Client Configuration > Pine
Saving Messages Locally with Pine
To save messages from the email.mtu.edu server to a folder on your
home directory requires several steps.
Pine allows you to group folders together in what it refers to as a
"collection". You must define a new collection of folders on your local
computer, separate from the collection you already may have on the
email.mtu.edu server. Assuming that you set up Pine according to these directions, you will already have a default
collection on the email.mtu.edu server. Creating this local collection
will allow you to transfer messages back and forth between your home
directory and the remote server.
This guide assumes that you start Pine by connecting to a departmental
server with Telnet or SSH and type "pine" from the UNIX command line
while in your home directory.
To create a new collection:
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In Pine, press "m" to access the main menu, followed by "s" to enter
the setup menu. Then press "l" to configure the collection list.
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The screen should say "SETUP COLLECTION LIST" at the top. In the Pine
window you will see the phrase "Mail on email.mtu.edu". This is your
default collection of folders on the email.mtu.edu server. You must add
a new collection for your local folders.
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Press "a" to add a collection. The top of the screen should say "FOLDER
COLLECTION ADD". There are four options to enter for each collection.
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Nickname: Enter the nickname you'd like to refer to
the collection by. You can name your collection anything that
you'd like. For the remainder of this example we will be using
a collection nicknamed "local".
-
Server: Leave this item blank. Leaving it blank defaults
to the computer that you are currently running Pine from.
-
Path: This is the location on the local computer where
you will be storing your Pine messages. Assuming that you start
Pine while in your home directory, Pine will create a directory
there with this name. If you enter the name of a directory that
already exists, Pine will store its folders in that directory.
For this example we will use "pinebackup" as the Path
name. Pine will create, in the current directory, a new directory
named "pinebackup" which it will use to store its folders.
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View: Leave this item blank.
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Press control-X to exit - you will be prompted to save your changes. Press
"y" for yes. You will see two collections listed - the "Mail on
email.mtu.edu" collection that existed before, and your newly created
"local" collection. Press "e" to exit the SETUP COLLECTIONS LIST screen
and return to the main Pine menu.
Now that you have a local collection defined, you can transfer
messages from the email.mtu.edu server to your local collection. However,
to transfer more than one message at a time, you will need to make sure
you have an option called "aggregate-command-set" enabled in your Pine
configuration. To enable this option:
-
Press "m" to take you to the main Pine menu if you are not already
there. Once at the main Pine menu, press "s" to enter the Setup menu,
and "c" to configure Pine.
-
The top of the screen should say "SETUP CONFIGURATION". There
are many options available, starting with "personal-name" at the
top. Using your arrow keys, move down the list to the section labeled
"Advanced Command Preferences". The very first option here is labeled
"enable-aggregate-command-set". If there is not an X before this option,
highlight it and press the Return key to enable it.
-
Press "e" to exit the Setup menu. You will be prompted to save your
changes - press "y" to save and exit.
You now have to create a local mailbox within your newly created
local collection. This gives Pine a place to store messages locally. To
do this:
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If you are at the Pine Main Menu, press the "i" key to go to the Message
Index screen. Press the "<" key to view your Pine Folder List. You
will see all your previously created Pine folders, but the display should
look a little different - there should now be a line at the top that
says "Folders on email.mtu.edu in home directory", to signal that you
are using the default collection on the email.mtu.edu server. Press the
"<" key again to see the Collection List window, and use the arrow
keys to select the local collection you created above.
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You will now see a listing of the folders in your "local" collection.
The line at the top of will read "Local folders in pinebackup/" (or
whatever you have entered for the name of your local Pine folder). The
listing will be empty because you haven't yet created a Pine folder
within this collection. To create a new folder, press the "a" key to
Add a folder. You will be prompted for the name of the new folder - you
can enter any name you'd like. If you are looking to back up a specific
folder from email.mtu.edu, you can enter the name of that folder to make
it easy to remember. For example, you may keep your school-related email
in a Pine folder named "school". You can add a folder named school to your
local collection, allowing you to archive all the messages locally. After
entering the name of the folder it will appear in the list.
You are now ready to transfer messages from a remote folder on the
email.mtu.edu server into your local folder. For this example, we will
transfer the messages from the "school" folder on email.mtu.edu to our
local "school" folder.
Go back to the main Pine menu by pressing "m". From here, navigate to
your "school" folder. Either type "g" to enter then name of the folder
directly, or "i" to go to the Message Index screen followed by the "<"
to access your list of existing folders.
To transfer a single message to your local folder:
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Highlight the message you want to save.
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Press the "s" key to Save the message. A prompt will appear, allowing
you to specify the folder where you want the message to be saved. You
can toggle between the local collection and the email.mtu.edu collection
by pressing control-N. Select the local collection with control-N.
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You will see <local> listed as the current collection. To choose a
specific folder, press control-T. This will show you the current folders
in your local collection.
-
Choose the "school" folder that you created earlier. You will return
to the message screen, and the save prompt will be updated to show the
folder that you have selected. Simply press the "return" key to save
the message, and it will be saved in your local "school" folder.
IMPORTANT: Saving a message from any Pine folder to another
folder causes the message to be marked for deletion in the original
folder. If you want to move the message from the remote server to the
local folder without saving the original this is fine. If you want to
retain a copy of the message in the original folder, you must press
"u" to undelete the message. This keeps the message in the original
folder from being deleted.
To save multiple messages at once:
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To select multiple messages in a Pine folder, press the ";" key to bring
up the Select Criteria dialog box. You can select messages based on a
variety of criteria - all messages, specific message numbers or ranges
of numbers, size, status, date, etc. To select all messages press the
"a" key. The selected messages will now have an "X" in the left column.
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You must now use the Apply command to apply a specific action to each
selected message. After selecting all the messages in the above step,
press the "a" key again to bring up the "apply" dialog. Here you can
enter a command and it will be applied to all selected messages. In our
case we want to save all messages, so press the "s" key.
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Choosing to save all messages will bring up the Save dialog, allowing you
to select the location where the messages will be saved. To select your
local "school" folder, press control-N to select the next collection
(which will be your newly created local collection), then either type
the name of the folder (school) or press control-T to select the folder
from a list.
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After selecting the correct destination, the save dialog will change to
show the folder that you have selected. Simply press the Return key to
save the messages.
IMPORTANT: Saving the messages to different folder causes them
to be deleted from the original location. If you want to transfer the
messages without keeping them on the original server, this is fine. If
you want to retain copies in the original location, you must undelete
all the messages. To undelete all messages, press the "a" key again to
bring up the Apply dialog (as we want to apply the "undelete" command
to all selected messages). Press the "u" key to undelete all the messages.
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To unselect the messages, press the ";" key again to bring up the Select
dialog. Press "a" to unselect all messages.
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