The PINE Message System

BACKGROUND

Pine(tm) --a Program for Internet News & Email-- is a tool for reading,
sending, and managing electronic messages.  It was designed specifically
with novice computer users in mind, but can be tailored to accommodate the
needs of "power users" as well.  Pine uses Internet message protocols
(e.g. RFC-822, SMTP, MIME, IMAP, NNTP) and runs on Unix and PCs.

The guiding principles for Pine's user-interface were:  careful limitation
of features, one-character mnemonic commands, always-present command
menus, immediate user feedback, and high tolerance for user mistakes. It
is intended that Pine can be learned by exploration rather than reading
manuals.  Feedback from the University of Washington community and a
growing number of Internet sites has been encouraging. 
  
Pine's message composition editor, Pico, is also available as a separate
stand-alone program.  Pico is a very simple and easy-to-use text editor
offering paragraph justification, cut/paste, and a spelling checker. 

FEATURES

   - Online help specific to each screen and context.

   - Message index showing a message summary which includes the status, 
     sender, size, date and subject of messages.
 
   - Commands to view and process messages:  Forward, Reply, Save, 
     Export, Print, Delete, capture address, and search.

   - Message composer with easy-to-use editor and spelling checker.
     The message composer also assists entering and formatting
     addresses and provides direct access to the address book.

   - Address book for saving long complex addresses and personal 
     distribution lists under a nickname. 

   - Message attachments via the Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions
     (MIME) specification.  MIME allows sending/receiving non-text 
     objects, such as binary files, spreadsheets, graphics, and sound.

   - Folder management commands for creating, deleting, listing, or
     renaming message folders.  Folders may be local or on remote hosts.

   - Access to remote message folders and archives via the Internet
     Message Access Protocol (IMAP) as defined in RFC-1176 and revisions. 

   - Internet news support via either NNTP or IMAP.

   - Aggregate operations, e.g. saving a selected set of messages at once.

AVAILABILITY

Pine, Pico, and UW's IMAP server are copyrighted, but freely available.
The latest versions, including source code, can be found on the Internet
host "ftp.cac.washington.edu" in the file "pine/pine.tar.Z" (accessible
via anonymous FTP).  To try Pine out from the Internet, you may telnet to
"demo.cac.washington.edu" and login as "pinedemo".  There is also a
Pine-specific Internet news group (comp.mail.pine).

Unix Pine runs on a wide variety of systems including Ultrix, AIX, SunOS,
SVR4, and Linux.  PC-Pine for DOS is available for Packet Driver, Novell
LWP, FTP PC/TCP, and Sun PC/NFS.  PC-Pine for Windows/WinSock is a version
with the same user interface, but compatible with the Winsock interface.

For further information, send e-mail to pine@cac.washington.edu.  Pine was
originally based on Elm, but there is little if any Elm code left.  Pine
is the work of Mike Seibel, Mark Crispin, Steve Hubert, Sheryl Erez, David
Miller and Laurence Lundblade* at the University of Washington Office of
Computing and Communications.  Pine and Pico are trademarks of the
University of Washington.  (* Laurence is now at Virginia Tech.)

94.8.24