine only.

print-font-size
Winsock version of PC-Pine only.

print-font-style
Winsock version of PC-Pine only.

printer
Personal configuration file only. This is the current setting for a user's printer. This variable is set from Pine's Setup/Printer screen.

pruned-folders
This variable allows you to define a list of one or more folders that Pine will offer to prune for you in the same way it automatically offers to prune your sent-mail folder each month. That is, once a month for each folder listed, Pine will offer to move the contents of the folder to a new folder of the same name but with the previous month's date appended. Pine will then look for any such date-appended folder names created for a previous month, and offer each one it finds for deletion. If you decline the first offer, no mail is moved and no new folder is created. Folders listed are assumed to exist, and the archive folders will be created, in the first collection defined by the folder-collections variable.

read-message-folder
If set, mail in the INBOX 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.

remote-abook-history
Sets how many extra copies of remote address book data will be kept in each remote address book folder. The default is three. These extra copies are simply old versions of the data. Each time a change is made a new copy of the address book data is appended to the folder. Old copies are trimmed, if possible, when Pine exits. An old copy can be put back into use by deleting and expunging newer versions of the data from the folder. Don't delete the first message from the folder. It is a special header message for the remote address book and it must be there. This is to prevent regular folders from being used as remote address book folders and having their data destroyed.

remote-abook-metafile
Personal configuration file only. This is usually set by Pine and is the name of a file that contains data about remote address books.

reply-indent-string
This variable specifies an aspect of Pine's Reply command. When a message is replied to and the text of the message is included, that text usually has the string "> " prepended to each line to indicate quoting.

This variable specifies a different value for that string. If you wish to use a string which begins or ends with a space, enclose the string in double quotes.

You can also include the sender's name in the prepended string. The first occurrence of "_FROM_" in the reply-indent-string will be replaced with the "username" portion (part before the @) of the address being replied to.

The normal default is "> ".

reverse-background-color
PC-Pine only. See normal-background-color for possible colors.

reverse-foreground-color
PC-Pine only. See normal-background-color for possible colors.

rsh-command
Sets the format of the command used to open a UNIX remote shell connection. The default is "%s %s -l %s exec /etc/r%sd". All four "%s" entries MUST exist in the provided command. The first is for the command's pathname, the second is for the host to connnect to, the third is for the user to connect as, and the fourth is for the connection method (typically imap).

rsh-open-timeout
Sets the time in seconds that Pine will attempt to open a UNIX remote shell connection. The default is 15, the minimum non-zero value is 5, and the maximum is unlimited. If this is set to zero rsh connections will be completely disabled.

rsh-path
Sets the name of the command used to open a UNIX remote shell connection. The default is tyically /usr/ucb/rsh.

saved-msg-name-rule
Determines default folder name when Saving. If set to default-folder (which is the default setting), then Pine will offer the folder "saved-messages" (UNIX) or "SAVEMAIL" (PC) for Saving messages. The default folder offered in this way may be changed by using the configuration variable default-saved-msg-folder. If this rule is set to last-folder-used, Pine offers to Save to the folder you last successfully Saved a message to (this session). The first time you Save a message in a session, Pine offers to Save the message to the default folder.

Choosing any of the by- options causes Pine to attempt to get the chosen option's value for the message being Saved. For example, if by-from is chosen, Pine attempts to get the value of who the message came from (i.e. the from address). Pine then attempts to Save the message to a folder matching that value. If by-from is chosen and no value is obtained, Pine uses by-sender. The opposite is also true. If by-recipient was chosen and the message was posted to a newsgroup, Pine will use the newsgroup name.

If any of the by-nick- options are chosen, the resulting address is looked up in the user's address books and if found, the nickname for that entry is used. Similarly, if any of the by-fcc- options are chosen, the fcc from the corresponding address book entry is used. If no value is found in the address book, then if the chosen option ends with the "-then-from", "-then-sender", or "-then-recip" suffix, Pine reverts to the same behavior as by-from, by-sender or by-recipient depending on which option was specified. If the chosen option doesn't end with one of the "then-" suffixes, then Pine reverts to the default folder when no match is found in the address book.

scroll-margin
This option controls when Pine's line-by-line scrolling occurs. Typically, when a selected item is at the top or bottom screen edge and the UP or DOWN (and Ctrl-P or Ctrl-N) keys are pressed, the displayed items are scrolled down or up by a single line.

This option allows you to tell Pine the number of lines from the top and bottom screen edge that line-by-line scrolling should occur. For example, setting this value to one (1) will cause Pine to scroll the display when you move to select an item on the display's top or bottom edge (instead of moving when you move off the edge of the screen).

By default, this variable is zero (0), indicating that scrolling happens when you move up or down to select an item immediately off the display's top or bottom edge.

sending-filters
This option defines a list of text-filtering commands (programs and scripts) that may be selectively invoked to process a message just before it is sent. If set, the Composer's ^X Send command will allow you to select which filter (or none) to apply to the message before it is sent. For security reasons, the full path of the filter program must be specified. See the online help text for further details.

sendmail-path
This names the path to an alternative program, and any necessary arguments, to be used in posting mail messages. See the section on SMTP and Sendmail for more details.

signature-file
Names the file to be included as the signature. This defaults to ~/.signature on UNIX and <PINERC directory>\PINE.SIG on a PC.

smtp-server
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 sendmail program on the local machine. PC-Pine users must have this variable set in order to send mail as they have no sendmail program. An alternate port may be specified by appending :port to the host name or IP address. See the SMTP Servers section for details.

sort-key
This variable sets up the default Message Index sorting. The default is to sort by arrival order (the order the messages arrived in the folder). It has the same functionality as the -sort command line argument and the $ command in the "Folder Index". If a sort-key is set, then all folders open during the session will have that as the default sort order.

speller
This option affects the behavior of the ^T (spell check) command in the Composer. It specifies the program invoked by ^T in the Composer. By default, Pine uses the system's "spell" command. Pine will use the command defined by this option (if any) instead. When invoking the spell-checking program, Pine appends a tempfile name (where the message is passed) to the command line.

standard-printer
System-wide configuration file only. Specifies a list of commands for category 2 of the Setup/Printer screen, the standard print command section. This is not used by PC-Pine.

status-message-delay
If this is set to a positive number, it causes the cursor to move to the status line whenever a status message is printed and pause there for this many seconds. It will probably only be useful if the show-cursor feature is also turned on. Most users should leave this set to the default value of zero since its only effect is to slow things down.

tcp-open-timeout
Sets the time in seconds that Pine will attempt to open a network connection. The default is 30, the minimum is 5, and the maximum is system defined (typically 75). If a connection has not completed within this many seconds Pine will give up and consider it a failed connection.

upload-command
This option affects the behavior of the Composer's ^R (Read File) and ^J (Attach File, in the header) commands. It specifies a Unix program name, and any necessary command line arguments, that Pine can use to transfer files from your personal computer into messages that you are composing.

upload-command-prefix
This option is used in conjunction with the upload-command option. It defines text to be written to the terminal emulator (via standard output) immediately prior to starting the upload command. This is useful for integrated serial line file transfer agents that permit command passing (e.g., Kermit's APC method).

url-viewers
List of programs to use to open Internet URLs. This value affects Pine's handling of URLs that are found in the text of messages you read. Normally, only URLs Pine can handle directly are automatically offered for selection in the "Message Text" screen. When one or more comma delimited Web browsers capable of deciphering URLs on their command line are added here, Pine will choose the first available browser to display URLs it doesn't recognize.

Additionally, to support various connection methods and browsers, each entry in this list can begin with the special token _TEST(test-string)_. The test-string is a shell command that Pine will run and which must exit with a status of zero for Pine to consider that browser for use (the other criteria is that the browser must exist as a full path or a path relative to your home directory).

Now for an example:

url-viewers=_TEST("test -n '${DISPLAY}'")_ /usr/local/bin/netscape, /usr/local/bin/lynx, C:\BIN\NETSCAPE.BAT
This example shows that for the first browser in the list to be used the environment variable DISPLAY must be defined. If it is, then the file /usr/local/bin/netscape must exist. If either condition is not met, then the file /usr/local/bin/lynx must exist. If it doesn't, then the final path and file must exist. Note that the last entry is a DOS/Windows path. This is one way to support Pine running on more than one architecture with the same configuration file.

use-only-domain-name
Can be set to yes or no. Anything but yes means no. If set to yes 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 carson.u.example.edu and this variable is set to yes, then u.example.edu will be used on outgoing mail. Only meaningful if user-domain is NOT set.

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

user-id
PC-Pine only and personal configuration file only. Sets the username that is placed on all outgoing messages. The username is the part of the address that comes before the "@".

user-input-timeout
If this is set to an integer greater than zero, then this is the number of hours to wait for user input before Pine times out. If Pine is in the midst of composing a message or is waiting for user response to a question, then it will not timeout. However, if Pine is sitting idle waiting for the user to tell it what to do next and the user does not give any input for this many hours, Pine will exit. No expunging or moving of read messages will take place. It will exit similarly to the way it would exit if it received a hangup signal. This may be useful for cleaning up unused Pine sessions which have been forgotten by their owners. The Pine developers envision system administrators setting this to a value of several hours (24?) so that it won't surprise a user who didn't want to be disconnected.

viewer-hdrs
You may change the default list of headers that are viewed by listing the headers you want to view here. If the headers in your viewer-hdrs list are present in the message, then they will be shown. The order of the headers you list will also be honored. If the special value all-except is included as the first header in the viewer-hdrs list, then all headers in the message except those in the list will be shown. The values are all case insensitive.

viewer-overlap
This option specifies an aspect of Pine's Message Viewing screen. When the space bar is used to page forward in a message, the number of lines specified by the viewer-overlap variable will be repeated from the bottom of the screen. That is, if this was set to two lines, then the bottom two lines of the screen would be repeated on the top of the next screen. The normal default value is "2".

window-position
Winsock version of PC-Pine only. Window position in the format: CxR+X+Yn Where C and R are the window size in characters and X and Y are the screen position of the top left corner of the window.


Configuration Features

There are several features (options) which may be turned off or on. The configuration variable feature-list is a list of all the features that are turned on or off. Listing the name of a feature in the list will turn it on. Listing the name of a feature with the characters no- prepended will turn the feature off. This is useful for overriding system-wide defaults. This is because, unlike all the other variables, the feature-list is additive. That is, first the system-wide feature-list is read and then the user's feature-list 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. For example, if the system manager has turned on the allow-talk feature by default then a user may turn it back off by including the feature no-allow-talk in his or her personal configuration file. Of course, these details are usually handled by Pine when the user turns an option on or off from inside the Setup/Config screen.

System managers should take some care when turning on features by default. Some of the documentation assumes that all of the features are off by default, so it could be confusing for a user if some are on by default instead.

Here is the current list of possible features.

allow-changing-from
Prior to Pine 4.00 there was a compile-time option called ALLOW_CHANGING_FROM. That has been replaced by a runtime feature. If this feature is turned on then the From line can be changed just like all the other header fields that can be changed. See the configuration variables customized-hdrs and default-composer-hdrs for more information on editing headers.

allow-talk
Unix Pine only. By default, permission for others to talk to your terminal is turned off when you are running Pine. When this feature is set, permission is instead turned on.

Note: The talk program has nothing to do with Pine or email. The talk daemon on your system will attempt to print a message on your screen when someone else is trying to contact you. If you wish to see these messages while you are running Pine, you should enable this feature.

If you do enable this feature and see a talk message, you must suspend or quit Pine before you can respond.

assume-slow-link
This feature affects Pine's display routines. If set, the normal inverse-video cursor (used to highlight the current item in a list) will be replaced by an arrow cursor and other screen update optimizations for low-speed links (e.g. 2400 bps dialup connections) will be activated. This might be useful if you know you have a slow speed link but for some reason Pine doesn't know.

auto-move-read-messages
This feature controls an aspect of Pine's behavior upon quitting. If set, and the read-message-folder variable is also set, then Pine will automatically transfer all read messages from the INBOX to the designated folder and mark them as deleted in the INBOX. Messages in the INBOX marked with an N (meaning New, or unseen) are not affected.

auto-open-next-unread
This feature controls the behavior of the TAB key when traversing folders in the optional incoming-folders collection or in optional news-collections.

When the TAB (Next New) key is pressed, and there are no more unseen messages in the current (incoming message or news) folder, Pine will search the list of folders in the current collection for one containing New or Recent (new since the last time the folder was opened) messages. By default, when such a folder is found, Pine will ask whether you wish to open the folder. If this feature is set, Pine will automatically open the folder without prompting.

auto-unzoom-after-apply
If set, and if you are currently looking at a Zoomed Index view of selected messages, the Apply command will do the operation you specify, but then will implicitly do an UnZoom, so that you will automatically be back in the normal Index view after the Apply.

auto-zoom-after-select
If set, the ; select command will automatically perform a Zoom after the select is complete.

compose-cut-from-cursor
If set, the ^K command in the composer will cut from the current cursor position to the end of the line, rather than cutting the entire line.

compose-maps-delete-key-to-ctrl-d
If set, Delete will be equivalent to ^D, and delete the current character. Normally Pine defines the Delete key to be equivalent to ^H, which deletes the previous character.

compose-rejects-unqualified-addrs
If set, unqualified names entered as addresses will be treated as errors unless they match an addressbook nickname or are looked up successfully on an LDAP server. Pine will not attempt to turn them into complete addresses by adding your local domain (which Pine normally does by default).

A complete (fully-qualified) address is one containing a username followed by an @ symbol, followed by a host or domain name (e.g. jsmith@nowhere.edu). An unqualified name is one without the @ symbol and host or domain name (e.g. jsmith).

compose-send-offers-first-filter
If you have sending-filters configured, setting this feature will cause the first filter in the sending-filters list to be offered as the default instead of unfiltered, the usual default.

compose-sets-newsgroup-without-confirm
If you enter the composer while reading a news group, you will normally be prompted to determine whether you intend the new message to be posted to the current newsgroup or not. If this feature is set, Pine will not prompt you in this situation, and will assume that you do indeed wish to post to the newsgroup you are reading.

delete-skips-deleted
If set, this feature will cause the Delete command to advance past other messages that are marked deleted. In other words, pressing D will both mark the current message deleted and advance to the next message that is not marked deleted.

disable-busy-alarm
If set, the spinning bar that sometimes appears in the status line will not appear when Pine is busy. This might be useful if it is suspected that the alarm(2) system calls that Pine uses to implement the busy spinner are suspected of causing a problem.

disable-config-cmd
If set, the configuration screen Setup/Config will not be available at all.

disable-keyboard-lock-cmd
In the Main Pine menu there is a Keyboard locking command (KBLock). If this feature is set, that command won't be available to the user.

disable-keymenu
If set, the command key menu that normally appears on the bottom two lines of the screen will not usually be there. Asking for help with ^G or ? will cause the key menu to appear instead of causing the help message to come up. If you want to actually see the help text, another ^G or ? will show it to you. After the key menu has popped up with the help key it will remain there for an O Other command but will disappear if any other command is typed.

disable-password-cmd
If set the Newpassword command usually available under the Setup command will not be available.

disable-signature-edit-cmd
If set the Signature editing command usually available under the Setup command will not be available.

disable-take-last-comma-first
Normally, when TakeAddr is used to copy an address from a message into an address book, Pine will attempt to rewrite the full name of the address in the form:
Last, First
instead of
First Last
It does this because many people find it useful to sort by Last name instead of First name. If this feature is set, then the TakeAddr command will not attempt to reverse the name in this manner.

enable-8bit-esmtp-negotiation
This feature affects Pine's behavior when sending mail. Internet standards require that all electronic mail messages traversing the global Internet consist of 7bit ASCII characters unless a pair of cooperating mail transfer agents explicitly agree to allow 8bit messages. In general, then, exchanging messages in non-ASCII characters requires MIME encoding.

However, there are now Internet standards that allow for unencoded 8bit exchange of messages between cooperating systems. Setting this feature tells Pine to try to negotiate unencoded 8bit transmission during the sending process. Should the negotiation fail, Pine will fall back to its ordinary encoding rules.

Note, this feature relies on your system's mail transport agent or configured smtp-server having the negotiation mechanism introduced in "Extended SMTP" (ESMTP) and the specific extension called 8BITMIME.

enable-8bit-nntp-posting
The Internet standard for exchanging USENET news messages (RFC-1036) specifies that USENET messages should conform to Internet mail standards and contain only 7bit characters, but much of the news transport software in use today is capable of successfully sending messages containing 8bit characters. Hence, many people believe that it is appropriate to send 8bit news messages without any MIME encoding.

Moreover, there is no Internet standard for explicitly negotiating 8bit transfer, as there is for Internet email. Therefore, Pine provides the option of posting unencoded 8bit news messages, though not as the default. Setting this feature will turn OFF Pine's MIME encoding of newsgroup postings that contain 8bit characters.

Note, articles may cross a path or pass through news transport software that is unsafe or even hostile to 8bit characters. At best this will only cause the posting to become garbled. The safest way to transmit 8bit characters is to leave Pine's MIME encoding turned on, but recipients who lack MIME-aware tools are often annoyed when they receive MIME-encoded messages.

enable-aggregate-command-set
Setting this feature enables the commands and subcommands that relate to performing operations on more than one message at a time. We call these "aggregate operations". In particular, the ; Select, A Apply, and Z Zoom commands are enabled by this feature. Select is used to tag one or more messages meeting the specified criteria. Apply can then be used to apply any message command to all of the selected/tagged messages. Further, the Zoom command allows you to toggle the "Folder Index" view between just those Selected and all messages in the folder.

This feature also enables the ^X subcommand in the "Folder Index" WhereIs command which causes all messages matching the WhereIs argument to become selected.

You may also use aggregate operations in the address book screens where you are operating on address book entries instead of on messages.

enable-alternate-editor-cmd
If this feature is set, and the editor variable is not set, entering the ^_ (Control-underscore) key while composing a message will prompt you for the name of the editor you would like to use.

If the environment variable $EDITOR is set, this value will be offered as a default. If the editor variable is set, the ^_ key will activate the specified editor without prompting, in which case it is not necessary to set the enable-alternate-editor-cmd feature. This feature is not available in PC-Pine.

enable-alternate-editor-implicitly
If this feature and the editor variable are both set, Pine will automatically activate the specified editor when the cursor is moved from the header of the message being composed into the message text. For replies, the alternate editor will be activated immediately. If this feature is set but the editor variable is not set, then Pine will automatically ask for the name of an alternate editor when the cursor is moved out of the headers, or if a reply is being done. This feature is not available in PC-Pine.

enable-arrow-navigation
If set the left and right arrow keys will operate like the usual navigation keys < and >.

enable-background-sending
If set, this feature enables a subcommand in the composer's Send? confirmation prompt. The subcommand allows you to tell Pine to handle the actual posting in the background. While this feature usually allows posting to appear to happen very fast, it has no affect on the actual delivery time it takes a message to arrive at its destination.

This feature isn't supported on all systems. All DOS and Windows, as well as several Unix ports, do not recognize this feature.

Error handling is significantly different when this feature is enabled. Any message posting failure results in the message being appended to your Interrupted mail folder. When you type the Compose command, Pine will notice this folder and offer to extract any messages contained. Upon continuing a failed message, Pine will display the nature of the failure in the status message line.

Under extreme conditions, it is possible for message data to get lost. Do not enable this feature if you typically run close to any sort of disk-space limits or quotas.

enable-bounce-cmd
Setting this feature enables the B Bounce command, which will prompt for an address and remail the message to the new recipient. This command is used to re-direct messages that you have received in error, or need to be redirected for some other reason (e.g. list moderation). The final recipient will see a header indicating that you have Resent the msg, but the message's From: header will show the original author of the message, and replies to it will go back to that author, and not to you.

enable-cruise-mode
This feature affects Pine's behavior when you hit the "Space Bar" at the end of a displayed message. Typically, Pine complains that the end of the text has already been reached. Setting this feature causes such keystrokes to be interpreted as if the Tab key had been hit, thus taking you to the next interesting message, or scanning ahead to the next incoming folder with interesting messages.

enable-cruise-mode-delete
This feature modifies the behavior of Pine's enable-cruise-mode feature. Setting this feature causes Pine to implicitly delete read messages when it moves on to display the next interesting message.

NOTE: Beware when enabling this feature and the expunge-without-confirm feature.

enable-delivery-status-notification
If set, this feature enables a subcommand in the composer's "Send?" confirmation prompt. The subcommand allows you to tell Pine to request the type of Delivery Status Notification (DSN) which you would like. Most users will be happy with the default, and need not enable this feature. See the online help for more details.

Note that this is not a method to request READ receipts, which tells the sender when the receiver has read the message. In this case we're talking about notification of delivery to the mailbox, not notification that the message has been seen.

enable-dot-files
If set, files beginning with dot (".") will be visible in the file browser. For example, you'll be able to select them when using the browser to add an attachment to a message.

enable-dot-folders
If set, folders beginning with dot (".") may be added and viewed.

enable-exit-via-lessthan-command
If set, then on screens where there is an Exit command but no < command, the < key will perform the same function as the Exit command.

enable-fast-recent-test
If set, the TAB key behavior in Incoming folders or News collections is modified. By default, the TAB will cause each folder in the Incoming folders collection (or in the news collection) to be examined to see how many new messages have been delivered since the last time it was viewed. If this feature is set, the check is for any recent messages instead of the count of recent messages. This is much faster in many cases.

enable-flag-cmd
Setting this feature enables the * Flag command, which allows you to manipulate the status flags associated with a message. By default, Flag will set the Important flag, which results in an asterisk being displayed in column one of the "Folder Index" for such messages.

enable-flag-screen-implicitly
This feature modifies the behavior of the * Flag command (provided it too is enabled). By default, when the * Flag command is selected, Pine offers a prompt to set one of several flags and also offers the option of entering the detailed flag manipulation screen via the ^T key. Enabling this feature causes Pine to immediately enter the detailed flag screen rather than first offer the simple prompt.

enable-full-header-cmd
This feature enables the H Full Headers command which toggles between the display of all headers in the message and the normal edited view of headers. The Full Header command also controls which headers are included for Export, Pipe, Print, Forward, and Reply functions. (For Reply, the Full Header mode will respect the include-headers-in-reply feature setting.)

enable-goto-in-file-browser
Setting this causes Pine to offer the G Goto command in the file browser. This command allows you to explicitly set the displayed directory. Pine's default behavior requires you to visit each related directory when moving between two distant directories.

enable-incoming-folders
If set, this feature defines a pseudo-folder collection called INCOMING MESSAGE FOLDERS. Initially, the only folder included in this collection will be your INBOX, which will no longer show up in your default saved-message folder collection.

enable-jump-shortcut
Setting this feature will allow you to enter a number (followed by RETURN) and jump to that message number, when in the "Folder Index" or "Message Text" screens. In other words, it obviates the need for typing the J for the Jump command.

enable-mail-check-cue
If set, this will cause an asterisk to appear in the upper left-hand corner of the screen whenever Pine checks for new mail, and two asterisks whenever Pine saves (checkpoints) the state of the current mailbox to disk.

enable-mouse-in-xterm
This feature controls whether or not an X terminal mouse can be used with Pine. If set, and the $DISPLAY variable indicates that an X terminal is being used, the left mouse button on the mouse can be used to select text or commands.

Note: if this feature is set, the behavior of X terminal cut-and-paste is also modified. It is necessary to hold the shift key down while clicking left or middle mouse buttons for the normal xterm cut/paste operations.

enable-msg-view-attachments
This feature modifies the behavior of Pine's "Message Text" screen. Setting this feature causes Pine to present attachments in boldface. The first available attachment is displayed in inverse. This is the "selected" attachment. Pressing RETURN will cause Pine to display the selected attachment. Use the up and down arrow keys to change which of the attachments displayed in boldface is the current selection.

Speaking of arrow keys, the Up and Down Arrows will select the next and previous attachments if one is available on the screen for selection. Otherwise, they will simply adjust the viewed text one line up or down.

Similarly, when selectable items are present in a message, the Ctrl-F key can be used to select the next item in the message independent of which portion of the viewed message is currently displayed. The Ctrl-B key can be used to select the previous item in the same way.

enable-msg-view-urls
This feature modifies the behavior of Pine's "Message Text" screen. Setting this feature causes Pine to select possible URL's from the displayed text and display them in boldface for selection.

The first available URL is displayed in inverse. This is the "selected" URL. Pressing RETURN will cause Pine to display the selected URL via either built-in means as with mailto:, imap:, news:, and nntp:, or via an external application as defined by the url-viewers variable.

Use the up and down arrow keys to change which of the URLs displayed in boldface is the current selection.

enable-msg-view-web-hostnames
This feature modifies the behavior of Pine's "Message Text" screen. Setting this feature causes Pine to select possible web hostnames from the displayed text and display them in boldface for selection.

The first available hostname is displayed in inverse. This is the "selected" hostname. Pressing RETURN will cause Pine to display the selected hostname via an external application as defined by the url-viewers variable.

Use the up and down arrow keys to change which of the hostnames displayed in boldface is the current selection.

enable-msg-view-forced-arrows
This feature modifies Up and Down arrow key behavior in Pine's "Message Text" screen when selectable Attachments, URL's, or web-hostnames are presented. Pine's usual behavior is to move to the next or previous selectable item if currently displayed or simply to adjust the screen view by one line if the next selectable line is off the screen.

Setting this feature causes the Up and Down arrow keys to behave as if no selectable items were present in the message.

Note, the Ctrl-F (next selectable item) and Ctrl-B (previous selectable item) functionality is unchanged.

enable-newmail-in-xterm-icon
This feature controls whether or not Pine will attempt to announce new mail arrival when it is running in an X terminal window and that window is iconified. If set, and the $DISPLAY variable indicates that an X terminal is being used, Pine will send appropriate escape sequences to the X terminal to modify the label on Pine's icon to indicate that new mail has arrived.

enable-print-via-y-command
By default, Pine's print command is available by pressing the % key. In recent versions prior to 4.00, the print command was accessed by pressing the Y key.

Enabling this feature will cause Pine to recognize both the old command, Y, and the new % method for invoking printing. Note, key menu labels are not changed as a result of enabling this feature.

enable-reply-indent-string-editing
This feature affects the Reply command's "Include original message in Reply?" prompt. When enabled, it causes the "Edit Indent String" sub-command to appear which allows you to edit the string Pine would otherwise use to denote included text from the message being replied to.

NOTE: Edited reply-indent-strings only apply to the message currently being replied to.

enable-search-and-replace
If set Pine's composer offers the R Replace command option inside the W WhereIs command.

enable-sigdashes
If set and a signature-file exists, the line consisting of the three characters "-- " (dash dash space) is included before the signature.

enable-suspend
Setting this feature will allow you to type ^Z and temporarily suspend Pine. Not available on PC-Pine.

enable-partial-match-lists
This feature affects the subcommands available when Saving or Opening a new folder. If set, the subcommand ^X ListMatches will be available. This command allows you to type in a substring of the folder you are looking for and when you type ^X it will display all folders which contain that substring in their names.

enable-tab-completion
This feature enables the TAB key when at a prompt for a filename. In this case, TAB will cause the partial name already entered to be automatically completed, provided the partial name is unambiguous.

enable-unix-pipe-cmd
This feature enables the | Pipe command that sends the current message to the specified Unix command for external processing. Not available on PC-Pine.

enable-verbose-smtp-posting
This feature controls an aspect of Pine's message sending. When enabled, Pine will send a VERB (i.e., VERBose) command early in the posting process intended to cause the server SMTP to provide a more detailed account of the transaction. This feature is typically only useful to system administrators and other support personel as an aid in troublshooting problems. Note, this feature relies on a specific capability of the system's mail transport agent or configured smtp-server.

expanded-view-of-distribution-lists
If this feature is set, then distribution lists in the address book screen will always be expanded automatically.

expunge-without-confirm
If set, you will not be prompted to confirm your intent before the expunge takes place. Actually, you will still be prompted for confirmation if the folder is not the INBOX folder or another folder in the Incoming Folders collection. See the expunge-without-confirm-everywhere feature which follows.

expunge-without-confirm-everywhere
The regular expunge-without-confirm feature actually only works for the INBOX folder and for other folders in the "Incoming Folders" collection. If this feature is set then you also won't be prompted to confirm expunges for all other folders.

fcc-on-bounce
If set, normal Fcc (File Carbon Copy) processing will be done for bounced messages, just as if you had composed a message to the address you are bouncing to. If not set, no Fcc of the message will be saved.

include-attachments-in-reply
If set, any MIME attachments that were part of the original message will automatically be included in a Reply.

include-header-in-reply
If set, and a message being replied to is included in the Reply, then headers from that message will also be part of the reply.

include-text-in-reply
Normally, Pine will ask whether you wish to include the original message in your Reply. If this feature is set, the original message will be included in the reply automatically, without prompting.

news-approximates-new-status
This feature causes certain messages to be marked as New in the "Folder Index" of news groups.

When opening a news group, Pine will consult your newsrc file and determine the last message you have previously disposed of via the D key. If this feature is set, any subsequent messages will be shown in the Index with an N, and the first of these messages will be highlighted. Although this is only an approximation of true New or Unseen status, it provides a useful cue to distinguish more-or-less recent messages from those you have seen previously, but are not yet ready to mark deleted.

Background: your newsrc file (used to store message status information for news groups) is only capable of storing a single flag, and Pine uses this to record whether or not you are "done with" a message, as indicated by marking the message as Deleted. Unfortunately, this means that Pine has no way to record exactly which messages you have previously seen, so it normally does not show the N status flag for any messages in a news group. This feature enables a starting approximation of seen/unseen status that may be useful.

news-post-without-validation
This feature controls whether the NNTP server is queried as news groups are entered for posting. Validation over slow links (e.g. dialup using SLIP or PPP) can cause delays. Set this feature to eliminate such delays.

news-read-in-newsrc-order
This feature controls the order that news groups will be presented. If set, they will be presented in the same order as they occur in your newsrc file. If not set, the newsgroups will be presented in alphabetical order.

pass-control-characters-as-is
If set, all characters in a message will be sent to the screen. Normally, control characters are automatically suppressed in order to avoid inadvertently changing terminal setup parameters.

preserve-start-stop-characters
This feature controls how special control key characters, typically ^S and ^Q, are interpreted when input to Pine. These characters are known as the "start" and "stop" characters and are sometimes used in communications paths to control data flow between devices that operate at different speeds.

By default, Pine turns the system's handling of these special characters off except during printing. However, if you see Pine reporting input errors such as:

[ Command "^Q" not defined for this screen. ]
and, at the same time, see your display become garbled, then it is likely that setting this option will solve the problem. Be aware, though, that enabling this feature will also cause Pine to ostensibly "hang" whenever the Ctrl-S key combination is entered as the system is now interpreting such input as a "stop output" command. To "start output" again, simply type Ctrl-Q.

print-offers-custom-cmd-prompt
When this feature is set, the Print command will have an additional subcommand called C CustomPrint. If selected, you will have the opportunity to enter any system print command, instead of being restricted to using those that have been previously configured in the Setup/Printer screen.

print-includes-from-line
If this feature is set, then the Unix mail style From line is included at the start of each message that is printed. This line looks something like the following, with the address replaced by the address from the From line of the message being printed:
From user@domain.somewhere.com Mon May 13 14:11:06 1996

print-index-enabled
This feature controls the behavior of the Print command when in the "Folder Index" screen. If set, the Print command will give you a prompt asking if you wish to print the message index, or the currently highlighted message. If not set, the message will be printed.

print-formfeed-between-messages
Setting this feature causes a formfeed to be printed between messages when printing multiple messages with the Apply Print command.

quell-dead-letter-on-cancel
This feature affects Pine's behavior when you cancel a message being composed. Pine's usual behavior is to write the canceled message to a file named dead.letter in your home directory (under UNIX; DEADLETR under WINDOWS/DOS) overwriting any previous message. Under some conditions (some routine), this can introduce a noticeable delay.

Setting this feature will cause Pine NOT to write canceled compositions into the file called dead.letter.

quell-lock-failure-warnings
This feature affects Pine's behavior when it encounters a problem acquiring a mail folder lock. Typically, a secondary file associated with the mail folder being opened is created as part of the locking process. On some systems, such file creation has been administratively precluded by the system configuration.

Pine issues a warning when such failures occur, which can become bothersome if the system is configured to disallow such actions. Setting this feature causes Pine to remain silent when this part of lock creation fails.

WARNING: systems that have been configured in a way that precludes locking introduce some risk of mail folder corruption when more than one program attempts to modify the mail folder. This is most likely to occur to one's INBOX or other "Incoming Message Folder".

quell-status-message-beeping
If set status messages will never emit a beep.

quell-user-lookup-in-passwd-file
This feature controls an aspect of Pine's Composer, and if needed, will usually be set by the system manager in Pine's system-wide configuration file. Specifically, if this feature is set, Pine will not attempt to look in the system password file to find a Full Name for the entered address.

Normally, names you enter into address fields (e.g. To: or Cc:) are checked against your address book(s) to see if they match an address book nickname. Failing that, (in Unix Pine) the name is then checked against the Unix password file. If the entered name matches a username in the system password file, Pine extracts the corresponding Full Name information for that individual, and adds that to the address being entered.

However, password file matching can have surprising (incorrect) results if other users of the system do not receive mail at the domain you are using. That is, if either the user-domain or use-only-domain-name option is set such that the administrative domain of other users on the system isn't accurately reflected, Pine should be told that a password file match is coincidental, and Full Name info will be incorrect. For example, a personal name from the password file could get falsely paired with the entered name as it is turned into an address in the configured domain.

If you are seeing this behavior, enabling this feature will prevent Unix Pine from looking up names in the password file to find the Full Name for incomplete addresses you enter.

quell-partial-fetching
Partial fetching is a feature of the IMAP protocol. By default, Pine will use partial fetching when copying the contents of a message or attachment from the IMAP server to Pine. This means that the fetch will be done in many small chunks instead of one big chunk. The main benefit of this approach is that the fetch becomes interruptible. That is, the user can type ^C to stop the fetch early. In some cases partial fetching may cause a performance problem so that the fetching of data takes significantly longer when partial fetching is used. Turning on this feature will turn off partial fetching.

quit-without-confirm
This feature controls whether or not Pine will ask for confirmation when a Quit command is received.

reply-always-uses-reply-to
If set, Pine will not prompt when a message being replied to contains a Reply-To: header value, but will simply use its value (as opposed to using the From: field's value).

save-aggregates-copy-sequence
This feature will optimize an aggregate copy operation, if possible, by issuing a single IMAP COPY command with a list of the messages to be copied. This may save network traffic when the source and destination folders are on the same IMAP server. However, many IMAP servers (including the UW IMAP server) do not preserve the order of messages when this optimization is applied. If this feature is not enabled, or if the folders are on different IMAP servers, or the folders are local and in different formats, Pine will copy each message individually.

save-will-quote-leading-froms
This feature controls an aspect of the Save command (and also the way outgoing messages are saved to an FCC folder). If set, Pine will add a leading > character in front of message lines beginning with "From" when they are saved to another folder, including lines syntactically distinguishable from the type of message separator line commonly used on Unix systems.

The default behavior is that a > will be prepended only to lines beginning with "From " that might otherwise be confused with a message separator line on Unix systems. If Pine is the only mail program you use, this default is reasonable. If another program you use has trouble displaying a message with an unquoted From saved by Pine, you should enable this feature. This feature only applies to the common Unix mailbox format that uses message separator lines beginning with "From ". If Pine has been configured to use a different mailbox format (possibly incompatible with other mail programs), then this issue does not arise, and the feature is irrelevant.

save-will-not-delete
If set, Save will not mark the message Deleted (its default behavior) after it has been copied to the designated folder.

save-will-advance
If set, Save will (in addition to copying the current message to the designated folder) also advance to the next message.

select-without-confirm
This feature controls an aspect of Pine's Save, Export, and Goto commands. These commands all take text input to specify the name of the folder or file to be used, but allow you to press ^T for a list of possible names. If set, the selected name will be used immediately, without further opportunity to confirm or edit the name.

show-cursor
If set, the system cursor will move to convenient locations in the displays. For example, to the beginning of the status field of the highlighted index line, or to the highlighted word after a successful WhereIs command. It is intended to draw your attention to the interesting spot on the screen.

show-selected-in-boldface
This feature controls an aspect of Pine's aggregate operation commands; in particular, the Select and WhereIs commands. Select and WhereIs (with the ^X subcommand) will search the current folder for messages meeting a specified criteria, and tag the resulting messages with an X in the first column of the applicable lines in the "Folder Index". If this feature is set, instead of using the X to denote a selected message, Pine will attempt to display those index lines in boldface. Whether this is preferable to the X will depend on personal taste and the type of terminal being used.

signature-at-bottom
If this feature is set, and a message being Replied to is being included in the reply, then the contents of the signature file (if any) will be inserted after the included message, and the cursor will also be positioned after the included text. This feature does not affect the results of a Forward command.

single-column-folder-list
If set, the "Folder List" screen will list one folder per line instead of several per line.

tab-visits-next-new-message-only
This feature affects Pine's behavior when using the TAB key to move from one message to the next. Pine's usual behavior is to select the next Unread message or message flagged as Important.

Setting this feature causes Pine to skip the messages flagged as Important, and select Unread messages exclusively. Tab behavior when there are no new messages left to select remains unchanged.

termdef-takes-precedence
In some versions of Pine before 4.00 there was a compile-time macro called TERMCAP_WINS which could be set to cause the termcap or terminfo definitions to be used instead of the built in definitions. Beginning with 4.00 this hidden runtime feature can be turned on to accomplish the same thing.

use-current-dir
This feature controls an aspect of several commands. If set, your "current working directory" will be used instead of your home directory for all of the following operations:

use-function-keys
This feature specifies that Pine will respond to function keys instead of the normal single-letter commands. In this mode, the key menus at the bottom of each screen will show function key designations instead of the normal mnemonic key.

use-sender-not-x-sender
Normally Pine adds a header line labeled X-Sender, if the sender is different from the From: line. The standard specifies that this header line should be labeled Sender, not X-Sender. Setting this feature causes Sender to be used instead of X-Sender.

use-subshell-for-suspend
This feature affects Pine's behavior when process suspension is enabled and then activated via the ^Z key. Pine suspension allows one to temporarily interact with the operating system command "shell" without quitting Pine, and then subsequently resume the still-active Pine session.

When the enable-suspend feature is set and subsequently the ^Z key is pressed, Pine will normally suspend itself and return temporary control to Pine's parent shell process. However, if this feature is set, Pine will instead create an inferior subshell process. This is useful when the parent process is not intended to be used interactively. Examples include invoking Pine via the -e argument of the Unix xterm program, or via a menu system.

Note that one typically resumes a suspended Pine by entering the Unix fg command, but if this feature is set, it will be necessary to enter the exit command instead.

Hidden Config Variables and Features

There are several configuration variables and features which are "hidden" from the user. That is, they don't appear on any of the configuration screens. Some of these are suppressed because they are intended to be used by system administrators, and in fact may only be set in system-wide configuration files. Others are available to users but are thought to be of such little value to most users that their presence on the Config screens would cause more confusion than help. Those features may only be set by hand editing the configuration file.

Hidden Variables Not Settable by Users

These variables are settable only in system-wide configuration files.

Hidden Variables Which are Settable by Users

These variables are not shown to users but are settable by means of hand editing the personal configuration file. This first group is usually maintained by Pine and there should be no reason to edit them.

This group is usually correct but may be changed by system managers or users in special cases.

System managers are usually interested in setting these in the system-wide configuration files, though users may set them if they wish.

Hidden Features Which are Settable by Users

These are features (as opposed to variables) which users or system administrators may set. Some of them only make sense for administrators.

Retired Variables

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. The replaced values at the time of this document include:

elm-style-save
Replaced by saved-msg-name-rule
feature-level
Replaced by feature-list.
header-in-reply
Replaced by include-header-in-reply in the feature-list.
old-style-reply
Replaced by signature-at-bottom in the feature-list.
save-by-sender
Replaced by saved-msg-name-rule.
show-all-characters
No replacement, it always works this way now.
expanded-view-of-addressbooks
No replacement, address book screens are hierarchical now.
expanded-view-of-folders
No replacement, folder list screens are hierarchical now.