Subject: Clearing the INBOX

From: Philip Hazel <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 28 Jan 1994 12:07:59 +0000 (GMT)

We run Pine on a multi-user Sun box, in the normal configuration where 
mail is delivered into /var/spool/mail/<userid>.

A problem that is now beginning to hit us is that new users of computers 
don't appreciate that their INBOX is actually in a different filing 
system to their other folders, and they tend to leave all their mail in 
the INBOX (many of them don't even know how to move it to another 
folder). Consequently, our mail partition is beginning to show signs of 
strain.

There are obviously various measures we can take to relieve this, but it 
was pointed out that Pine is different to many other MUAs in this area. 
MH, for example, always copies the messages out of the INBOX when you 
read them. Elm won't exit with messages still in the INBOX unless you 
tell it to leave them there; by default it copies them to a folder called 
(if I remember correctly) "saved-messages".

We don't want to deliver mail into users' home directories, for a number 
of reasons (possible non-availability if remote, and unexpected and 
unpredictable exhaustion of quota being two main ones). 

Could you consider adding to Pine a feature like that of Elm, whereby the 
user is asked whether (s)he would like to have any mail remaining in the 
INBOX moved to a folder on exiting from Pine? Preferably controlled by an 
option in the global conf file.

Regards,
Philip

--
Philip Hazel                   University Computing Service,
[email-masked]             New Museums Site, Cambridge CB2 3QG,
[email-masked]          England.  Phone: +44 223 334714

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From: Mike Roch <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 28 Jan 1994 14:34:36 +0000 (GMT)

In 3.8x there's a 

read-message-folder=

entry in .pinerc. This can be set to old-mail, etc etc.

Mike

==============================================================================
Mike Roch, Computer Services Centre,                          Tel: 0734 318430
The University, Whiteknights, Reading, RG6 2AF                Fax: 0734 753094

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From: Barry Landy <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 28 Jan 1994 14:49:30 GMT

> entry in .pinerc. This can be set to old-mail, etc etc.

Just what I was going to say! I use it for my own use of PINE.

The only problem is that the system default is off (no action). For unix 
users the system config could be changed (in which case I suppose there 
would be no way of turning it off in the local .pinerc, only overriding 
with a different value); for PC-PINE users the only hope is persuasion.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Barry Landy                        Computer Laboratory:+44 223 334600
Head of Systems and Development    Direct line:        +44 223 334713
University of Cambridge Computing Service
New Museums Site                   Email:[email-masked]
Pembroke Street, Cambridge CB2 3QG

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From: Mike Brudenell <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 28 Jan 1994 16:32:19 +0000 (GMT)

You have two choices....

1)  Use the .pinerc variable (already mentioned in other replies) to set 
a "read messages" folder.  Remember this can be set globally in the 
system Pine configuration file if you wish.

However this moves the read messages into a totally separate folder that 
is treated just as any other folder (ie, quite separate from the INBOX).  
This means that users must explicitly open this folder in order to 
re-read messages they have already read once.

Doesn't sound too bad, perhaps, but it's similar to the NEWMAIL and MAIL 
folders in VAX/VMS MAIL, which I found quite difficult to explain to 
people at times.

A better choice might be...

2)  Modify the Pine source code to call the mboxdriver routines *before* 
the bezerkdriver routines when it is initialising the list of mail 
drivers (I think it's in the main pine.c file from memory).  [Basically 
it's a case of add one line in two places.]

The mbox driver causes mail in the INBOX to be (silently) moved to a file 
called "mbox" in the user's home directory.  This is then opened and 
treated as the INBOX.

The upshot is that sendmail (or whatever) delivers mail to your system 
mail area (so you don't run into user quota problems).  However as soon 
as the user starts Pine these messages get moved into their home 
directory (and so get charged against their personal disk quota).  If 
there isn't enough disk quota an error message is displayed, and the new 
messages don't get shown (and so can't be read).

One gotcha is that the code as supplied in the mbox.c file requires the 
presence of a (possibly empty, if not must be validly formatted) file called 
"mbox" in the home directory for the mail moving to occur.  No doubt this 
can be easily changed along the lines of "If the file isn't there don't 
fail, just create one".

The advantage of this approach is that unseen and read messages are still 
rationalised into one folder (still called INBOX within Pine, but 
actually $HOME/mbox) rather than forcing the split into totally separate 
folders.  It also means that users can't get round it by overrinding the 
systemwide variable setting in their .pinerc file!

We're looking at trying this out on a few of our own Staff, but need to 
be sure it'll work before doing it to users.  ... It's a bit of a one-way 
street to go down!

							Mike B-)

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From: VampLestat <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 28 Jan 1994 15:46:57 -0800 (GMT-0800)

> be sure it'll work before doing it to users.  ... It's a bit of a one-way 

We've done this, and so far things look fine.  Its also helped out alot 
by reducing all the mail that normally gets left in the spool, which 
overflowed a while bnack, causing some chaos.

_O_  Ryan L. Watkins                                     [email-masked]
 |   Academic Computing Services Cal State Long Beach - Network Support
 |   pgp key available via 'finger [email-masked]' or key server

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From: Paul Holbrook <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 31 Jan 1994 15:27:57 -0500 (EST)

FYI, we've been running using the MBOX driver (moves the mail from
/var/spool/mail to a file named mbox in the user's home directory) for
about 1.5 years (back to Summer 92) on about 100-300 accounts.  We've had
no problems over the time. 

To address the problem that there needs to be an MBOX file in the home 
directory, we create one when we create the user's account.

J. Paul Holbrook
CICNet Network Services Manager
[email-masked]    (313) 998-7680