Computing Topics --> Help With Application Programs --> E-mail Applications --> Pine (for reading mail over telnet/SSH) --> How to read and post news items from Pine -->

How to read and post news items from Pine

To read and/or post news items with Pine, start Pine by typing pine at the system prompt. Then follow the these steps:

1. From the main menu, choose Folder List by typing L.
2. Once in the Folder List, use the down-arrow key to go down to the section headed by News-collection ...       (Remote) and press Enter to show all of the available newsgroups.
3. Choose (highlight) a newsgroup (move with the arrow keys) and press Enter to start reading that group.
   • If you do not see the News-collection section in the Folder List, then go to the How to post to newsgroups page for instructions on configuring Pine to read and post news.
4. As you're viewing articles, if you see one you wish to respond to, you have two options; to respond including their original text, or to just respond as a separate post. If you want to include some/all of the original text, you'll need to save the article first.

   To save an article you're viewing, type 'S' to save the article to a file. When asked for the filename, type it as: ~/filename. where filename is the name you want to call the saved file. By prefixing the filename with "~/", it will be placed in your home directory; otherwise it will be placed in your "~/mail" subdirectory (Pine's subdirectory).

   For example, specifying ~/foo will create the file "foo" in your home directory, and specifying just "foo" will create the file "foo" in your "mail" subdirectory (under your home directory).

5. To post a message to a group (whether you've saved a previous post or not), type c (compose) when reading an article. You will be asked if you wish to post a message to the current group; type y. You'll then be placed in the editor in the outgoing post; enter a subject for the post.

   If you want to quote the previous article (assuming you saved it as shown above), type Ctrl-R in the body of the post to read in the saved file. You'll be prompted to enter a filename *from the home directory* - if you saved the file as "~/filename", type "filename" at this prompt to retrieve it. If you saved it as just "filename", type "mail/filename" at the prompt.

   For example, if you saved it as "foo", you'll need to read it in from "mail/foo"; if you saved it as "~/foo", you'll read it in from "foo". Once you've included the previous message, trim off all the unnecessary text and edit in your replies. If no message is saved and retrieved, just enter your text in the body of the post.

6. When done editing your post, type Ctrl-x to prepare to post it. You'll be asked if you want to send the post (answer y), and then you'll be asked "really post?" (answer y again). Assuming you did everything correctly, the article will then be posted. It may take a couple of minutes to show up on your local news server, longer on other news servers.