Other Commands

Whereis Command

The WhereIs command: W is available in many of Pine's screens. It searches through the contents of whatever is on (but not "behind") the screen you are looking at -- the current message, the current folder index, the address book, etc.

WhereIs also lets you quickly jump to the first (Ctrl-Y) or last (Ctrl-V) of the items on the screen you are searching -- the first/last message in the FOLDER INDEX, the first/last address in your ADDRESS BOOK, the first/last line in your COMPOSE MESSAGE screen, and so on.

Full Headers Toggle Command

Every email message comes with some header lines that you normally don't see. These include lines added by the Internet mail transport system to record the route your message took, for diagnostic purposes. These are normally of no import and simply add clutter, so Pine suppresses them from MESSAGE TEXT display.

There is, however, a way to reveal them. The Header Mode: H command is a toggle which controls Pine's handling of these header lines. Normally, full headers is "off" and you only see a few lines about recipient(s) and sender(s) of a message. When you press H to turn full headers on, Pine will show you the normal header lines as well as delivery headers, comment headers and MIME headers.

Several different Pine commands honor the header mode -- it affects how messages are displayed, how they appear in forward and reply email, how they are saved and how they are exported.

The presence or absence of the Header Mode command is determined by the "enable-full-header-cmd" option in your Pine configuration. Also, it may be administratively disabled by your system manager; if it doesn't work, please check with your local help desk before reporting a bug.

Sort Command

In Pine's generic configuration, messages are presented in the order in which they arrive. This default can be changed your Pine configuration in the sort-key section. You can also re-sort the folder on demand with the sort: $ command. Sorting a folder does not actually rearrange the sequence of message in the folder they are saved in -- it just re-arranges how the messages are presented to you. This means that Pine has to do the work of sorting every time you change sort order. Sometimes, especially with PC-Pine or with large folders, this could take a while.

Expunge/Exclude Command

Expunge/Exclude: X is the command Pine uses to actually remove all messages marked for deletion (marked with a "D" in the left margin of the folder index. With your email messages, expunge literally deletes the messages. With newsgroups or shared mailboxes, where you don't have permission to actually remove the messages, Pine only removes the messages from your view of the folder, but they are not erased.

Pine asks you whether you want to expunge messages marked deleted when you leave a folder or exit Pine. The expunge-without-confirm option in your Pine configuration allows you to choose whether or not this takes place with prompting you for confirmation.

Next Interesting Message Command

When you press the TAB key, Pine advances to the next "interesting" message. When you are using Pine to read email, that message is the next new or important message in the folder (a new message is one you have not read before; an important message is one you have flagged as important).

When reading news folders, Pine cannot tell which messages you have read and which you have not, so the next "interesting" message is the next one which you have not yet deleted.

Jump to Message Command

This is Pine's way of allowing you to go straight to a specific message. Just press J and then enter the message number. Pine can also be configured such that typing in any number automatically jumps you to that message (see enable-jump-shortcut in your Pine configuration).

Goto Folder Command

Goto: G lets you bypass Pine's folder selection screens and go directly to another folder. You can select any folder: one in your current collection, one in a different collection or one in a collection you've never even used before.

Pine will help you as much as it can to narrow in on the folder you want. However, if the folder is outside of your defined collections, you are going to have to key in the exact folder location with the right syntax. See the later section on IMAP folder syntax for more details on this.