Subject: Suggestions for Pine 4.00 (fwd)

From: Jan Kalin <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 29 Jun 1998 10:40:00 +0200 (Romance Daylight Time)

Hi to all from a fresh subscriber to the mailing list!

First of all, apologies for the previous letter. It slipped through my
fingers (I pressed ^X instead of ^C :) Maybe the keys for "Cancel" and
"Send" should be a bit more distant from each other. But that was not what
I wanted to write about.

I'm delighted to have seen that a new version of Pine is due to be released
(I won't ask when :) It is the only mail client I've found up to now that
works perfectly in all the environments I work in, Silicon Graphics' Irix
6.2, WinNT, Win95 and Win3.11 (this is also one of the reasons I use vim
for editing ASCII files on all these platforms).

I was, however, dissapoined to hear that it will not yet have possibility
of off-line operation and I believe, in these days of portable computers,
that it would be a *major* plus for Pine.

What I propose is actually simpler than off-line or disconnected operation.
Let me explain what I've done and maybe this will clarify the idea. I have
a portable PC with Windows NT and the imap server is a SGI Indy running
Irix. Unfortunately, I only have access to Internet during the office hours
and I don't have time in the office for the longer letters. Now, since Pine
needs to connect to an imap server to compose a message, I've solved the
problem by installing a free imap server for WinNT on my portable. Actually
it's a complete mail server (Vintra), but it also understands imap.

This means that now I can log on to the local server, compose a letter at
home and postpone it, then, at the office and using a different .pinerc,
log on to the real server and send the letter. I created some folders
locally, where I keep copies of correspondence with people with whom I
exchange longer letters, otherwise all the folders are on the server.

What I believe is a possible and a very simple way of solving (temporarily
at least) the lack of off-line or disconnected mode is to incorporate a
'dummy' imap server into Pine itself. If you couldn't log on to a real imap
server, you'd be given a choice to use the dummy server and you could then
compose and postpone messages but not mail them. The dummy server's INBOX
would, of course, be empty (or possibly nonexistent), but at least you'd be
able to see local folders.

I *know* that you can achieve the same thing by just editing a file in a
temporary directory and then reading it into a composition, but it would be
more convenient to be able to work like I described.

Cheers,
Jan

-----
  Jan Kalin, male, preferred languages: English, Slovene.
  See http://charm.zag.si/ for contact information

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From: Vinnie Chassot <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 29 Jun 1998 02:13:52 -0700 (PDT)

> "Send" should be a bit more distant from each other. But that was not what

I agree with this one! I've embarrased myself one to many times this way.

> more convenient to be able to work like I described.

of course, the ultimate in convenience is just to have a machine you can
log in remotely too -- and keep everything on it..but then I've always
been a bit of a packrat :)

Vinnie

---

From: Jan Kalin <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 29 Jun 1998 11:38:35 +0200 (Romance Daylight Time)

On Mon, 29 Jun 1998, Vinnie Chassot wrote:

> > temporary directory and then reading it into a composition, but it
> > would be more convenient to be able to work like I described.
> 

Ah, yes, but that implies that you always have access to the network. In
fact, the suggestion I sent only came about after I moved temporarily to
Belgium. Since I work at nuclear research instutute, where the security is
relatively high, I don't have access to my office during weekends and I
don't have a phone in my room to hook up to the network.

In fact, the *most* important reason why I chose imap and Pine is that I
can keep my folders on the server and either run Pine on the server itself
or on a PC (depending, for instance, whether I want to attach a file that's
on the PC or on the server), and *always* have the same state of folders,
no matter where I am. But, as I said, you need to have access to the
network for that.

Cheers,
Jan

BTW, what *is* the exotic machine you've mentioned?

-----

---

From: Vinnie Chassot <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 29 Jun 1998 02:55:15 -0700 (PDT)

> BTW, what *is* the exotic machine you've mentioned?

which? My set up (which is just a linux box that is happily networked) or
Rhapsody which is an Apple dev'd unix-type-os for macintosh that
officially was stillborn, but rumours abound on it's future.

Vinnie

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From: Jan Kalin <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 29 Jun 1998 13:55:11 +0200 (Romance Daylight Time)

> officially was stillborn, but rumours abound on it's future.

Yes, Rhapsody was what I asked about.

-----

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From: Vinnie Chassot <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 29 Jun 1998 05:19:38 -0700 (PDT)

oh. well, then rhapsody is just that -- a unix for Macintosh. 

Vinnie

--
[email-masked] System Administrator Epoch Internet
"It's more than just eye to eye
learn the things I could never apply" -- Least Complicated

On Mon, 29 Jun 1998, Jan Kalin wrote:

> Date: Mon, 29 Jun 1998 13:55:11 +0200 (Romance Daylight Time)
> From: Jan Kalin <[email-masked]>
> To: Pine Discussion Forum <[email-masked]>
> Subject: Re: Suggestions for Pine 4.00 (fwd)
> 
> > >

---

From: "Robin S. Socha" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 29 Jun 1998 14:42:34 +0200

> oh. well, then rhapsody is just that -- a unix for Macintosh. 

*rotfl*

<http://developer.apple.com/rhapsody/>
Rhapsody is the code-name of Apple's upcoming operating system which will
complement Mac OS by providing an advanced environment for servers and
software development. While still running the huge library of existing
Macintosh programs, Rhapsody also includes a breakthrough software development
platform, code-named Yellow Box, for building new classes of reliable,
media-rich and cross platform applications. Rhapsody will provide superior
Java and Internet support, and is based on the tools used to create
revolutionary technologies such as the World Wide Web.

In short: MacOS sans bugs (hopefully...) plus a disembowelled NeXTstep. Could
have been a killer 3 years ago. Doesn´t stand a bit of a chance against Linux
in 1998 if you ask me.

Robin

-- 
Robin S. Socha M.A.
Control Risks Germany Ltd.
<http://www.crg.com/>

---

From: Timothy J Luoma <luomat+Lists/Unix/[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 29 Jun 98 21:39:41 -0400

Author:	"Robin S. Socha" <[email-masked]>
	Date:	Mon, 29 Jun 1998 14:42:34 +0200
	ID:	<[email-masked]>

> In short: MacOS sans bugs (hopefully...) plus a disembowelled NeXTstep.

Not really.  MacOS with protected memory (ie won't crash/lockup like your  
Mac) and hopefully with less bugs.

The NeXTStep part is difficult... they are keeping most of the Mac GUI which  
could have been vastly improved on by adding the NeXTStep elements.

However, the kernel will be based on BSD4.4, which will actually be  
significantly better than what NeXTStep had.

> Could have been a killer 3 years ago.

It could have been extremely killer almost 10 years ago if Apple hadn't  
decided to cut its wrist by sending Steve Jobs packing.... NeXT, inc's OS  
together with greater resources would have been a big plus.

> Doesn't stand a bit of a chance against Linux in 1998 if you ask me.

Apple has killed Intel support (NeXTStep worked on HP/Sparc/NeXT  
hardware/and Intel) which turned me from optimistic to extremely pessimistic  
about its future.  I'm not sure Linux is the biggest competitor.  Anyone who  
has installed both will tell you that NeXTStep is 100% easier to setup and  
when you're done you have the beautiful GUI as opposed to a commandline  
interface trying to get X (blech) running.

Anyway, we're way off topic here... there's a Rhapsody discussion list at  
http://www.omnigroup.com for those who want to know more

TjL (NeXTStep user since 1991)

---

From: "Robin S. Socha" <[email-masked]>
Date: 30 Jun 1998 07:20:22 +0200

* Timothy J Luoma <luomat+Lists/Unix/[email-masked]> writes:
> "Robin S. Socha" <[email-masked]>

> hardware/and Intel) which turned me from optimistic to extremely
> pessimistic about its future.  I'm not sure Linux is the biggest
> competitor.  Anyone who has installed both will tell you that
> NeXTStep is 100% easier to setup and when you're done you have the
> beautiful GUI as opposed to a commandline interface trying to get
> X (blech) running.

Well, it's not the Real Thing(tm), but it's damn close in look and
feel if you ask me: <http://www.windowmaker.org/>. And yes, it's OT -
reply-to set ;-)

Later,
Robin

-- 
Robin S. Socha M.A. 
Control Risks Ltd. <http://www.crg.com/>