Message Composition Commands

These commands are active in and/or releated to Pine's COMPOSE MESSAGE screen.

Justify Command

Pressing Ctrl-J forces Pine to reformat the text in the paragraph the cursor is on. A paragraph is separated by one blank line. This is useful when you have been editing a paragraph and the lines become uneven. The text is left aligned and the right is ragged. Pressing Ctrl-J when your cursor is on a formatted table or listing can have unwanted results -- if that happens, just press Ctrl-U immediately to unjustify what you have just done.

Mark, Cut and Paste Commands

The mark feature (Ctrl-^) allows you to mark any segment of text, cut it out (Ctrl-K), move the cursor, and paste it (Ctrl-U) in the new location. You can paste more than once, allowing you to use this feature to copy a block of text also.

If you press Ctrl-K without having marked anything, Pine will delete a single line. If you delete a group of lines together, Pine keeps them in the same buffer, so Ctrl-U will restore them as a block.

About terminology: Mark is shown as "^^". The first "^" means you should hold down the "Control" key on your keyboard. The second "^" means "type the character ^".

Read File Command

Pine allows you to read-in text files prepared previously outside of Pine. You will be prompted for the name of a file to be inserted into the message. The file name is relative to your home directory or must be a full path name on your system. The file will be inserted where the cursor is located.

The file to be read-in must be on the same system as Pine. If you use Pine on a Unix machine but have files on a PC or Macintosh, the files must be transferred to the Unix system running Pine before they can be read-in. Please ask your local consultants about the correct way to transfer a file to your Pine system as the method will vary from site to site.

You cannot use any wildcards in specifying the file to be included. You can type in the filename directly or use Pine's file browser to select one from the listing of files in your directory.

Attach File Command

The attach file command (Ctrl-J with the cursor in the header of a message) is the primary means of attaching an external file as a MIME attachment. The attachment will be encoded to ensure safe delivery at the receiving end -- which means that you can attach any file, text or binary, without problem.

The file to be attached must be on the same system as Pine. If you use Pine on a Unix machine but have files on a PC or Macintosh, the files must be transferred to the Unix system running Pine before they can be read-in. Please ask your local consultants about the correct way to transfer a file to your Pine system as the method will vary from site to site.

You cannot use any wildcards in specifying the file to be included. You can type in the filename directly or use Pine's file browser to select one from the listing of files in your directory.

Postpone Message Command

Pine's postpone feature allows you to postpone your work on a message. This is helpful when you need to use some other program or message to look up information or when you really need to be doing something else and don't have time to finish the message. Pine confirms the postponement by saying:

               [Composition postponed. Select Compose to resume.]

Pine will postpone a message for the duration of the current session and even throughout subsequent Pine sessions. You may postpone as many messages as you like.

Spell Check Command

Spell-checking is only available on Unix Pine. Pressing Ctrl-T calls up the standard Unix spell checker. The spell cheker reads in all the new lines of text (those which do not begin with the ">") and passes them through the spell checker. The spell checker does not provide alternative spellings nor does it remember correct words from session to session.

When you first use the spell checker it appears that it is jumping all around your message. The jumps are not random--the system is taking your message one word at a time in alphabetical order.

For more information about personal dictionaries and alternate spell checking programs, see the spelling question in Pine's FAQ.

Rich Headers Command

Normally, Pine just shows you 4 header lines to fill out -- To:, Cc:, Attchmnt:, and Subject:. There are others -- Bcc:, Fcc:, Newsgroups: and possibly custom headers-- which are also available but not usually shown. When you press Ctrl-R in the message header, you can see and edit these hidden lines.

Bcc stands for blind carbon copy. Addresses listed in this field recieve a copy of the message, but do not appear in the header. A message author can use bcc: to get a message to a person without other recipients knowing about it.

While that sounds rather sleazy, there are actually times when it is quite appropriate. For example, if a message is going to a large number of people, then it is good to put those names in the Bcc: field instead of the To: field. That way the recipients don't all get a copy of hundreds of email addresses at the start of the message.

Fcc stands for folder carbon copy. It is the place to specify the name of the folder or file which should hold a copy of the outgoing message. There is a space in the Pine configuration file to specify the default Fcc, but you can override the default on a message by message basis by changing whatever appears as the Fcc. In addition, Pine 3.90 give you the ability to specify a Fcc: appropriate for each entry in your address book.