Summaries of

Changes from Pine 3.91 to 3.92

TOP TEN NEW FEATURES IN 3.92

Optional message filtering hooks (can be used for PGP integration)
Extensive address and list management improvements
Additional printing capabilities
Improved MIME and non-ascii support (mime.types, 1522, 8BITMIME)
Improved PC-Pine for Windows (GUI amenities, 32bit version)
Some modest performance improvements
Lots of new personal-preference options and command improvements
Hooks for integral file transfer between desktop computer & Unix Pine
Builtin signature editor
Improved user feedback when Pine is busy or waiting

The 3.92 release also includes a stand-alone version of Pine's internal file browser, named "pilot" -- for "Pine's Lister Of Things", and an OS/2 version of Pine contributed by David Nugent.

Here is a more extensive (but by no means exhaustive) list of changes...

MISC

Visual BUSY (or % completion) indication during long operations
Delete flag no longer preserved on Save
Alerts require confirmation
Timeouts on open and read operations
Hooks for external filtering of incoming and outgoing messages
Turn off tty messages by default to reduce confusion
Unix and PC-Pine now use same search path for certain support files
Access to mailboxes in accounts with a different login name
Can re-open INBOX without restarting Pine
New-mail check interval may be set
Can specify your alternate (alias) addresses
RFC-1522 support for non-ASCII character sets in headers
X/Motif users: Mouse support
X/Motif users: Pine changes icon label when new mail arrives
Setup includes integral signature editor command
Improved IMAP "dead stream" handling
Improvements for restricted-access environments (operating-dir variable)

ADDRESS MANAGEMENT IMPROVEMENTS

Improved Take interface and capabilities
- Take addresses in message body
- Take between address books
- WhereIs subcmd on Take screen
Improved Addressbook capabilities
- View/Edit screen
- Simplification of regular vs. list entries
- Easier to add entries to lists
- Export subcommand
- Global config var to set default addressbook entries
- Select multiple addresses for composer without re-entering
- Can forward addrbook entries using MIME type Application/Directory

NEWS IMPROVEMENTS

Subscribe to multiple groups without re-entering for each
Support for follow-ups header in Reply and View
Support NNTP servers requiring authentication
Compile-time option to submit news locally (rather than via NNTP)
Improved Reply handling

PRINTING IMPROVEMENTS

New printer configuration screen
Control of trailing form-feed
Allow definition of list of printers
New features to control separators between messages
New feature to allow per-message access to custom print command
Ability to print message index
Forced enabling of xon-xoff flow-control during printing
Ability to set init or trailer strings for each printer definition

VIEW MESSAGE IMPROVEMENTS

Number of lines of text overlap between pages can be set
Control of which headers are displayed by default

COMPOSER IMPROVEMENTS

LCC (List CC) header for hiding long address lists
To: will get dummy group header if only BCC or LCC given (no TO or CC).
Support for verbose sending (shows result of attempt to send)
Improved justification algorithm
Partial support for justifying included message text
Can delete messages from Postponed Msg index
^R sub-option to include/attach a msg # from current folder
^R sub-option to upload files from desktop computer directly into composer
Word wrap preserves NLs
File name completion (^R, ^J and "Attchmnt:"?)
If msg cancelled, save (optionally) in .dead.letter
Config variable to specify alternate speller
Included text indent string may be reset
Can set composer wrap column
Can modify ^K behavior to cut from cursor position, ala emacs
Can select whether DELETE key acts like ^D or ^H
Use separate buffers for cut and justify
Way to input 8-bit characters: <ESC><ESC><dec-num><dec-num><dec-num>
Resuming postponed composition: show fcc and bcc if not default values

MISC COMMAND IMPROVEMENTS

Pipe
-subcommand to select raw message output mode
-subcommand to select free-output mode
-subcommand to select whether mailbox message delimiter is included
Sort by TO: or CC: field
Bounce
-Apply now supports Bounce
-^T subcmd to get to address book
Select
-Allows inversion of current selection
-Improved user-interface for "By Date" selection
Reply
-Newsgroups header generally ignored unless Path header present
-New option to allow simultaneous email reply and news followup
-Reply-to-all improved for LISTSERV case
-Feature to use Reply-to address without prompting
Setup/Config screen
-Allow exit without committing changes
-Improved Add vs. Change behavior
Improved Bug Report command
Main menu now has Journal subcommand (log of informational messages)
New "Select current msg and advance" command in Index and ViewMsg (":")
Export includes ability to download message to desktop computer
Flag command revised to provide (optional) display of all flags

FEATURES TO ASSIST VISUALLY IMPAIRED USERS

show-cursor feature
single-column folder/file list display
disable-keymenu feature
control of index display format
control of addressbook display format
control of page overlap in View Message

FOLDER AND FILE MANAGEMENT IMPROVEMENTS

New default save and fcc name rules
Control over whether dot files are displayed
Incoming-archive-folders list
Pruned-folders list

MIME IMPROVEMENTS

mime.types file to control content-type of attachment
Option to enable 8BITMIME negotiation when ESMTP server available
Option to suppress MIME encoding for News posting
View Message and View Attach show type/subtype
New "About Attachment" subcommand under View Attach
RFC-1522 non-ascii character support for headers
Mailcap can override internal viewer for text/ types except text/plain
Suppress display of text types overridden in mailcap, except text/plain
Composer shows assigned content-type for attachments
Can set mime-types and mailcap file path
Try to display first text type in message even if mis-labelled

NEW COMMAND LINE OPTIONS

A -c context flag for -f (allows opening path w/o context interpretation)
Allow "pine fred < file " (which still puts you into the composer).
For Pico: operating-directory flag, similar to Pine's config variable

PERFORMANCE IMPROVEMENTS

Internal optimizations
Improved use of IMAP streams when changing folders
Use of same stream for aggregate saves
Major improvements in informational message display and queuing
Full caching enabled in Win32 version of PC-Pine

NEW VARIABLES

incoming-archive-folders=
pruned-folders=
default-saved-msg-folder=
viewer-hdrs=
goto-default-rule=
speller=
composer-wrap-column=
reply-indent-string=
display-filters=
sending-filters=
alt-addresses=
addressbook-formats=
index-format=
viewer-overlap=
status-message-delay=
mail-check-interval=
newsrc-path=
news-active-file-path=
news-spool-directory=
upload-command=
upload-command-prefix=
download-command=
download-command-prefix=
mailcap-search-path
mimetype-search-path
bugs-additional-data=
suggest-fullname=
suggest-address=
local-fullname=
local-address=
forced-abook-entry=
kblock-passwd-count=
sendmail-path=
operating-dir=

NEW FEATURES:

allow-talk (enables other processes to write to tty)
auto-zoom-after-select
auto-unzoom-after-apply
compose-cut-from-cursor (ala EMACS)
compose-maps-delete-key-to-ctrl-d
compose-send-offers-first-filter
disable-keymenu
disable-signature-edit-cmd
enable-8bit-esmtp-negotiation
enable-8bit-nntp-posting
enable-cruise-mode (SPACE acts like tab when at end of msg)
enable-cruise-mode-delete (look at it once, then it disappears!)
enable-dot-files (file browser normally hides dot files)
enable-dot-folders (folder lister normally hides them)
enable-flag-screen-implicitly
enable-mouse-in-xterm
enable-verbose-smtp-posting
fcc-on-bounce
pass-control-characters-as-is
print-offers-custom-cmd-prompt
print-index-enabled
print-formfeed-between-messages
quell-dead-letter-on-cancel
quell-lock-failure-warnings
quell-status-message-beeping
reply-always-uses-reply-to
save-will-quote-leading-froms
show-cursor
single-column-folder-list
tab-visits-next-new-message-only (skips those marked Important)
use-sender-not-x-sender
Modified: preserve-start-stop-characters (now implicit during printing)

NEW FEATURES SPECIFIC TO PC-PINE for Windows

Pull-down menus
Optional tool bar
Scroll bars
Additional mouse support
Improved cut/paste support
Ability to display message in separate window
Screen and printer fonts separately controllable
Improved Windows printing support
Spell checker interface
Piping support
Drag'n'drop into composer
Create pinecrsh.txt when it crashes
Win32 version, with full caching
Control-6 works consistently as ^^ (Mark)
Can enable dialogue boxes in lieu of normal prompts

BUG FIXES

pine.conf (init.c) fix (some variables being ignored)
Export bug (invalid msg separator syntax)
Empty .pine-interrupted not removed
Interrupted compositions not being saved
Looping fixes
PLUS hundreds of others...

OTHER

Pine file browser available as a stand-alone program (Pilot)
New version of Pico
Revised Update service, accessed by Pine's Setup/Update command.

STABILITY AND LIFE EXPECTANCY

As you can see, Pine 3.92 contains a *lot* of new stuff. Accordingly, consider this to be BETA code.

The plan is to release one or possibly two follow-on versions within 3-6 months (sooner if needed to correct a serious bug). First, there will be a Pine 4.00, which will have mostly the same functionality as 3.92, but will use the new IMAP4-capable c-client libraries in preparation for utilizing certain IMAP4 extensions later on. In addition, if circumstances warrant, there may be a "3.93" bug fix release in the same time frame.

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