Re: Understanding Pine incoming-folders and incoming-archive-folders

On Fri, 18 Aug 2006 11:13:40 +0100, NM Public wrote:

> Beartooth and I are in the midst of setting up his system so he 
> can 1) use Pine to access multiple IMAP accounts and 2) run Pine 
> on multiple computers. My goal is to *not* simply walk him 
> through setting this all up. Instead I want him to understand 
> what's going on (and I think that's what Beartooth wants too).

Yes, definitely; as far back as I can remember, I've always had an
awful time trying to do anything I didn't understand. But there are levels
of understanding, and only so much time. I certainly need more
understanding than I've got now, though. 
 
> Before we can continue, there are three things that are essential to
> understand:
> 
>    * Pine's primary collection
>    * Pine's Incoming-Folders collection
>    * Pine's incoming-archive-folders variable
> 
> I've updated my Power Pine page to try to make these clear, but I am
> sure that what I've written can be improved. Please read the following
> sections of my Power Pine page and post any questions or comments you
> have about this. I know it is confusing!

Confusing is precisely the mot juste here. The difficulty is not depth, in
the sense of poetry or higher math (both of which I've studied
extensively), but trying to juggle umpteen thoughts and definitions at the
same time. 

I've read all the new pages; but it's going to take days to digest them.
It reminds me of the days long ago and far away when I was teaching baby
German. You introduce the pluperfect tense, for instance; the students get
it to the point of virtuousity; and then they mess up the present
perfect, which they were masters of yesterday. You have to go back, review
that, combine it with the pluperfect, go back to the imperfect, and so on.
Repetitio est mater studiorum ...

> 
>    Pine's primary collection
>    <http://www.ii.com/internet/messaging/pine/pc/#collectionTips>
> 
> The first bullet in this "Collection Tips" section discusses the Pine
> "primary folder collection". Understanding this will, I hope, help you
> to understand some of the problems you (Beartooth) are having with your
> incoming-archive-folders.

Here the juggling may get worse yet. You (Nancy) refer to the
folder-collections setting in .pinerc. On titan (the machine on which I
mainly run pine, usually under ssh), I have the following : 

.pine.pwd
.pinerc
.pinerc-05-10-06
.pinerc_05_12_06
.pinerc-2006-04-12.Bkup
.pinerc.old

I'll assume only plain .pinerc is what pine will look in, and therefore
the only one in question here. Then I have to go find the end of the
train of thought again...

OK, found that. You say :

The folder-collections setting will look like
this in your pinerc file: folder-collections=nickname1
your-primary-collection,
  nickname2 folder-collection2,
  etc.

I find a line in .pinerc saying 

folder-collections=Mail mail/[]

Now I have to puzzle a while over whether those are equivalent .... Stay
tuned!

[....]

> 
> This discussion is open to all, not just Beartooth and me!

Yes, please, by all means!

-- 
Beartooth Staffwright, Wordcrafty Squirreler
FC5; Pine 4.64, Pan 0.14.2.91; Privoxy 3.0.3; CXO 5.0.1
Dillo 0.8.5, Opera 9.01, Firefox 1.5, Galeon 2.0.1
Remember I have little idea what I am talking about.