Subject: mailer daemon for PC-Pine?

From: James Frye <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 14 Nov 1999 08:20:45 -0800 (PST)

I am trying to set up PC-PINE on my machine, but am having problems.  It
seems there is a piece missing:  the Windows equivalent of a sendmail
program.  It needs some sort of daemon process that will download
waiting mail when I dial in to my ISP, and take mail I compose and store
it until the next time I'm connected, then mail it.  Is there such a
program, and if so, where can I find it?

Thanks,
James

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From: Scott Leibrand <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 14 Nov 1999 09:44:22 -0800 (PST)

PC-Pine is only set up to use SMTP to send mail, so you'll need to
determine the name of your SMTP server and have Pine use that.

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From: James Frye <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 14 Nov 1999 19:58:06 -0800 (PST)

> determine the name of your SMTP server and have Pine use that.

So maybe what I need is a SMTP server for Windows?  I will look around for
something like that.

Thanks,
James

PS: Is there any actual documentation for Pine?  All I can find is either
the online help, or various web pages.  They're ok when you want to find
info on some particular setting, but frustrating when you want an overview
of how everything works together.

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From: Scott Leibrand <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 14 Nov 1999 20:17:19 -0800 (PST)

Actually, your university (or ISP, if you're connecting from home through
another account) should have an SMTP server you can use, provided you're
connected to the Internet when you send the message.  Otherwise, if you
want to do offline mail with Pine, you probably would want to get a local
SMTP server.

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From: James Frye <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 14 Nov 1999 21:29:11 -0800 (PST)

On Sun, 14 Nov 1999, Scott Leibrand wrote:

> connected to the Internet when you send the message. 

Well, that's the problem.  PC-Pine works fairly well as-is (except for
minor quirks like asking for the password each time I access the ISP), as
long as I'm connected when I'm sending (or reading) mail.  I use a dial-up
connection, though, and don't want to have the phone line tied up all the
time while I'm reading or writing mail.

> Otherwise, if you want to do offline mail with Pine, you probably
> would want to get a local SMTP server.

I've downloaded a couple, but haven't tried them out yet.  At first
glance, everything I found seems like extreme overkill for my needs.

Thanks,
James

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From: Nancy this-address-is-valid McGough <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 15 Nov 1999 08:32:52 -0500 (EST)

On 99-11-14 James Frye <[email-masked]> wrote:
> Well, that's the problem.  PC-Pine works fairly well as-is
> (except for minor quirks like asking for the password each time
> I access the ISP), as long as I'm connected when I'm sending
> (or reading) mail.  I use a dial-up connection, though, and
> don't want to have the phone line tied up all the time while
> I'm reading or writing mail.

You can find out how to get PC-Pine to save your password and how
to use it when you're disconnected at my "Setting Up PC-Pine for
Power Users," which is mirrored at:

 Primary: http://www.ii.com/internet/messaging/pine/pc/
 Backup: http://www.best.com/~ii/internet/messaging/pine/pc/

Good luck,
Nancy

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For Pine links, see http://www.ii.com/internet/messaging/pine/
 
©Nancy McGough         http://www.ii.com/         Infinite Ink
--= Sent via PINE 4.20: Internet News & Email for Win/Unix =--

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From: [email-masked]
Date: Mon, 15 Nov 1999 14:09:21 -0800 (PST)

> Backup: http://www.best.com/~ii/internet/messaging/pine/pc/

(tried to send email, unmunging the address as 'obvious' but it bounced)

Is there a way I can do this for the UNIX pine?

I looked at those directions and they referred to a %home%Pine directory.
Making the analogous leap to UNIX, there's no ~/Pine directory, so I presume
it doesn't work.

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From: James Frye <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 16 Nov 1999 21:57:28 -0800 (PST)

> Power Users," which is mirrored at:

I tried the password-setting trick you suggested, but it doesn't seem to
work.  I still get prompted for the password every time I run pine.  Any
clue as to what I might be doing wrong.

Made directory G:\HOME\PINE
Made empty file PINE.PWD
Ran pine several times.  No change to file, and still prompts for
password.

Thanks,
James

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From: Nancy this-address-is-valid McGough <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 17 Nov 1999 08:26:24 -0500 (EST)

> Ran pine several times.  No change to file, and still prompts for

Did you put this line in your autoexec.bat

 SET HOME=G:\Home\Pine

OR *alternatively* this line

 SET PINERC=G:\Home\Pine\pinerc

and then reboot?

The pine.pwd file needs to be in the same directory as your
pinerc file so you can search your entire system for pinerc and
see if there's another one somewhere that pine is actually using.

I discuss how Pine finds user files at:

 http://www.ii.com/internet/messaging/pine/pc/#findUserFiles

Good luck,
Nancy

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From: James Frye <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 17 Nov 1999 09:31:08 -0800 (PST)

> see if there's another one somewhere that pine is actually using.

Thanks, that did the trick.  I had the pinerc file in the same directory
as the .EXE.  (The instructions weren't clear on that.)

Now one more problem.  I'm trying to set it up for disconnected operation,
as per your instructions.  I go & download new messages to
g:\home\mail\new.mtx, then disconnect and run pine with the settings you
give.  Trouble is, it doesn't see new.mtx  (or any of the other mail
files, such as savemail.mtx), just an empty inbox.  Any clues?

Thanks,
James

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From: Nancy this-address-is-valid McGough <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 17 Nov 1999 13:17:21 -0500 (EST)

> as the .EXE.  (The instructions weren't clear on that.)

I wrote the instructions assuming that people would start at the
beginning and go through the whole long procedure that I've
written up. BAD ASSUMPTION! So I know I've got to rewrite the
instructions but if you start at the top and read through what
I've written, I think you'll see an explanation that most user
configuration files must reside in the same directory as the
pinerc file, how pine finds the pinerc file, and why I think it's
a good idea to keep your user files in a separate directory from
your program files. If you read through it and still don't think
I explain this clearly, please let me know.

> files, such as savemail.mtx), just an empty inbox.  Any clues?

Did you follow the instructions in "Setting Up Local and Remote
Folder Collections," which is at:

 http://www.ii.com/internet/messaging/pine/pc/#setFolders

Again this might just be a problem with my instructions assuming
that the reader had followed the earlier steps.

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From: James Frye <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 17 Nov 1999 10:58:37 -0800 (PST)

> I explain this clearly, please let me know.

I did start at the top and read through, but don't recall seeing anything
about pinerc having to be in the same directory as the pine.pwd file, just
that you could put it in "HOME" or the executable directory.

> that the reader had followed the earlier steps.

This might be a problem with pine, rather than your instructions.  I
originally edited pinerc directly, rather than struggling through each
individual setting.  For some reason, some settings didn't take effect
until I went back and used config to set them, even though I replaced them
with the exact same text.  And I also had to define a collection list with
"View" set to *.mtx, even though that's supposedly the default.

Anyway, it seems to sort of work now, except for the occasional bizarre
error message, so thanks again.

James

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From: Nancy this-address-is-valid McGough <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 17 Nov 1999 14:37:59 -0500 (EST)

> that you could put it in "HOME" or the executable directory.

If you look at the Configuration Overview section at

 http://www.ii.com/internet/messaging/pine/pc/#config

and look in the row that's colored green, you'll see a list of
the files that need to be in the same directory as the pinerc
file.

Then the next section, "How PC-Pine Finds User Files" lists these
possible places for the pinerc file:

 1] the -p command-line argument
 2] %PINERC%
 3] %HOME%\Pine\pinerc
 4] pine.exe directory\pinerc

Note that the %HOME% directory is not one of the options (but the
%HOME%/Pine directory is).

> with the exact same text.  

It sounds to me like you have more than one pinerc file on your
machine and the one that Pine is using is the one you edit when
you use the Pine configuration screen (via MSC). How about if you
search your system for pinerc and delete all pinerc's except the
one pine is using -- that should save you some headaches. Also,
search for "mail" and see if there are some errant mail directories
lying around that Pine created before you had the HOME
environment variable set. (Pine creates the Mail directory as a
subdirectory of %HOME%.)

> And I also had to define a collection list with

Yes, this is a BUG that I reported to the Pine development team a
long time ago. If they do not want to fix it, then I wish they
would change the documentation so it no longer says that .MTX is
the default file extension.

> error message, so thanks again.

What kind of error messages do you get?

Nancy
who will update her PC-Pine page one of these days so it is more
clear!

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From: James Frye <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 17 Nov 1999 21:42:06 -0800 (PST)

> the files that need to be in the same directory as the pinerc

Ah, that explains it.  I saved the info as text, so I could read it
offline.  Unfortunately, the saving badly mangled the table.

> the default file extension.

Maybe they're just practicing for when they get jobs with Microsoft :-)

> What kind of error messages do you get?

I didn't write them down at the time, and haven't hit one since.  The
oddest one said something about the message I was trying to send having
been shortened.  And then I get ones about the remote inbox being closed.

James