Subject: Re: Some problems being faced in PINE 3.91 under VMS

From: [email-masked] (Alan J Flavell)
Date: Wed, 12 Apr 1995 13:12:22 GMT

In article <[email-masked]>
[email-masked] writes:
 
>Sorry to bother you all on this group. I recently installed PINE 3.91 under
>VMS 5.5-2 & UCX 2.0E, which I got from VMS.HUJI.AC.IL.
 
The current version at HUJI seems to be BETA_4.  Did you use that?
I can only respond to a few of your questions from my own experience,
which was done first with a fixed version of BETA_3, and later with
BETA_4, using native MULTINET  (which is of course different in some
ways from using any other TCP stack and NETLIB).
 
>2. I have no luck with NEWS also, though I have declared nntp_server as my
>   machine kuc01.kuniv.edu.kw (which is an NNTP server which we are using
>   locally).
 
It works for me, although I find I prefer to use the Madison NEWSRDR
that I have already been familiar with on the VMS platform.
 
>When, I go to list of folders under PINE, it shows me:
>
>   News-collection <News on kuc01.kuniv.edu.kw>   (Remote)
...
>   [ ** Empty List ** Select Here to Try Re-expanding]
 
yes, I get both of those, at the start...
 
(adding a group)
>   [News Group doesn't exist]
 
No, adding a group with a known name works fine for me, and      ]
requesting list of all groups gives a massive list that looks
reasonable to me.
 
>                                                     Do I need to create
>   .newsrc or newsrc. file manually & what is format for the entries in it?
 
I don't think so.  I just did a test for you, renaming .newsrc to
.somethingelse and restarting (HUJI)PINE.  It gave me the same display as
we already discussed.  I subscribed to a group (uk.test) and it said
"Creating news state SYS$LOGIN:.newsrc".
 
>3. Though I am able to send/receive mail using PINE by setting logical
>   name PINE_MAIL_PROTOCOL as SMTP but if I define smtp_server as our
>   machine (kuc01.kuniv.edu.kw & deassign PINE_MAIL_PROTOCOL), I get
>   message:
>
>   [Error connecting to mail server: ]
 
Well,  I get different results.  It works fine for me when I
define smtp_server (pointing back at the same VAX system where I'm
running PINE, just like Yehavi's example in the README.VMS), but
it didn't work when I tried the other method.  I didn't go into
details about why it didn't work, sorry.
 
>   What is the difference between the above two mechanisms (ie defining
>   PINE_MAIL_PROTOCOL but no SMTP_SERVER & not defining PINE_MAIL_PROTOCOL
>   but setting smtp_server)? Why the first mechanism works but the second
>   does not work (even though TELNET KUC01.KUNIV.EDU.KW 25 works fine & I
>   am able to log into SMTP interactively)?
 
Well all that I can say is that it works for me, using MULTINET.
I can only suggest that the first place you should look for problems
is your NETLIB, but as I didn't use that myself, I can't say more.
 
Anyway, if you have a method that works, what is your problem?  ;-)
 
>4. I could not find a way in PINE (possibly did not read documentation
>   carefully) to select only some mail items in a mail folder based on
>   date,from etc? Under VMS mail, this can be done by DIR/SINCE,DIR/FROM
>   etc. Can some body suggest, how can I achive this in PINE?
 
Selection criteria.  You need to enable the aggregate-command-set
option before the "; Select" command becomes available, I think.
 
I don't suppose you get precisely the same selection criteria in
PINE than are available in VMS MAIL, but after all, you don't use the
ability to execute MAIL when you want to use its particular functions...
 
hope this helps.  You can also look at my Web page on this:
   http://d1.ph.gla.ac.uk/~flavell/vms-pine.html        (~ = %7E)

---

From: [email-masked]
Date: Wed, 12 Apr 95 10:49:21 GMT

Sorry to bother you all on this group. I recently installed PINE 3.91 under
VMS 5.5-2 & UCX 2.0E, which I got from VMS.HUJI.AC.IL. It is a wonderful
package & lot of effort has been done to port it to VMS. In genearal it works
fine for me but I am facing some problems described as under:

1. Creating of mail message, attaching a GIF or PS file & sending it works fine
   On receiving end, I can receive normal text mail & also GIF attachments
   (sent by PINE & encoded in BASE64) but retrieving .PS attachment gives
   message "Don't know how to display attachment Apllication/POSTSCRIPT".
   I created a .mailcap file with following entries:

   Application/POSTSCRIPT; gv %s;
   application/postscript; gv %s;

   I have ghostscript & ghostscript on my site & I can use GV to view .PS
   files outside PINE. Is it possible that MAILCAP facility is not implemented
   in VMS port. I compiled PINE with DEBUG & default debug 9. In debug files
   it only shows entries for mailcap_free & not for mc_init, mailcap:
   process_file ,mc_get_entry etc which are routines for building the mailcap
   entries in memory (possibly). From this it seems that PINE ( VMS port) does
   not support mailcap facility (Kindly correct me if I am wrong & let me know
   where am I making mistake -- may be format of entries in my .mailcap file is
   incorrect).

2. I have no luck with NEWS also, though I have declared nntp_server as my
   machine kuc01.kuniv.edu.kw (which is an NNTP server which we are using
   locally). When, I go to list of folders under PINE, it shows me:

   [Now in collection <News on kuc01.kuniv.edu.kw>]

   Attempt to add any group which I read regularly (by FNEWS program which is
   an NEWS client on our own machine), says

   If I try to match All Grps it says [No groups to select from!]

   The following messages are logged into .PINE-DEBUG1

          nntp-server : kuc01.kuniv.edu.kw
   is_list: name=nntp-server
          nntp-server : kuc01.kuniv.edu.kw
          nntp-server : kuc01.kuniv.edu.kw
   Context *{kuc01.kuniv.edu.kw/nntp}[] type: REMOTE BBOARD OLDTECH
   ***** context *{kuc01.kuniv.edu.kw/nntp}[]
   find_folders_in_context: *{kuc01.kuniv.edu.kw/nntp}[]
   find_folders: mail_open(*{kuc01.kuniv.edu.kw/nntp}) FAILED.

   Can some body suggest me why all these messages & why the list of news
   groups is empty even though I use FNEWS happily ? Do I need to create
   .newsrc or newsrc. file manually & what is format for the entries in it?

5. Is there any way in PINE by which I can send mail to user on my machine
   with out using SMTP (ie all local mail to be handled by VMSMAIL)? In 
   .PINE-DEBUG1 I find the following settings:

    Local Domain name being used ""
    Host name being used ""
    Mail Domain name being used (by c-client too) "kuc01.kuniv.edu.kw"

   Why Local Domain name & Host name are "" & can this will cause all mail
   to go via SMTP rather than VMSMAIL? If yes, how can I correct this 
   situation? I have defined user-domain as kuc01.kuniv.edu.kw in my
   .pinerc file.

6. I see the following information in .pinerc-debug1:
 
   Context SYS[] type: LOCAL
   Context *{kuc01.kuniv.edu.kw/nntp}[] type: REMOTE BBOARD OLDTECH

   ***** context SYS[]
   LABEL: SYS[]
   1) NEWMAIL

   ***** context *{kuc01.kuniv.edu.kw/nntp}[]
   LABEL: News on kuc01.kuniv.edu.kw

   Where can I find the details on the format of these context & LABEL
   information?

   What do type: BBOARD OLDTECH mean in case of

   Context *{kuc01.kuniv.edu.kw/nntp}[]

I am really very sorry for such a long post but I am looking forward to get
solutions for my problems from you experienced PINE users on net.

You can reply me on my E-mail address also: [email-masked]

Thanks a lot in advance.