Subject: Pine 4.0

From: [email-masked] (Steven McElwee)
Date: 11 Nov 1996 09:01:10 -0500

I've noticed that some articles posted to this news group make reference to
pine 4.0. I'm curious. What's the timetable for the release of pine 4.0? Is 
information specific to pine 4.0 available? If so, where? 

Note: I checked URL <http://www.cac.washington.edu/pine> but didn't find 
anything specific to 4.0.

TIA,
Steven McElwee

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From: Terry Gray <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 13 Nov 1996 22:10:00 -0800 (PST)

Steven,
We don't have a timetable for release of 4.0 yet.
Note however that there will not be very many new features in 4.0.
Support for folder hierarchies is the main one.

The primary objective is to adapt Pine to the latest "c-client" libraries
that implement IMAP4rev1.  This will provide a foundation for adding some
new features later on that require IMAP4, such as disconnected operation.

-teg

---

From: Paul O Bartlett <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 15 Nov 1996 19:51:34 -0500

On 14 Nov 1996, Vikas Agnihotri wrote:

> Please.. please.. tell me that Pine's 'N' part i.e. Usenet news reading
> module has been enhanced. 
>  More specifically, support for threading and kill files... This is
> **SORELY** needed. Right now, I am using 'slrn' for news-reading and
> Pine for mail-reading and I hate doing it this way... :(

    I use trn in a kind of batch mode to implement killfiles
immediately before invoking Pine.  It's a little klunky, but it's
better than the nothing of Pine, which I agree is grievously lacking 
this regard.  Email me if you'd like details and a script.

Paul                             <[email-masked]>
----------------------------------------------------------
Paul O. Bartlett, P.O. Box 857, Vienna, VA 22183-0857, USA
Finger, keyserver, or WWW for PGP 2.6.2 public key 
Home Page:  http://www.access.digex.net/~pobart

---

From: Steven C King <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 15 Nov 1996 14:14:44 -0500

> Pine for mail-reading and I hate doing it this way... :(

Well, you can pseudo-thread in PINE by selecting OrderedSubj in sort-key
in Config/Setup.  Of course, all your folders will sort this way by
default.  Though it's not TRUE threading (hence, pseudo), it works quite
well.  As for killfiles, we'll have to wait and see if the PINE
development team will add that feature, which is highly requested.

--
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{ Name: Steven C. King               Institution: Florida State University }
{ Addr: [email-masked]  Major field: MM Performance           }
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---

From: [email-masked] (Holger Lillqvist)
Date: 18 Nov 1996 21:13:40 GMT

On 14 Nov 1996, Vikas Agnihotri wrote:
:  >  More specifically, support for threading and kill files... This is
:  > **SORELY** needed. Right now, I am using 'slrn' for news-reading and
:  > Pine for mail-reading and I hate doing it this way... :(

Paul O Bartlett wrote:
:      I use trn in a kind of batch mode to implement killfiles
:  immediately before invoking Pine.  It's a little klunky, but it's
:  better than the nothing of Pine, which I agree is grievously lacking 
:  this regard.  

Why this rather desperate desire to have both mail and news in one package?
Why not just select and combine the best programs there are around - editor,
mail program, newsreader? Switching between mail and news programs is a
matter of seconds, and takes no longer than switching between functions
inside the rather slow and sluggish pine. 

Wouldn't it be better if the pine team concentrated on making the mail
program better and faster, and at least for the time being left the news
business to specialists?

-- 
[email-masked]

---

From: [email-masked] (DearOldDad)
Date: 19 Nov 1996 04:12:15 GMT

.FI>:
Distribution: 

Holger Lillqvist ([email-masked]) wrote:
: On 14 Nov 1996, Vikas Agnihotri wrote:
: :  >  More specifically, support for threading and kill files... This is
: Paul O Bartlett wrote:
: :  better than the nothing of Pine, which I agree is grievously lacking 

: Why this rather desperate desire to have both mail and news in one package?
: Why not just select and combine the best programs there are around - editor,
: mail program, newsreader? Switching between mail and news programs is a
: matter of seconds, and takes no longer than switching between functions
: inside the rather slow and sluggish pine. 
: Wouldn't it be better if the pine team concentrated on making the mail
: program better and faster, and at least for the time being left the news
: business to specialists?

Thank you Holger; That's the most intelligent post on this newsgroup in
weeks.  He has a good point folks.  PINE is IMHO the best email program
around for both novices and propellerheads.  Sure it has a few hard to use
features, but they're all there if you take the time to read the help and
run thru the Setup and Config and learn how to use the ? context sensitive
help screens.  Having said that, pine is NOT a very good newsreader, in
fact it's probably one of the worst.  TIN is far better if you are on an
ISP with a shell account.  It can thread, has killfile capability, etc all
the stuff everyone is complaining about here.  Mail and News are 2
different animals, and while pine allows us to also copy to news and tin
allows us to also send mail, IMO using pine as a newsreader is about as
smart as using tin as a mail program or using your microwave as an oven or
using your lawnmower as a food processor; They were designed for 2
different things.  That's it; I'm done preaching;  Now I'm gonna post this
from TIN and go to PINE to read my email.  All flames are welcome; It's
cold here ;-) 

                      /\  /\    /~\/\/\    /\      /\  /\   |>>   
John (aka DearOldDad)/  \/\ \/\/  / /  \/\/  \/\/\/  \/  \/\|Fore!
Pocono Mtns  PA     /   /  \/ /  / /email/[email-masked]   /  |    
USA  EARTH     ____/___/____\/__/_ http://www.epix.net/~dad |\____

---

From: Dana Booth <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 19 Nov 1996 06:21:17 GMT

On 19 Nov 1996, DearOldDad wrote:

> ISP with a shell account.

USEnet has become so rediculous these days... Subscribe to one newsgroup,
and you're assaulted with 1000 posts per day, written by folks who
probably barely know how to breathe who feel obligated to crosspost in
about a hundred other newsgroups.

Anyway, that being said (*G*) I've found that I actually enjoy Pine's
newsreader, since anymore I only subscribe to three low volume newsgroups,
where threading and other advanced features aren't really a concern. It's
kind of handy to have the newsgroups listed right below my mail folders.

----------------------------
Dana Booth <[email-masked]>
----------------------------

---

From: [email-masked] (Thomas Roessler)
Date: 19 Nov 1996 17:11:23 GMT

In article <[email-masked]>, 
Paul O Bartlett wrote:

>    I agree that Pine is probably not the most powerful or "best"
>(whatever that means) newsreader available on mnay systems.  (I say
>"probably" because I am not widely experienced in using other
>newsreaders.)  However, many things in life are a tradeoff.  Despite
>the shortcomings of Pine as newsreader, I still use it amd prefer it,
>precisely because I do not have to "switch between mail and news
>programs" at all, let alone in "a matter of seconds."

When I compare it to - e.g. - slrn, pine is missing many, many valuable
features without which you can't survive in today's Usenet (except you
are confining yourself to very few low-traffic groups).  Just the two
most important points:

- There is no such thing as scoring.

- There is no such thing as References-based threading.

BUT - do we really want Pine to be a first-class nwesreader?  Do we
really need yet another Emacs/Netscape?  Is it a good thing at all that
pine includes a news reader?  I don't think so.   I don't think that one
program should try to do almost everything (well, emacs is an exception
;-).  I don't object against a newsreader with all the modern features
that has a user interface similar to the mail user agent and integrates
it when you reply to a news article.

But I'd really like the two of them to be put into different programs -
maybe with lots of shared code, but that can be put into a shared
library.

>tradeoff I, for one, am fully willing to make.  (And in general, I do
>not find Pine "slow and sluggish."  My current problem posting to news
>is not a Pine problem as such.)

Well, the pine which is running here currently takes about 14M of RAM
after having closed a rather huge mail folder.  I wouldn't call that
small or lean.

tlr
-- 
Thomas Roessler                  	  http://www.rhein.de/~roessler/

---

From: Jungshik Shin <[email-masked]>
Date: 19 Nov 1996 21:53:04 -0500

Holger Lillqvist <[email-masked]> wrote:

  I feel exactly the same way. Perhaps, enhanced support for
IMAP4 is much more desirable than spending a lot of time to
enhance news reader part of Pine(threading,kill file,etc).

  Jungshik Shin

---

From: Sean Witham <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 21 Nov 1996 14:29:40 +0000 (GMT)

On 19 Nov 1996, DearOldDad wrote:

>  Mail and News are 2

I use a combination oven to cook *8-)

BTW there is a lot in common between Email and News postings esp. on
mailing lists. At least from the user point of view.

I agree that pine is a poor news tool however why does this need to be
the case. rn wasn't, I like to think of it as dead *8-), exactly a
good News tool either hence the improved tools such as tin.

Pine is an email client it is there to make life easier when dealing
with email. Users tend to treat email and news in a similar manner
except one is more "public" than the other. If this last point
is wrong or correct but an example of the miss uses of pine/news
then fine but otherwise why not have one tool to do the "one" job
of news and email.

I myself don't care if pine does or doesn't handle news as well a tin
as long as it handled email well I'm happy.

--Sean

---

From: [email-masked] (Holger Lillqvist)
Date: 21 Nov 1996 15:56:04 GMT

Mark Crispin wrote:
:  I don't want to add fuel to the flames of the morality of integrating new
:  and mail.  It's proven to be an unproductive discussion.
- clip -
:  IMAP.  We will certainly want to use server-based search if it is
:  available.  Our intent is not to match tin and other newsreaders.  Our
:  intent is to do better.
- clip -  
;  New technologies are always vulnerable to unfavorable comparisons with
:  established technologies.  Just give it a chance to mature, OK?

OK, thanks for a well-argued response. As one who added some fuel I
want to say that I agree that an abstract integrate vs non-integrate
discussion in the end is not very productive. The tenor of my original
post was really that those who right now lack power-user news reader
features could turn to separate programs, instead of whining about
pine's news reader. And as Dana Booth rightly points out in her post,
users' demands vary greatly, there are those who are content as it is.

But (and here's no fuel now:-) one point. I was really talking about
the mail client's relative sluggishness, not the news reader's, which
I've never used. And surely it is important to keep an eye on pine's
big resource demands, to _economize_ routines in all possible ways,
not just to add features?

-- 
[email-masked]
                                - Enjoy life, folks, not only computers.

---

From: Terry Gray <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 21 Nov 1996 17:28:36 -0800 (PST)

> not just to add features?

Holger,
I'm interested in the observation that Pine is sluggish.
My belief is that this is true in some configurations, but definitely not
true in general.  Some patterns I've observed:

 o Almost all of the "sluggishness" reports I've seen have come from
   folks using Sun systems.  Are you in that group?  If so, would
   one of the following items apply to you?

 o People who use Pine in IMAP mode are sometimes hosed when
   opening folders if the server has an rshd that doesn't respond
   quickly.  (Work around: add ":143" to the host specification.)

 o People with large inboxes who are using Bky "mbox" format *may*
   be hosed if they are using a system with limited memory or a
   slow virtual memory subsystem.  (Work around: use a different
   mailbox format and driver that doesn't read the whole folder
   into virtual memory.  Tenex format is one such alternative.)

Thoughts?

-teg

---

From: Mark Crispin <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 19 Nov 1996 10:31:04 -0800

I don't want to add fuel to the flames of the morality of integrating new
and mail.  It's proven to be an unproductive discussion.

I will, however, say that the current state of newsreading in Pine is in
no way "final".  There are several new and quite exciting technologies
under development here.  A number of these pieces are starting to come
together, although it won't be obvious to the end user until the process
is finished. 

4.0 will probably not have any big changes in news reading.  However, 4.0
marks the introduction of some important underlying enabling technology.
You'll start seeing the benefits in subsequent versions. 

We know why Pine's current news reading is "slow and sluggish".  We can
fix it.  Pine gets the information for drawing the browser from the
message headers.  This information is used to build an "envelope", from
which Pine can do many things including draw a browser, do replies, and
build a filtered header. The envelope can also be used to thread, but that
requires getting envelopes for all messages which takes a while.

Most newsreaders take advantage of the unpublished XOVER extension in
NNTP.  XOVER is only suitable for drawing a browser and computing threads; 
you still have to get the headers to do anything else.  Also, not all NNTP
servers have XOVER; if you have the misfortune to use such a server you'll
discover how wretched tin performance will become.

We will use XOVER and have full news threading in a future version of
Pine.  We will also take advantage of the new NNTP extensions being
discussed now in the IETF; for example, the NNTP guys are adding
server-based searching that is quite similar to the capability that is in
IMAP.  We will certainly want to use server-based search if it is
available.  Our intent is not to match tin and other newsreaders.  Our
intent is to do better.

From my perspective, the claim that Pine should abandon news support
because dedicated newsreaders (such as tin) thread better is something
like the claim that these new-fangled automobiles should be abandoned
since horses are much more reliable than gasoline engines.  New
technologies are always vulnerable to unfavorable comparisons with
established technologies.  Just give it a chance to mature, OK?

-- Mark --	Read http://www.imap.org for the "best kept secret in email"

DoD #0105, R90/6 pilot, FAX: (206) 685-4045  ICBM: N 47 39'35" W 122 18'39"
Science does not emerge from voting, party politics, or public debate.

---

From: [email-masked] (R. Stewart Ellis)
Date: 21 Nov 1996 14:12:40 GMT

>: inside the rather slow and sluggish pine. 

Why switch?  If you are on a windowing computer you should be able to have
both pine and a real newsreader open at the same time.  I run Solaris 2.x
and always have pine open in an xterm in the lower right hand corner.  I
usually read news with nn in an xterm right above it.  You could do
something similar with telnet on Windoze or MuckOS.  When I am logged in
from my ancient DOS laptop from the road I use shell job control to have them
both running and switch back and forth using that mechanism so that I do not
have to stop or start either one.

 >: business to specialists?

I maintain nn, tin, elm and pine at my site.  I use nn and pine.  Many of my
users really like pine for reading news when they first start out, but
almost any of them who become familiar with the feature set of nn or tin
switch to one of those for reading news.  The real news power users seem to
prefer nn.

I think if the pine team would ignore all requests for enhancement of the
news features and concentrate on keeping pine the best MUA I have used the
world would truly be a better place.  I think efforts to make it rival nn,
trn, tin, etc. are ill-placed and ill-considered.  Leave news there for the
non power user, but don't do anything except fix egregious bugs.

 >the stuff everyone is complaining about here.  Mail and News are 2

If you have a really fast, easy-to-use newsreader, threads and advanced
killfile features are not the most important thing.  I dislike reading news
with tin almost as much as I dislike reading news with pine or netscape.
I have been reading news several hours a day since the late 80's and there
is nothing else that allows me to wade through 1000 or more newsposts that
might accumulate in the groups I read regularly in a couple of days away
than nn.

-- 
  R.Stewart(Stew) Ellis, Assoc.Prof., (Off)810-762-9765   ___________________
  Humanities & Social Science,  GMI Eng.& Mgmt.Inst. ()  /   _____  ______
  Flint, MI 48504    Free speech and free software!  /\ /        / /  /  / /
  Web admin:  http://www.gmi.edu/      [email-masked]   /________/ /  /  / /

---

From: [email-masked] (Vikas Agnihotri)
Date: 21 Nov 1996 19:08:08 GMT

On 21 Nov 1996 14:12:40 GMT, R. Stewart Ellis <[email-masked]> wrote:
[You wrote ]I have been reading news several hours a day since the late 80's and there
 
 Reading Usenet for several hours a day? Ummm.. What do you do for a living? 
I would sure like to work there :) Ahhh.. so some people are actually living
the life I am dreaming of :)

--Vikas

---

From: [email-masked] (Vikas Agnihotri)
Date: 21 Nov 1996 19:12:48 GMT

On Tue, 19 Nov 1996 10:31:04 -0800, Mark Crispin <[email-masked]> wrote:
[You wrote ]We will use XOVER and have full news threading in a future version of
[You wrote ]Pine.  We will also take advantage of the new NNTP extensions being
[You wrote ]discussed now in the IETF; for example, the NNTP guys are adding
[You wrote ]server-based searching that is quite similar to the capability that is in
[You wrote ]IMAP.  We will certainly want to use server-based search if it is
[You wrote ]available.  Our intent is not to match tin and other newsreaders.  Our
[You wrote ]intent is to do better.

  Mark, while we are on this topic, where can I get details about the latest
NNTP protocol? RFC977 has become as old as troff/tbl :) Is the latest
NNTP being used by the newsreaders today published somewhere? Can you please
point me to it?

[You wrote ]
[You wrote ]From my perspective, the claim that Pine should abandon news support
[You wrote ]because dedicated newsreaders (such as tin) thread better is something
[You wrote ]like the claim that these new-fangled automobiles should be abandoned
[You wrote ]since horses are much more reliable than gasoline engines.  New
[You wrote ]technologies are always vulnerable to unfavorable comparisons with
[You wrote ]established technologies.  Just give it a chance to mature, OK?

  A superb and dignified rebuttal. I respect you for this.

--Vikas

---

From: Rob Fulwell <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 27 Nov 1996 17:36:02 -0800

On 27 Nov 1996, Holger Lillqvist wrote:

> Thanks for interesting suggestions - got me realize it's time to enhance
> my working routines. Starting slowly, I am beginning with 'screen', a
> unix program allowing you simultaneously to run several programs on
> full-screen windows, switching between which is lightning fast. Xterm
> next...

Let me make a small off-topic comment that Screen is perhaps the single
most useful program I have ever seen.  I regularly connect from many
different types of machines (Xterms, Windows and Mac, and my home machine
is a Linux box) and Screen allows me to run a half-dozen of my favorite
programs (some on remote computers) from all these platforms and switch
instantly between them.  The program is very configurable and can even be
password protected.  The ability to detach from a Screen session and
re-attach to all the (still running but sleeping) processes at any time
works so well that I will often run the same instance of Pine for weeks at
a time, although I may access it from dozens of different computers. 

I'm also quite thrilled that the combination of Linux/Screen/14.4k modem
has enabled my 386 to retain usefulness as an actual computing tool,
rather than just a doorstop.

<end gush mode>
--
Rob Fulwell <[email-masked]> DoD#0718-GS850L ACCUSTAT:0.640
http://weber.u.washington.edu/~miser or keyserver for PGP public key
NOTICE: Please see the above web page before sending commercial e-mail

---

From: [email-masked] (Holger Lillqvist)
Date: 27 Nov 1996 19:39:17 GMT

R. Stewart Ellis wrote:

:  Why switch?  If you are on a windowing computer you should be able to have
:  both pine and a real newsreader open at the same time.  I run Solaris 2.x
:  and always have pine open in an xterm in the lower right hand corner.  I
:  usually read news with nn in an xterm right above it.  You could do
:  something similar with telnet on Windoze or MuckOS.  When I am logged in
:  from my ancient DOS laptop from the road I use shell job control to have them
:  both running and switch back and forth using that mechanism so that I do not
:  have to stop or start either one.

:  If you have a really fast, easy-to-use newsreader, threads and advanced
:  killfile features are not the most important thing.  I dislike reading news
:  with tin almost as much as I dislike reading news with pine or netscape.

Speed, easiness to use and sophisticated threading and scoring features
(for those who want them) can really be combined. For some time I have
been reading news with slrn, and find it superb.
    The same goes for the slim but powerful, beautifully designed mail
client mutt, which I have been using for a couple of weeks.
    However, both these programs require of the user some
initialization time and effort, for scanning through the manual, and
trimming the configuration file to one's satisfaction. That fixed, ah..
    Perhaps this is a basic problem with popular programs like pine
and tin: they are trying to satisfy _both_ the absolute computer
beginners, occasional users, lazy never-open-a-manual people(argh!)
with a "friendly" interface and tons of help and config menus, _and_ the
power users with an ever growing battery of features. An impossible
goal, _really_ satisyfying no one, and making the programs too heavy and
resource consuming? 

-- 
[email-masked]
University of Helsinki * Nordica / Institute of literature

---

From: [email-masked] (R. Stewart Ellis)
Date: 26 Nov 1996 12:04:27 GMT

> Reading Usenet for several hours a day? Ummm.. What do you do for a living? 

I am a college professor, which you should have been able to deduce from the
sig, and a UNIX and Internet consultant, which my not be clear from my sig.
In either of those you do a *lot* of reading because if you do not stay up
with what is going on your market value plummets (not to mention
professional pride).

 >the life I am dreaming of :)

If you are not capable of paying enough attention to detail to figure out at
least the first job above, then you probably would not be any good at the
second one.  If you think that all I do is read news several hours a day,
then you fundamentally fail to understand the work load of the average
college professor.   :|