Alpine Technical Notes
Version 2.20.1, January 2015
Table of Contents
Introduction
Design Goals
Alpine Components
Background Details
Domain Names
RFC 2822 Compliance
SMTP and Sendmail
Internet Message Access Protocol (IMAP)
Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions (MIME)
Folder Collections
Building and Installation
Compile-time Options
Including LDAP Functionality
Including Kerberos 5 Functionality
Other Alpine Compile-time Options
IMAPd Compile-time Options
Building the Alpine Programs
Installing Alpine and Pico on UNIX Platforms
Installing PC-Alpine
Installing IMAPd
Support Files and Environment Variables: UNIX Alpine
Support Files, Environment Variables, and Registry Values: PC-Alpine
Command Line Arguments
Alpine
Pico
Pilot
Configuration and Preferences
Alpine Configuration
General Configuration Variables
Configuration Features
Hidden Config Variables and Features
Retired Variables
Tokens for Index and Replying
Conditional Inclusion of Text for Reply-Leadin, Signatures, and Templates
Per Server Directory Configuration
Color Configuration
Index Line Color Configuration
Role Configuration
Filtering Configuration
Scoring Configuration
Other Rules Configuration
Search Rules Configuration
Patterns
Configuring News
Configuration Notes
Alpine in Function Key Mode
Domain Settings
Syntax for Collections
Syntax for Folder Names
Server Name Syntax
Folder Namespaces
What is a Mail Drop?
Sorting a Folder
Alternate Editor
Signatures and Signature Placement
Feature List Variable
Configuration Inheritance
Using Environment Variables
SMTP Servers
MIME.Types file
Color Details
S/MIME Overview
Additional Notes on PC-Alpine
Behind the Scenes
Address Books
Remote Configuration
Checkpointing
Debug Files
INBOX and Special Folders
Internal Help Files
International Character Sets
Interrupted and Postponed Messages
Message Status
MIME: Reading a Message
MIME: Sending a Message
New Mail Notification
NFS
Printers and Printing
Save and Export
Sent Mail
Spell Checker
Terminal Emulation and Key Mapping