PINE Releases 4.50

wasaty writes "Yesterday new PINE came out. Main new feature is (at last!) threading support. Look here for a full list of changes." Ah, my first "real" e-mail program; watching it change is like watching evolution in motion.

threads

[Orre]

Hasn't MUTT [mut.org] done that for years. And java to (bah ha im so funny)

Re:Still useful

[Fweeky]

When you're on the go, give PINE a call;-)

Or mutt, which doesn't have such a large history of security holes, and which has had basic features like threading for years :P

Re:Still useful

[coryboehne]

Really, when I'm on a *nix box I prefer to use Pine over ANY other option.... I actually enjoy the somewhat antiquated interface (reminds me of the good ol' days when that was the only option) and I love the fact that it is super fast.

I can't really understand the reason to add threading support... It's kinda like putting a bigger engine in a Corvette without putting more rubber on the ground.. It's a waste really, the program is so fast already with such low overhead that I have never had any problems with speed... Maybe I'm just missing something and there really is a great reason for this... I just don't see it.

Oh well though, great to see that it is still being maintained by someone, and that there are others out there that care about the wonderful program known to all as PINE.

In other news...

[ivan256]

In other news, pine would have done this years ago had it truly been free software. Since they don't allow people to distribute modified versions, and they don't like to accept featere enhancements nobody does any work on it. For that reason, everybody with the patience to look for and learn something better has moved on to other text based mail clients.

Re:Still useful

[FFFish]

And which is now the default email client for my university; they tossed Pine the other week because it's a security risk...

version number management

[jki]

Imagine that pine was first released in 1989 [washington.edu] and yet the latest version number is reasonable. If this was something else - going to be polite and not mention it :) - you know what it would be like. I mean there's a point in it - the project is more than 10 years old but has stayed very consistent for the whole time. And talking about email clients, that's a miracle.

Have you ever read the project history linked above: " Our goal was to provide a mailer that naive users could use without fear of making mistakes. We wanted to cater to users who were less interested in learning the mechanics of using electronic mail than in doing their jobs; users who perhaps had some computer anxiety". I think they have succeeded well, even now when everyone is used to having all the graphical bells and whistles my Mom - who had never used email before, learned pine quicker than outlook (she never learnt to use it, actually).

Pine

[sevensharpnine]

Pine was my first e-mail app too. But a single view of those old text menus (and memories of mails lost/rewritten) would send me running to the nearest GUI-driven mail program I could find.
Use only as needed (imho).

Re:Still useful

[misof]

Well, pardon me if I'm wrong... but if you are fond of all-text interface (+aalib for viewing attached images, etc. :-) as I am and if you were really willing to learn _all_ the kbd shortcuts in pine, then mutt (and NOT pine) is the right client for you. Mutt has had threading support for _ages_, it is a much more powerful tool and the kbd shortcuts are IMHO more logical, especially to someone used to work with Linux and the editor vim.

Users?

[livio]

I'm really curious to know how many users still use pine? I remember when I first got in college, it was the "easiest" mail application for an UNIX-newbie, so I used it for about a week (I didn't like it, so I found out about Emacs VM and never used pine again :-), but now I think things have changed a bit, no?

I mean, very new users tend to use graphical interfaces for almost everything... And there are plenty graphical MUAs ou there. And old, more "advanced" users tend to use more sofisticated or powerful MUAs (graphical or non-graphical), like Emacs' VM, Mutt, etc.

So.... does Pine really still maintain a user-base? If so, what would be the reasons for these users sticking with Pine? (As you can see, I'm not a Pine fan ;), but anyways, I'd like to hear from those who are...).

le mot juste

[happystink]

Evolution in motion eh Hemos? As opposed to evolution which doesn't go forward, or uhh..

Re:Pine

[SquadBoy]

But how do you use a GUI client over an SSH tunnel when you are on a low bandwidth connection? The point is pick a tool that is right for the job and for *many* of us that means a CLI mail client.

Re:Still useful

[Jucius Maximus]

"My school added an "amazing new webmail feature" this year, but I really wasn't that impressed with it. The sad thing is that they probably paid some company for the webmail app, even though you can download several different ones at freshmeat.net for free."

It will still save them money because they will get significantly fewer calls from people who don't know how to set up pop3 and smtp in their Outbreak Express. My univ. also introduced one of these and it is pretty convenient. Click a quick shortcut in mozilla and enter uid/pass as opposed to starting telnet session, connect to mail server, start pine, go to inbox...

Pasting to pine/pico from X selection

[zorgon]

I have found that copy and paste (from somewhere else, into pine/pico) using highlight/middle button in X sessions results in a tangled mess -- particularly if it's over some other text, this text is overwritten and whatnot.

Does anyone know if the new version of pine&pico has fixed this problem? I find it to be a big obstacle to useability. Merci.

Re:Still useful

[Tack]

I'm seeing a lot of posts in this thread basically saying "I use lots of different computers and I can access PINE anywhere -- who needs web mail?"

The problem is with security. There are two ubiquitous tools on almost any computer: a telnet client, and a web browser. In fact, computers rarely have ssh clients installed. So if you want to access PINE remotely, you must telnet in, and I don't need to explain why that's bad.

Alternatively, web mail can be setup with https, and I'd be much more comfortable checking my email when I visit my friend in Europe (for instance) via https, rather than telnet. Of course, _any_ option is a security risk when you're using a public terminal (in a library of internet cafe, say), but if you trust the computer you're using, webmail via https is safer than pine via telnet. And it's easier than installing putty on every computer you want to check email from.

Jason.

Pine Is Not Elm but good anyhow

[magi]

Much better than Elm, actually, as Elm didn't handle MIME stuff and character sets properly (at least in the time Pine did).

I consider the following the best advantages of Pine:

• Doesn't require windowing system - works nicely through ssh, so you can read mail on one server from whereever you are.
  
• It doesn't need mouse for anything.
  
• Is very compact on screen - all GUI email clients need practically full screen. Pine reuses the entire space of screen and doesn't waste it with frames like all GUI clients do.
  
• Pressing 's' saves mail to mailbox according to sender's username. No need to drag with mouse.
  
• Saves sent mail to folder according to receiver's username, or whatever you write to the Fcc field. Not cramming everything to an annoying "sent-mail" folder.
  

These are my reasons for still using Pine at home. At work, I use KMail, mainly because I need to handle attachments more easily, but also because of easier IMAP configuration. KMail is rather good, though not without problems, and lacks all the important features of Pine listed above. Most annoying problem with KMail is that downloading mail through IMAP seems to be very slow for me (about 30 secs for a megabyte).

Re:SSH for mail is a hack.

[BusDriver]

Why is it an ugly hack?

It's secure. It's quick and easy.

I'm at an internet cafe right now. It's much easier and fast for me to download putty and ssh to my box than to wait for 20 minutes for mozilla to download, then for me to install it and to set it up etc. Then I have to remember to uninstall it when I leave the cafe, so that others don't get my info/headers that may get left behind.

Not to mention it leaves another port open on my box for the world to see. I'd much rather just have port 22 open.

I agree with your comment, imap over ssl is nice, but it's not always easy or quick. I also can't see why you'd call it an ugly hack?

Tim

Email Clients

[wdr1]

Ah, my first "real" e-mail program; watching it change is like watching evolution in motion.

if by real, you mean one you run from a unix shell, sure. if you mean one with geek chic, not quite.

pine was what was showed to people who couldn't figure out something like mm (which i still miss. *sigh*)

i gotta say though, i never agreed with the MUA machismo. i've used mm, mh, rmail, mh-e, outlook, quickmail, mutt, and eudora. (not to mention less & grep in some dire situtations.) i say, use whichever you like or find useful. these days i personally like mutt for my work email (on a unix desktop), but like eudora for my home mail.

i think the real studs are on the MTA side. seperate the world into those who've configured sendmail and those who haven't. anyone who's done that without going mad gets my respect.

-Bill

Re:Still useful

[gallir]

can't really understand the reason to add threading support... It's kinda like putting a bigger engine in a Corvette without putting more rubber on the ground.. It's a waste really, the program is so fast already with such low overhead that I have never had any problems with speed... Maybe I'm just missing something and there really is a great reason for this... I just don't see it.

Bad, bad, moderators :-). He is not a troll, he's a moron.

It doesn't mean anything like "POSIX Threads. "Threads in Pine" means "message threading", you know, that magic thing that sort and "join" related messages. As my answer to you, here in /.

an idle thought re: licensing

[timothy]

Since the biggest objection I can see to PINE is the licensing (and since it's already installed on the system which receives my email, it's not something which bothers me, even, and I stress *even* if it otherwise would), I wonder why UWashington does not give in and dual-license it.

Even a one-time release of a particular code snapshot under the GPL or BSD or [insert license] (with no intention of coordinating any further development of that branch) would / should satisfy most of the complainers :)

This is just an off-the-cuff thought, but ... why not?

Threading

[donsaklad]

Regarding threading, how do you set up gnus email if you're not an experienced programmer but do have gnus newsgroups running in emacs?... Most explanations have been too complicated for novices to set up gnus email. oo__ [e-mail]