Subject: Pine mailbox formats & Mailbag Assistant

From: Nancy McGough <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 7 Sep 2001 14:38:33 +0100 (BST)

Dear Pinesters,

There is a Windows tool called Mailbag Assistant, which sounds
very cool and I think it would be a nice companion to Pine for
users who archive their messages on an MS Windows machine. You
can find out about it here:

 http://www.fookes.com/mailbag/

I downloaded it and tried to use it on my mailbox archives but I
couldn't get it to work with them. Below is an excerpt of an
exchange I had with Eric Fookes, the author of MBA, and then
below that is my questions to you all...

> From: Eric G.V. Fookes <[email-masked]>
> Date: Fri, 31 Aug 2001 21:22:02 +0200
> To: "[email-masked]" <[email-masked]>
>
> Hi Nance,
>
> >When I learned about NoteTab and MailBag, I was very enthusiastic
> >and put a links to both of them on my Pine page in the "Companion
> >Programs" section.
>
> Oh great! Thanks :)
>
> >Since I can't use MailBag on Pine mailboxes,
> >I've commented it out for now but as soon as MBA supports Unix
> >mbox format mailboxes, I'll add it back.
>
> I'll have to do something about that. It won't be for version
> 2.6, but maybe the following one. Perhaps you could send me a
> small sample Pine mailbox that contains a mix of messages (such
> as different priority values, small attachments)? If you can do
> that for me, .zip the file and send it to me as an attachment
> to <[email-masked]>.
>
> [...]
>
> Regards,
> Eric G.V. Fookes
> Author of NoteTab, Mailbag Assistant, and Album Express
> http://www.fookes.com/ and http://www.notetab.com/

And now my questions to you all.

On my Power Pine page in this section

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

I say:

 The following folder formats work in both PC-Pine and Unix Pine:

  * unix mbox (default format for Unix Pine)
  * c-client MBX (default format for PC-Pine)
  * mtx
  * tenex

But there is another format that PC-Pine understands and that is
unix mbox but using DOS end-of-line (CRLF) instead of Unix
end-of-line (LF).

Q1] Does this CRLF unix mbox format have a name?

Q2] Can Unix Pine also use it?

Other questions:

Q3] Are there any standard filename extensions used for different
mailbox formats? I've started using .cmbx for c-client MBX format
and .unix for unix mbox format (with LF for end-of-line) but I'm
wondering if there are any standard extensions that people are
using for these and other folder formats that Pine understands,
e.g., the CRLF unix mbox format. It seems to me that .mbx should
be avoided because it is used by too many different mail clients
to mean too many different formats and thus is ambiguous.

Q4] This is actually a request to the Pine developers: PLEASE
please please give PC-Pine users an option to have their
mailboxes default to be created in Unix mbox format rather than
c-client MBX format. For those of us who live in both the Unix
and Windows world and use lots of Unix-based tools, Unix mbox
format is the best because it is understood by all kinds of
tools.

Q5] If anyone, e.g., the Pine developers, has sample mailboxes
that contain a "mix of messages (such as different priority
values, small attachments)" that I can send to Eric, please let
me know.

Thanks!
Nancy

-- 
ii Main Pine Page: <http://www.ii.com/internet/messaging/pine/>

Nancy McGough         <http://www.ii.com/>         Infinite Ink
--= Sent via Pine: IMAP, NNTP & ESMTP for Unix/Win/Mac OS X =--

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From: Nancy McGough <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 8 Sep 2001 09:40:28 +0100 (BST)

On 7 Sep 2001 Cornelius C. Noack ([email-masked]) wrote:
> How can I (manually at present, I realize) set my folder
> formats in PC-Pine to annything but the default MBX ?

To use traditional Unix mbox format, prepend #driver.unix to the
file specification (server, path, and/or name). I discuss details
(and problems) about this here:

 <http://www.washington.edu/pine/pine-info/2001.04/msg00110.html>

> > mailboxes default to be created in Unix mbox format
> >
> I strongly support this request, for precisely the reasons you give!

Another reason is political: Making it so difficult to use a
mailbox format other than c-client MBX makes PC-Pine almost as
bad as the evil empire's Outlook and Outlook Express, which also
lock people into a proprietary mailbox format. One of the reasons
I use and promote Pine is because it hasn't done this kind of
thing in the past.

Nancy
^x