CONFIGURING ALPINE
******************


Enabling A Threaded Style
-------------------------

To display e-mail and Usenet posts in a threaded fashion, go to "Setup
Configuration" (M S C), locate "Sort Key", and enable "tHread". 

Next, go down to "Threading Display Style", and select
"show-structure-in-from. 

Finally, go down to "Threading Index Style", and select 
"regular-index-with-collapsed-threads".

Threads will start off collapsed, and are indicated by a greater-than
symbol ( > ) next to the fist message. To expand a thread, highlight the
first message and hit the slash key ( / ); to close the thread, simply
repeat the process, or if you prefer, you can partially collapse the
thread by highlighting any message in it marked by a period ( . ) and 
hitting the slash key.


Checking Multiple POP3 Accounts
-------------------------------

Go to the "Setup Configuration" screen (M S C) and find the "Folder
Preferences" section. Under this section, set "enable-incoming-folders"
and restart alpine for the change to take effect. Now go to your
"Incoming Message Folders" (F Incoming-Folders), but do not open your
INBOX folder.

Since you want to add a new folder, type A. You will be presented with
a command-line asking for the "Name of server to contain added folder"
and four options below that. We are interested in the options. Since
you are going to be pulling mail off of a remote pop3 server, you want
to configure a mail drop, which is the last option, thus press "Ctrl W".
You will now be asked for the name of the mail drop server (the server
you are pulling the mail off of). Enter the server (and port number if
you desire), your username (which may or may not include part of the
server address), and pop3. When done, you should have something that
looks like the following:

pop.server.tld:port/user=username@server.tld/pop3

If you are using a secure connection, you will need to add two things to
the entry. First, append ssl to the end. When that is done (and assuming
you do not want, or are having difficulties setting up, certificate
validation), add novalidate-cert just after the mail drop server. Once
you are done, you should have something that resembles the following:

pop.server.tld:port/novalidate-cert/user=username@server.tld/pop3/ssl

Now hit Enter. You'll now be asked for the folder you want to copy the
mail from; answer: Inbox.

Next: "Name of server to contain destination folder". Leave this blank,
and continue on.

Now for the "Folder to copy mail to". You can name this anything you
want, but I generally use the user name of whatever email account I am
setting the mail drop up for, and I do the same for the "Nickname for
folder "username"".

To set up more mail drops, just repeat as needed.


Service Specific Settings
-------------------------

Lavabit
    pop.lavabit.com:995/novalidate-cert/user=username@lavabit.com/pop3/ssl
Google Mail
    pop.gmail.com:995/novalidate-cert/user=username@gmail.com/pop3/ssl
Telus
    pop.telus.net/user=username@telus.net/pop3
Shaw
    shawmail.gv.shawcable.net/user=username@shaw.ca/pop3

A note on Shaw, they use different servers for different areas. To find
the server nearest you, check the following site:

http://www.shaw.ca/en-ca/CustomerCare/InternetSupport/Residential/RoutersandShawServerNames.htm


Using Multiple SMTP Servers
---------------------------

To use multiple SMTP servers, you will need to configure roles for each
account that will be using a different SMTP server than the default that
was input in the "SMTP Server (for sending)" field in "Setup
Configuration" (M S C). To do so, go to the "Setup Role Rules" screen
(M S R R) and add a role, after which you should end up in the "Change
This Role Rule" screen.

Start by entering the desired name for the role in the "Nickname" field.
Then, under "Current Folder Type", select "Specific", and fill in the
"Folder List" field below it with the incoming nickname(s) you want the
role to handle.

Now you will need to scroll down a bit until the "Actions Begin Here"
section; here you will need to fill in the "Set From" field with
something along the lines of:

Desired Display Name <username@server.tld>

When that is set, go down to the "Use SMTP Server" and fill in the field
with something like the following:

smtp.server.tld/user=username@server.tld

If you are using a secure connection, without certificate validation,
the entry will look more like this:

smtp.server.tld:port/novalidate-cert/ssl/user=username@server.tld

Finally for this page, go down to the "Uses Begin Here" section, and
select "Without Confirmation" for each of Reply, Forward, and Compose
Use. This will stop Alpine from asking what role you want to use, and
instead use the role assigned to the mail folder, as defined by the
"Folder List" back at the top of the screen.

For some e-mail services, (such as lavabit) this may not be enough to
get things working, you may have to disable the plain authenticator. To
do so, go to the "Setup Configuration" page (M S C), and scroll down to
the "Advanced User Preferences" section. Under this, enable "Expose
Hidden Config", save the changes, and restart Alpine. Return to the
"Setup Configuration" page, and scroll down to near the bottom; there
should now be a section titled "Normally hidden configuration options".
Under this, locate "Disable These Authenticators" and change the field
to read PLAIN. There should no longer be any difficulty in sending mail
via various smtp servers.


SMTP Server Settings
--------------------

Lavabit
    mail.lavabit.com:465/novalidate-cert/ssl/user=username@lavabit.com
Google Mail
    smtp.gmail.com:465/novalidate-cert/ssl/user=username@gmail.com
Telus
    smtp.telus.net/user=username@telus.net
Shaw
    shawmail.gv.shawcable.net:25


Using Multiple NNTP Servers
---------------------------

Go to the "Setup Configuration" page (M S C), and scroll down to the
"Advanced User Preferences" section. Under this, enable "Expose Hidden
Config", save the changes, and restart Alpine. Return to the "Setup
Configuration" page, and scroll down to near the bottom; there should
now be a section titled "Normally hidden configuration options". Under
this, locate "News Collections" and add the news servers you want to
use, separating each entry with a comma (Alpine will break the line at
each comma). In general, an entry should look something like the
following:

Desired Name {server.tld/nntp}#news.[]

If you are using a secure connection with certificate validation, the
entry will look similar to this:

Desired Name {server.tld/nntp/ssl/novalidate-cert}#news.[]

And if an insecure login is required, then things will look more like
this:

Desired Name {server.tld/nntp/user=username}#news.[]

Also, if you are using roles, you can specify the NNTP server that the
role should post to Usenet with. To do so, go to the "Setup Role Rules"
screen (M S R R), and select a role to edit.

In the "Change This Role Rule" screen, scroll down to the "Use NNTP 
server" field, and edit it as required. For the entries above, the
corresponding role entries will be:

 server.tld

 server.tld/ssl/novalidate-cert

 server.tld/user=username

Reading Settings (M S C - News Collections)

Shaw
    Shaw {news.shawcable.net/nntp}#news[]
Telus
    Telus {news.telus.net/nntp}#news.[]
Motzarella
    Motzarella {news.motzarella.org/nntp/user=username}#news.[]
Mixmin
    Mixmin {news.mixmin.net/nntp/ssl/novalidate-cert}#news.[]
Aioe
    Aioe {nntp.aioe.org:563/nntp/ssl/novalidate-cert}#news.[]
Ripco
    Ripco {gail.ripco.com:120/nntp}#news.[]
Usenet4all
    Usenet4all {reader.usenet4all.se/nntp/user=username}#news.[]
Gmane
    Gmane {news.gmane.org/nntp}#news.[]

Posting Settings

Telus
    news.telus.net
Motzarella
    news.motzarella.org/user=username
Minmix
    news.minmix.net/ssl/novalidate-cert
Aioe
    nntp.aioe.org:563/ssl/novalidate-cert
Ripco
    gail.ripco.com:120
Usenet4all
    reader.usenet4all.se/user=username
Gmane
    news.gmane.org


Filters As Killfile Substitutes
-------------------------------

Go to the "Setup Filtering Rules" screen (M S R F), and adding a filter
(by pressing A). Give the filter a nickname, and under "Current Folder
Type", select "News", thus applying the rule to all news accounts (it is
most likely possible to apply the rule selectively by selecting
"Specific" and filling the desired new account(s), but I have not yet
tried this).

Next, select the header (or headers) you want to use to filter news
posts, and fill in the string you want to filter out. If the header you
want to use is no present, go down to "Add Extra Headers" (it should be
in the middle of the list), hit enter, and fill in the header name as
it appears in Alpine (as an example, to add the Message-ID header to
the list, type in Message-ID and you are done), and hit enter when
done. You will now have a brand new header to use for filtering posts.

Finally, go down to the "Action Begins Here" section, and under "Filter
Action" select "Delete"; the job is done. Save and exit (in Alpine's
particular fashion, i.e. exit to save) and the filter will be applied
the next time you open a news group.


Service Specific Settings
-------------------------

If you want to filter out posts from Google Groups, add the Message-ID
header, and in its field type:

googlegroups

To filter all responses to Google Groups posts, add the References
header and put the following in the field:

googlegroups

To filter out posts from Microsoft Outlook users, add the X-Newsreader
header, and in the field type:

Microsoft Outlook

Depending on the news group, the resulting filtering action may take a
couple seconds to complete, but the results are worth it.

If it is a particularly active news group though, you can waste a lot of
time waiting for the filters to do their thing. To cut down on the
waiting, it is likely a good idea to set the "NNTP Range" value (M S C)
to something other than the default (which is 0, and which translates
into: download everything in the group that isn't nailed down).

On a further speed related note, you may want to enable "News Post
Without Validation" (M S C) in order to speed up posting.


Links
-----

http://www.washington.edu/alpine/
http://staff.washington.edu/chappa/alpine/
http://www.ii.com/internet/messaging/pine/
http://osdir.com/ml/mail.pine.general/
http://osdir.com/ml/mail.pine.general/2007-12/msg00000.html
http://www.madboa.com/geek/pine-ssl/
comp.mail.pine