Subject: Newbie Guide

From: [email-masked] (Red Green)
Date: 14 Mar 95 17:13:38 CST

This was written for students, faculty and staff at the University of 
Kansas, but since there are so many beginning questions I thought I would 
post it here.  Note there are several references to our systems, please 
ignore.

Feel free to reprint, but acknowledge Academic Computing Services at the 
University of Kansas.

--
Laura Green
Consultant
Academic User Services
University of Kansas
[email-masked]

-------------------------------------------------------
What is electronic mail? 

Electronic mail is similar to postal mail.  You
create a message, address it, and send it on its way.  Pine is a simple,
easy-to-use electronic mail program that runs on the multiuser systems
FALCON, LARK, KUHUB, STAT1, and UKANAIX.  After you successfull y login to
your multiuser system account you may access the Pine e-mail program. 
Message are created in Pine using the Pico editor, which is similar to
most popular word processors.
	For more information on the Pine e-mail program look in KUfacts,
the campus-wide information system, under Departmental information ->
Academic Computing Services -> Online Documentation or open the URL:
http://kufacts.cc.ukans.edu/cwis/units/acs/documen
tation/General/writeups_index.html
   
Your e-mail address 

Like a postal address, your e-mail address is made up
of several parts: [email-masked] Your username is the name you
use to login to the multiuser system.  Suppose for example your username
is joe.  The hostname is the name of the computer where you have your
account, in this case falcon.  The domain name is the same for everyone
using Comp uting Services systems: cc.ukans.edu The e-mail address for joe
would be: [email-masked]

How to get started 

Start the Pine e-mail program after you have logged into your account on
FALCON, KUHUB, LARK, STAT1, or UKANAIX, by entering the following command
from the system prompt:  pine
	If this is the first time you have started the Pine program, a
Welcome to Pine screen is displayed.  Press any key to go to the Main
Menu. 

Read messages 
If you have new electronic mail, you are notified after
login to your multiuser account. To read new mail messages: 

1.	From the Main Menu in Pine, press I (or i, Pine is not case sensitive) to open the INBOX folder.  New incoming e-mail messages are numbered in the INBOX folder according to time received and are indicated by an N next to the message number.  
2.	Use the up- and down-arrow keys or type the message number to select a message, then press <enter> (or <return>) to view the message.
	Press <spacebar> to read the next page of a multi-page message.  Press the hyphen key to go back to the previous page.  Press <tab> or N to read the next unread message.
To return to the index of mail messages press I.
To return to the Main Menu press M.

Reply to a message

The Reply command allows you to send an answer directly to the person who
sent you an e-mail message. 

1.	View the original message. 

2. 	Press R to Reply to the message.  To include the original message text,
press Y in response to the prompt. 

3.	You do not need to enter the e-mail address of the person in the To: 
field.  The Subject: field is filled in as: Re: (the original message 
subject line)

4. 	Enter your reply into the Pico text editor.  Pico is a full-screen
editor, which means you may use many features such as cutting and pasting
text and a spell checker.  To find out more about Pico commands, press ^G
for help or see the in BriefÑPico: A
 simple text editor on the KU multiuser systems. 

5. 	When you are finished press ^X to send the message.  You return to the
message screen. Note: The ^ character refers to the <ctrl> key on a PC
(IBM-compatible) or the <control> key on a Macintosh.  To execute commands
requiring the <control> keys, hold down the <ctrl> or <control> key and
press the required character. 

Delete a message

Delete erases a message from a folder.  In order to conserve disk space
delete messages you have read and do not want to save.  (To save messages
in another folder see the in BriefÑElectronic mail on the multiuser
systems: Pine, advanced commands.)

1. 	View the message to be deleted or highlight it in the index of
messages. 

2.	Press D to Delete the message.
	Press U to Undelete a message.

Compose a message

Compose allows you to write and mail a message to any electronic address on the Internet. 

1. From anywhere within the program, press C to access the Compose Message
command.  You are now in the Pico text editor. 

2. In the To: field, enter the e-mail address of the person you are
sending the message to then press <tab>. 

3. If you would like to copy others on the message, enter their addresses,
separated by a comma, in the Cc: field then press <tab>. 

4. To attach a file to the mail message enter the file name in the
Attchmnt: field. (See the Advanced Pine in Brief.) Press <tab>. 

5.  Enter a one-line description of the message in the Subject: field. 
Press <tab>. 

6. Enter your message in the Message Text area. 

7. Press ^X to send the message, and confirm by pressing Y.  Cancel the
message at any time by pressing ^C. 

Print messages

You may be able to print messages directly to a printer attached to your
desktop computer.  To print messages you must ensure that your Pine
printer setup is configured properly.  To check your printer setup: 

1. Go to the Main Menu from anywhere in the program by pressing M. 

2. Enter an S to access the Setup command. 

3. Enter a P for Printer. 

4. Enter a 1 to direct the messages to your local printer,
attached-to-ansi. 

Note: Read the information in number 1 to determine if you can print. 
Some attached printers may not work with this command.  If you dial-in,
whether or not you can print may depend on the terminal emulation or
communications program you are using. 

5. To Print a mail message, view the message on the screen and press Y. 

Quit Pine

To Quit Pine press Q from anywhere within the program.  If you deleted
messages from folders, you are asked to confirm the deletions.  If you
moved messages from folders, you are asked to confirm the move. 

Notes and hints 

¥ Dial-in users may experience problems with garbage
characters on the screen and keyboard malfunctions when using Pine.  This
may be caused by Pine not recognizing your terminal type.  If you are
having problems on KUHUB, enter the following command from
 the system prompt:
	pico  login.com
Add the following line:
	$ set terminal/device=vt100

On the other multiuser systems, FALCON, LARK, STAT1, and UKANAIX you need
to determine which UNIX shell you are using.  If you are unsure which
shell you are using from the system prompt enter the command: 
	echo  $SHELL

The letters ksh indicate the Korn shell, csh indicates the C shell.
	If you are using the Korn shell add the following line to the file
.profile: 
	export   TERM=vt100

If you are using the C shell add the following line to the file .login:
	setenv   term  vt100  
		To edit the files using the Pico text editor, from the system
		prompt enter the command:
		pico  filename
	where filename is the name of the file you are editing.

Save messages in folders

Mail messages may be moved from the INBOX folder and organized by topic in
message folders.  When considering which messages to save remember that
disk space is limited so please save only those messages you need.  To
save a message to a folder: 

1. View the message on the screen. 

2. Press S to Save the message. 

3. Enter the folder name and press <enter>.  If the folder does not exist
you will be prompted to create the folder. 

4. If you would like to save to an existing folder and have forgotten its
name, press ^T to see a list of existing mail folders. 

Save messages as text files

An e-mail message may be saved or exported to text file in your home
directory or a subdirectory.  The file can then be copied, moved, edited,
or printed.  To Export a mail message to a text file: 

1. View the message on the screen. 

2. Press E to Export the message. 

3. Enter a file name for the message and press <enter>. 

The message is now saved as a text file. 

Including text files

Text files created in another editor or on your desktop computer may be
included in a mail message.  If the text file was created on a desktop
computer it must be saved as a ACSII (or DOS) text file.  It may be copied
to the home directory of your multius er account in one of two ways: 

¥	If you dial-in to your multiuser account using Kermit or some other
communications program that supports the Kermit file transfer protocol,
follow the instructions in the Kermit in Brief for the commands to copy a
file from your home computer to your mu ltiuser account. 

¥	If you dial-in via a SLIP or PPP connection or have an on campus
Ethernet connection, you may use one of the shareware ftp programs, WS_FTP
or Fetch to transfer the file from your desktop computer to your multiuser
account.  See the appropriate program documentation. 

To include a text file in a mail message:

1. From anywhere within the Pine program, press C to Compose a new mail
message.  Enter the e-mail address and subject line. 

2. Position the cursor in the message area where the text file is to be
inserted and press ^R. 

3. Enter the name of the file and press <enter> or to view a list of all
the files in your home directory press ^T and select the file name from
the file list. 

Attaching files

Files located on your multiuser account may be Attached to a mail message
as a separate file.  An attached file may be of any file format, i.e.,
text or binary. An attached file is encoded in the MIME format.  For
someone to decode the attached file, they also must be using a MIME 
compatible mail reader, such as Pine, to read their e-mail.

1. From the Main Menu press C to Compose a message. 

2. In the Attchmnt: field enter the name of the file.  To see a list of
all the file name in your home directory press ^T.  Highlight the filename
and press S to select the file to attach.  The file name appears in the
Attchmnt: field of the mail header. 

3. You may attach more than one file, by seperating the file names with a
comma and no spaces. 

Signature files

A signature file is a text file containing your name, affiliation, mail
address, and anything of interest you would like to append to every mail
message you send.  By convention, signatures are not more than 5 lines
long.  Pine checks for a file in your h ome directory called .signature
(or on KUHUB .sig) and appends it to outgoing mail messages. 
	To create a signature file using the Pico editor:

1. Enter the following command at the system prompt:  pico .signature (or
.sig on KUHUB). 

2. Enter the text of your signature file.  Press ^X to save the file. 
When you Compose, Reply, or Forward using Pine, you see the signature in
the Message Text area.  It may be deleted (^K) if it is not needed. 
Address Book

Your Address Book organizes e-mail addresses and allows you to assign each perosn a nickname.  When you Compose, Reply, or Forward a mail message you enter the persons nick name instead of full e-mail address.  To add entries to your address book you may 
either copy them from incoming e-mail messages or enter them into the address book manually.  To copy an e-mail address from an incoming mail message to the address book:

1. View the message on the screen. 

2. Press T to Take the address and place it in the address book. 

3. Enter a nickname to refer to the person. 

4. Enter the full name of the person as last name first, followed by a
comma then a space, and the first name. 

5. Enter the e-mail address of the person.
	The entry is added to the address book. 

To retrieve an e-mail address from the address book: 

1. From the Main Menu press C to Compose a new message. 

2. Enter the nickname of the person in the To: field. The nickname expands
to the full name and e-mail address. 

Distribution mailing lists

In the address book you may create distribution lists to send e-mail to
people with similar interests, such as members of an organization or
department.  To create a distribution mailing list: 

1. From the Main Menu press A to access the Address Book. 

2. Press S to Create a List. 

3. Enter a long name for the list. 

4. Enter the nickname for the list that you will use to refer to the list
by in the To: field of Compose. 

5. Enter the e-mail addresses of the persons on the mailing list.  If the
person is already in your address book, enter only the nickname you refer
to them by. 

6. When you have entered all the addresses enter a blank address to
finish. 

To use the distribution mailing list, enter the nick name of the list in
the To: field of the Compose, Reply, or Forward commands. 

Forward your mail

Your mail messages may be forwarded to another computer system on the
Internet.  On FALCON, LARK, STAT1, or UKANAIX create file called .forward. 
To create the file using the Pico editor, enter the following from the
system prompt:
	pico  .forward

Enter the address where your mail is to be forwarded.  For example:
	[email-masked]

Press <enter> after the address and exit Pico by pressing ^X.
	On KUHUB, from the DCL prompt ($) enter the command: mail

At the Mail> prompt enter the new address: SET FORWARD
"IN%""[email-masked]""" (those are double quotes, and there are
three at the end of the command.)

Quit Pine

To Quit Pine press Q from anywhere within the program.  If you deleted
messages you are asked to confirm the deletions. 

Applying a command to several mail messages

There are many times when you would like to apply one command to several
mail messages at once.  For example, you might want to Delete or Print
more than one message at a time.  The Select command allows you to select
messages and the Apply command performs an action on the selected
messages.  To select messages: 

1. Go to the folder index by pressing I. 

2. Press the semicolon (;).  You may select messages either one a time, or
by some type of criteria.  The criteria you may use includes: 

¥	All the messages in the open folderÑpress A.

¥	Only the current messageÑpress C. 

¥	Certain messages by numbersÑpress N and enter a comma-delimited list of
message numbers. 

¥	By message dateÑpress D and enter On, Before, or Since (O,B, or S) and
the date. 

¥	By a text string in the Subject or From fieldsÑpress T and enter the
text. 

3. Continue to Select messages until all the required messages are
selected. 

To Apply a command to selected messages:

1. Press A to access the Apply command. 

2. From the Apply menu choose one of the following commands: D to Delete,
R to Reply, F to Forward, Y to Print, T to Take the Address, S to Save to
a messages folder, E to Export to a text file, * to Flag as important, and
| to Pipe to a UNIX command.