Hi,

alpine uses *two* completely bogus date formats:
one for recent mails (“Yesterday”, “Saturday”, etc.),
one for older mails (“08/10/23” but is this d/m/y, y/m/d
or something even worse?).

pine uses “mmm d” for all messages, consistently.

Can I make alpine use pine’s format or something else better?

Thanks in advance,
//mirabilos
--
Gestern Nacht ist mein IRC-Netzwerk explodiert. Ich hatte nicht damit gerechnet, darum bin ich blutverschmiert… wer konnte ahnen, daß SIE so reagier’n… gestern Nacht ist mein IRC-Netzwerk explodiert~~~
(as of 2021-06-15 The MirOS Project temporarily reconvenes on OFTC)

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On 2024-09-10, Thorsten Glaser <[email protected]> wrote:

Hi,

alpine uses *two* completely bogus date formats:
one for recent mails (“Yesterday”, “Saturday”, etc.),
one for older mails (“08/10/23” but is this d/m/y, y/m/d
or something even worse?).

It is Month/Day/Year(2 digit yr)

PINE is dead long live PINE!

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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On Tue, 10 Sep 2024, Thorsten Glaser wrote:

alpine uses *two* completely bogus date formats:
one for recent mails (“Yesterday”, “Saturday”, etc.),
one for older mails (“08/10/23” but is this d/m/y, y/m/d
or something even worse?).

The only reasonable way to write a date/time is
YYYY-MM-DD hh:mm:ss = "%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S"

Unique interpretation, and sorted date strings are chronological.

Whatever a software offers as time display options users might find
convenient, there should always be the option to use this format for *all* dates, even if they happen to be "today", "Easter Monday", "last
Halloween" or something else.

--
Helmut Richter

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

This message is in MIME format. The first part should be readable text,
while the remaining parts are likely unreadable without MIME-aware tools.

On Wed, 11 Sep 2024, Helmut Richter wrote:

On Tue, 10 Sep 2024, Thorsten Glaser wrote:

alpine uses *two* completely bogus date formats:
one for recent mails (“Yesterday”, “Saturday”, etc.),
one for older mails (“08/10/23” but is this d/m/y, y/m/d
or something even worse?).

The only reasonable way to write a date/time is
YYYY-MM-DD hh:mm:ss = "%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S"

Unique interpretation, and sorted date strings are chronological.

Whatever a software offers as time display options users might find convenient, there should always be the option to use this format for *all* dates, even if they happen to be "today", "Easter Monday", "last
Halloween" or something else.

As far as I know, the source is available for you to implement that.
Create a patch, and I'll happily apply it to my own alpine.

Personally, the dates in alpine do not disturb me much.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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On Wed, 11 Sep 2024, D wrote:

On Wed, 11 Sep 2024, Helmut Richter wrote:

On Tue, 10 Sep 2024, Thorsten Glaser wrote:

alpine uses *two* completely bogus date formats:
one for recent mails (“Yesterday”, “Saturday”, etc.),
one for older mails (“08/10/23” but is this d/m/y, y/m/d
or something even worse?).

The only reasonable way to write a date/time is
YYYY-MM-DD hh:mm:ss = "%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S"

Unique interpretation, and sorted date strings are chronological.

Whatever a software offers as time display options users might find convenient, there should always be the option to use this format for *all* dates, even if they happen to be "today", "Easter Monday", "last
Halloween" or something else.

As far as I know, the source is available for you to implement that. Create a patch, and I'll happily apply it to my own alpine.

Personally, the dates in alpine do not disturb me much.

Nor me. My priorities for reasonable date formats are

1: ls (alias ll='ls -alog --show-control-chars --time-style="+%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S"')
2: emacs (no solution known, certainly some LISPie must have done that)
much lower: alpine

--
Helmut Richter

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Mikey dixit:

It is Month/Day/Year(2 digit yr)

Ugh, that’s literally the *worst*.


Helmut Richter dixit:

The only reasonable way to write a date/time is
YYYY-MM-DD hh:mm:ss = "%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S"

I fully agree, ISO 8601 FTW.

But ISO 8601 would be too wide for the screen, so I’d
be okay with what pine does. (The lack of the year does
irritate me a little, but it’d still be better than what
alpine currently does.)

Hmm, could do something like “Jul 28” is current year
and “JUL 28” (uppercase) is not current year.


ObConfusion: alpine even lists some incoming mails as
“Tomorrow”. Yay, time travel! (Basically, it doesn’t take
the timezone of the Date header into account when calculating
that. This really violates a number of principles…)

Would be nice if the Date header were converted to localtime
by default, the user can always press ‘H’ to see the original.

Meow,
//mirabilos
--
(gnutls can also be used, but if you are compiling lynx for your own use,
there is no reason to consider using that package)
-- Thomas E. Dickey on the Lynx mailing list, about OpenSSL

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On 2024-09-11 21:48, Thorsten Glaser wrote:

Mikey dixit:

It is Month/Day/Year(2 digit yr)

Ugh, that’s literally the *worst*.

Helmut Richter dixit:

The only reasonable way to write a date/time is
YYYY-MM-DD hh:mm:ss = "%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S"

I fully agree, ISO 8601 FTW.

But ISO 8601 would be too wide for the screen, so I’d
be okay with what pine does. (The lack of the year does
irritate me a little, but it’d still be better than what
alpine currently does.)

I use

24-09-12

YY-MM-DD

index-format=STATUS MSGNO SHORTDATEISO TIME24 FROM(20%) ADDRESSTO(10%) SIZE SUBJECT(75%)

722 24-08-26 23:36 Mail System Internal (460) DON'T DELETE THIS MESSAGE -- FOLDER INTERNAL DATA



--
Cheers, Carlos.

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Am 12.09.2024 um 15:54 schrieb Carlos E.R.:

On 2024-09-11 21:48, Thorsten Glaser wrote:

Mikey dixit:

It is Month/Day/Year(2 digit yr)

Ugh, that’s literally the *worst*.


Helmut Richter dixit:

The only reasonable way to write a date/time is
YYYY-MM-DD hh:mm:ss = "%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S"

I fully agree, ISO 8601 FTW.

But ISO 8601 would be too wide for the screen, so I’d
be okay with what pine does. (The lack of the year does
irritate me a little, but it’d still be better than what
alpine currently does.)

I use

24-09-12

YY-MM-DD

index-format=STATUS MSGNO SHORTDATEISO TIME24 FROM(20%) ADDRESSTO(10%)
SIZE SUBJECT(75%)

    722 24-08-26 23:36 Mail System Internal              (460) DON'T
DELETE THIS MESSAGE -- FOLDER INTERNAL DATA

Interesting, I never tried to set another format for the index lines, I
even didn't know that it's possible. I'm happy with the default for my
PC Alpine.

In my case the date is displayed as
MMM DD (like Aug 30)
for dates in the current year and
DD.MM.YYYY (like 17.08.2023)
for dates in previous years.

The help on that setting for "Index Format" says the default format for
the line is

STATUS MSGNO SMARTDATETIME24 FROMORTO(33%) SIZENARROW SUBJKEY(67%)

There are quite a lot of different tokens for date and/or time formats.

Holger

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This message is in MIME format. The first part should be readable text,
while the remaining parts are likely unreadable without MIME-aware tools.

On Thu, 12 Sep 2024, Carlos E.R. wrote:

On 2024-09-11 21:48, Thorsten Glaser wrote:

Mikey dixit:

It is Month/Day/Year(2 digit yr)

Ugh, that’s literally the *worst*.


Helmut Richter dixit:

The only reasonable way to write a date/time is
YYYY-MM-DD hh:mm:ss = "%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S"

I fully agree, ISO 8601 FTW.

But ISO 8601 would be too wide for the screen, so I’d
be okay with what pine does. (The lack of the year does
irritate me a little, but it’d still be better than what
alpine currently does.)

I use

24-09-12

YY-MM-DD

index-format=STATUS MSGNO SHORTDATEISO TIME24 FROM(20%) ADDRESSTO(10%) SIZE SUBJECT(75%)

722 24-08-26 23:36 Mail System Internal (460) DON'T DELETE THIS MESSAGE -- FOLDER INTERNAL DATA

Thank you very much Carlos, that really scratched a small itch I've had
for a long time! =)

I found "ATT" which enables me to see in the index, which messages have attachments and which messages don't. Up until now, I've always relied on
the size of the message to see if there are attachments, but now I get a
nice nr in the message index, indicating the nr of attachments. Thank you
very much! =)

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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On 2024-09-13 10:25, D wrote:

On Thu, 12 Sep 2024, Carlos E.R. wrote:

On 2024-09-11 21:48, Thorsten Glaser wrote:

Mikey dixit:

I use

24-09-12

YY-MM-DD

index-format=STATUS MSGNO SHORTDATEISO TIME24 FROM(20%) ADDRESSTO(10%)
SIZE SUBJECT(75%)

   722 24-08-26 23:36 Mail System Internal              (460) DON'T
DELETE THIS MESSAGE -- FOLDER INTERNAL DATA

Thank you very much Carlos, that really scratched a small itch I've had
for a long time! =)

I found "ATT" which enables me to see in the index, which messages have attachments and which messages don't. Up until now, I've always relied
on the size of the message to see if there are attachments, but now I
get a nice nr in the message index, indicating the nr of attachments.
Thank you very much! =)

That's an interesting idea, adding 'ATT'. Like you, I used the size.

Trying

Index Format = STATUS MSGNO SHORTDATEISO TIME24 FROM(20%) ADDRESSTO(10%) SIZE ATT SUBJECT(75%)

+ N 688 22-11-30 20:31 Carlos E.R. dest@opensu (4490) 1 Re: Could you check...
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ^

--
Cheers, Carlos.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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On Fri, 13 Sep 2024, Carlos E.R. wrote:

On 2024-09-13 10:25, D wrote:

On Thu, 12 Sep 2024, Carlos E.R. wrote:

On 2024-09-11 21:48, Thorsten Glaser wrote:

Mikey dixit:

I use

24-09-12

YY-MM-DD

index-format=STATUS MSGNO SHORTDATEISO TIME24 FROM(20%) ADDRESSTO(10%) SIZE SUBJECT(75%)

   722 24-08-26 23:36 Mail System Internal              (460) DON'T DELETE
THIS MESSAGE -- FOLDER INTERNAL DATA

Thank you very much Carlos, that really scratched a small itch I've had for a long time! =)

I found "ATT" which enables me to see in the index, which messages have attachments and which messages don't. Up until now, I've always relied on the size of the message to see if there are attachments, but now I get a nice nr in the message index, indicating the nr of attachments. Thank you very much! =)

That's an interesting idea, adding 'ATT'. Like you, I used the size.

Trying

Index Format = STATUS MSGNO SHORTDATEISO TIME24 FROM(20%)
ADDRESSTO(10%) SIZE ATT SUBJECT(75%)

+ N 688 22-11-30 20:31 Carlos E.R. dest@opensu (4490) 1 Re: Could you check...
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ^

I am using pine/alpine at least since 2006, that is for 18 years now, and
have never come across these options. Meanwhile, I have found

https://alpineapp.email/alpine/alpine-info/misc/index-format.html

which explains how to configure an index line if you are already well acquainted with the "tokens" you can use. Unfortunately, this web site
takes that for granted (perhaps they find something like SMARTDATE self-describing enough that you can easily guess what it means and what
the alternatives would have been).

Does anyone know where to find a complete list of tokens that can be used, preferably with a description what they mean?

--
Helmut Richter

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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This message is in MIME format. The first part should be readable text,
while the remaining parts are likely unreadable without MIME-aware tools.

On Fri, 13 Sep 2024, Carlos E.R. wrote:

On 2024-09-13 10:25, D wrote:

On Thu, 12 Sep 2024, Carlos E.R. wrote:

On 2024-09-11 21:48, Thorsten Glaser wrote:

Mikey dixit:

I use

24-09-12

YY-MM-DD

index-format=STATUS MSGNO SHORTDATEISO TIME24 FROM(20%) ADDRESSTO(10%)
SIZE SUBJECT(75%)

   722 24-08-26 23:36 Mail System Internal              (460) DON'T DELETE
THIS MESSAGE -- FOLDER INTERNAL DATA

Thank you very much Carlos, that really scratched a small itch I've had for >> a long time! =)

I found "ATT" which enables me to see in the index, which messages have
attachments and which messages don't. Up until now, I've always relied on
the size of the message to see if there are attachments, but now I get a
nice nr in the message index, indicating the nr of attachments. Thank you
very much! =)

That's an interesting idea, adding 'ATT'. Like you, I used the size.

Trying

Index Format = STATUS MSGNO SHORTDATEISO TIME24 FROM(20%) ADDRESSTO(10%) SIZE ATT SUBJECT(75%)

+ N 688 22-11-30 20:31 Carlos E.R. dest@opensu (4490) 1 Re: Could you check...
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ^

Exactly! I'm also thinking abotu removing message nr, since I never use
it. I mean it is interesting to know how many mails I have in an inbox,
but I actually never use that knowledge for anything, so why not remove it
and get the extra screen real estate? =)

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

This message is in MIME format. The first part should be readable text,
while the remaining parts are likely unreadable without MIME-aware tools.

On Fri, 13 Sep 2024, Helmut Richter wrote:

On Fri, 13 Sep 2024, Carlos E.R. wrote:

On 2024-09-13 10:25, D wrote:

On Thu, 12 Sep 2024, Carlos E.R. wrote:

On 2024-09-11 21:48, Thorsten Glaser wrote:

Mikey dixit:

I use

24-09-12

YY-MM-DD

index-format=STATUS MSGNO SHORTDATEISO TIME24 FROM(20%) ADDRESSTO(10%) >>>> SIZE SUBJECT(75%)

   722 24-08-26 23:36 Mail System Internal              (460) DON'T DELETE
THIS MESSAGE -- FOLDER INTERNAL DATA

Thank you very much Carlos, that really scratched a small itch I've had for >>> a long time! =)

I found "ATT" which enables me to see in the index, which messages have
attachments and which messages don't. Up until now, I've always relied on >>> the size of the message to see if there are attachments, but now I get a >>> nice nr in the message index, indicating the nr of attachments. Thank you >>> very much! =)

That's an interesting idea, adding 'ATT'. Like you, I used the size.

Trying

Index Format = STATUS MSGNO SHORTDATEISO TIME24 FROM(20%)
ADDRESSTO(10%) SIZE ATT SUBJECT(75%)

+ N 688 22-11-30 20:31 Carlos E.R. dest@opensu (4490) 1 Re: Could >> you check...
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ^

I am using pine/alpine at least since 2006, that is for 18 years now, and have never come across these options. Meanwhile, I have found

https://alpineapp.email/alpine/alpine-info/misc/index-format.html

which explains how to configure an index line if you are already well acquainted with the "tokens" you can use. Unfortunately, this web site
takes that for granted (perhaps they find something like SMARTDATE self-describing enough that you can easily guess what it means and what
the alternatives would have been).

Does anyone know where to find a complete list of tokens that can be used, preferably with a description what they mean?

It is very simple. You go to the index line option, then press ? for help,
in that article, a link to all tokens is highlighted. Follow that link and
you have descriptions of all tokens.

I find the help of alpine to be one of its major strengths! The help pages
are excellent and very often I do not find I even need to google it. I
think the main google topic I had was setting it up with gmail.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On Sat, 14 Sep 2024, D wrote:

On Fri, 13 Sep 2024, Helmut Richter wrote:

On Fri, 13 Sep 2024, Carlos E.R. wrote:

On 2024-09-13 10:25, D wrote:

On Thu, 12 Sep 2024, Carlos E.R. wrote:

On 2024-09-11 21:48, Thorsten Glaser wrote:

Mikey dixit:

I use

24-09-12

YY-MM-DD

index-format=STATUS MSGNO SHORTDATEISO TIME24 FROM(20%) ADDRESSTO(10%)
SIZE SUBJECT(75%)

   722 24-08-26 23:36 Mail System Internal              (460) DON'T
DELETE
THIS MESSAGE -- FOLDER INTERNAL DATA

Thank you very much Carlos, that really scratched a small itch I've had for
a long time! =)

I found "ATT" which enables me to see in the index, which messages have attachments and which messages don't. Up until now, I've always relied on
the size of the message to see if there are attachments, but now I get a
nice nr in the message index, indicating the nr of attachments. Thank you
very much! =)

That's an interesting idea, adding 'ATT'. Like you, I used the size.

Trying

Index Format = STATUS MSGNO SHORTDATEISO TIME24 FROM(20%)
ADDRESSTO(10%) SIZE ATT SUBJECT(75%)

+ N 688 22-11-30 20:31 Carlos E.R. dest@opensu (4490) 1 Re: Could
you check...
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ^

I am using pine/alpine at least since 2006, that is for 18 years now, and have never come across these options. Meanwhile, I have found

https://alpineapp.email/alpine/alpine-info/misc/index-format.html

which explains how to configure an index line if you are already well acquainted with the "tokens" you can use. Unfortunately, this web site takes that for granted (perhaps they find something like SMARTDATE self-describing enough that you can easily guess what it means and what
the alternatives would have been).

Does anyone know where to find a complete list of tokens that can be used, preferably with a description what they mean?

It is very simple. You go to the index line option, then press ? for help, in that article, a link to all tokens is highlighted. Follow that link and you have descriptions of all tokens.

Yes, of course. I tried that yesterday but pressed help too late, that is, after pressing CR for starting the change. At this point, "Help" is on ^G
and shows nothing about what to enter. My fault, and an idiotic one.

The existence of the cited web page made me think that the remaining information is on a web page as well. And once starting the search means
there are easily hours spent without finding anything. And the obvious is
no longer on the screen.

Thanks for your help!

--
Helmut Richter

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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On 2024-09-13 23:23, D wrote:

On Fri, 13 Sep 2024, Carlos E.R. wrote:

...

Trying

Index Format                      = STATUS MSGNO SHORTDATEISO TIME24
FROM(20%) ADDRESSTO(10%) SIZE ATT SUBJECT(75%)

+ N 688 22-11-30 20:31 Carlos E.R.          dest@opensu  (4490) 1 Re:
Could you check...
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ^

Exactly! I'm also thinking abotu removing message nr, since I never use
it. I mean it is interesting to know how many mails I have in an inbox,
but I actually never use that knowledge for anything, so why not remove
it and get the extra screen real estate? =)

There are commands that act on a range of messages specified by number,
IIRC.


--
Cheers, Carlos.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On 2024-09-14 11:26, D wrote:

On Fri, 13 Sep 2024, Helmut Richter wrote:

It is very simple. You go to the index line option, then press ? for
help, in that article, a link to all tokens is highlighted. Follow that
link and you have descriptions of all tokens.

I find the help of alpine to be one of its major strengths! The help
pages are excellent and very often I do not find I even need to google
it. I think the main google topic I had was setting it up with gmail.

On the other hand, as they are hardcoded, it makes almost impossible to translate Alpine to other languages.

--
Cheers, Carlos.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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D <[email protected]> wrote:

This message is in MIME format. The first part should be readable text,
while the remaining parts are likely unreadable without MIME-aware tools.

--8323328-416857779-1726305972=:1902
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed >Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8BIT

Why exactly are you creating multipart articles in followup, just to
have a plain text part? What client are you using and why do you have it
set to do that?

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

This message is in MIME format. The first part should be readable text,
while the remaining parts are likely unreadable without MIME-aware tools.

On Sat, 14 Sep 2024, Carlos E.R. wrote:

On 2024-09-13 23:23, D wrote:

On Fri, 13 Sep 2024, Carlos E.R. wrote:

...

Trying

Index Format                      = STATUS MSGNO SHORTDATEISO TIME24
FROM(20%) ADDRESSTO(10%) SIZE ATT SUBJECT(75%)

+ N 688 22-11-30 20:31 Carlos E.R.          dest@opensu  (4490) 1 Re:
Could you check...
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ^

Exactly! I'm also thinking abotu removing message nr, since I never use it. >> I mean it is interesting to know how many mails I have in an inbox, but I
actually never use that knowledge for anything, so why not remove it and
get the extra screen real estate? =)

There are commands that act on a range of messages specified by number, IIRC.

True. But so far, most of my operations are done by either searching and selecting, or selecting them manually with :. But that is a good point to
keep in mind.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

On Sat, 14 Sep 2024, Adam H. Kerman wrote:

D <[email protected]> wrote:

This message is in MIME format. The first part should be readable text,
while the remaining parts are likely unreadable without MIME-aware tools.

--8323328-416857779-1726305972=:1902
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8BIT

Why exactly are you creating multipart articles in followup, just to
have a plain text part? What client are you using and why do you have it
set to do that?

Hello Adam, I have no idea. From my side everything looks alright, and my client is alpine. If you have any suggestions for how to fix it, please
feel free to let me know.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)

This message is in MIME format. The first part should be readable text,
while the remaining parts are likely unreadable without MIME-aware tools.

On Sat, 14 Sep 2024, Helmut Richter wrote:

On Sat, 14 Sep 2024, D wrote:

On Fri, 13 Sep 2024, Helmut Richter wrote:

On Fri, 13 Sep 2024, Carlos E.R. wrote:

On 2024-09-13 10:25, D wrote:

On Thu, 12 Sep 2024, Carlos E.R. wrote:

On 2024-09-11 21:48, Thorsten Glaser wrote:

Mikey dixit:

I use

24-09-12

YY-MM-DD

index-format=STATUS MSGNO SHORTDATEISO TIME24 FROM(20%) ADDRESSTO(10%) >>>>>> SIZE SUBJECT(75%)

   722 24-08-26 23:36 Mail System Internal              (460) DON'T
DELETE
THIS MESSAGE -- FOLDER INTERNAL DATA

Thank you very much Carlos, that really scratched a small itch I've had >>>>> for
a long time! =)

I found "ATT" which enables me to see in the index, which messages have >>>>> attachments and which messages don't. Up until now, I've always relied >>>>> on
the size of the message to see if there are attachments, but now I get a >>>>> nice nr in the message index, indicating the nr of attachments. Thank >>>>> you
very much! =)

That's an interesting idea, adding 'ATT'. Like you, I used the size.

Trying

Index Format = STATUS MSGNO SHORTDATEISO TIME24
FROM(20%)
ADDRESSTO(10%) SIZE ATT SUBJECT(75%)

+ N 688 22-11-30 20:31 Carlos E.R. dest@opensu (4490) 1 Re:
Could
you check...
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ^

I am using pine/alpine at least since 2006, that is for 18 years now, and >>> have never come across these options. Meanwhile, I have found

https://alpineapp.email/alpine/alpine-info/misc/index-format.html

which explains how to configure an index line if you are already well
acquainted with the "tokens" you can use. Unfortunately, this web site
takes that for granted (perhaps they find something like SMARTDATE
self-describing enough that you can easily guess what it means and what
the alternatives would have been).

Does anyone know where to find a complete list of tokens that can be used, >>> preferably with a description what they mean?

It is very simple. You go to the index line option, then press ? for help, in
that article, a link to all tokens is highlighted. Follow that link and you >> have descriptions of all tokens.

Yes, of course. I tried that yesterday but pressed help too late, that is, after pressing CR for starting the change. At this point, "Help" is on ^G
and shows nothing about what to enter. My fault, and an idiotic one.

The existence of the cited web page made me think that the remaining information is on a web page as well. And once starting the search means there are easily hours spent without finding anything. And the obvious is
no longer on the screen.

Thanks for your help!

You're welcome! =)

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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D <[email protected]> wrote:

On Sat, 14 Sep 2024, Adam H. Kerman wrote:

D <[email protected]> wrote:

This message is in MIME format. The first part should be readable text, >>>while the remaining parts are likely unreadable without MIME-aware tools.

--8323328-416857779-1726305972=:1902
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed >>>Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8BIT

Why exactly are you creating multipart articles in followup, just to
have a plain text part? What client are you using and why do you have it >>set to do that?

Hello Adam, I have no idea. From my side everything looks alright, and my >client is alpine. If you have any suggestions for how to fix it, please
feel free to let me know.

It didn't happ[en in this followup. I've never noticed this behavior before.

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D dixit:

On Thu, 12 Sep 2024, Carlos E.R. wrote:

index-format=...

Thank you very much Carlos, that really scratched a small itch I've had for a long time! =)

Indeed!

index-format=STATUS MSGNO DATE FROMORTO(33%) SIZE SUBJKEY(67%)

in .pinerc brings back pine feelings on alpine.
I was almost tempted to use SMARTTIME24, but I never know what
day of the week it is, and I would prefer time-of-day for within
the last 24 hours and DATE otherwise, but that is not an option,
so I stuck to what I know (also to reduce the difference between
my pine and alpine sessions).

Thanks,
//mirabilos

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Well, if I just have a word "date" it shows the month such as "May" Once I include any of the "shortdate1-4" both month-and-year become 2digits. I would really prefer something like
April 24 1996
Some of these other formats sound confusing with a screen-reader where consecutive groups of numbers parade by. Thanks in advance-and-what is "dixit"? Chime

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On Thu, 3 Jul 2025, Chime Hart wrote:

Well, if I just have a word "date" it shows the month such as "May" Once I include any of the "shortdate1-4" both month-and-year become 2digits. I would really prefer something like
April 24 1996

To get April 24 1996 you would have to use MONTHLONG DAY YEAR, but you
should reconsider that since MONTHLONG will take a lot of space from each
line, leaving less for fields such as from and subject.

--
Eduardo
https://alpineapp.email (web)
http://repo.or.cz/alpine.git (Git)

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Thank you Eduardo, that is wonderful. Eventually I mostly want that style while examining these Clari groups. Even better would be a hotkey to switch on-and-off the date. Thanks again
Chime

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OK, a `happy ending. I had a script called "clari" to just show local-and-news group related clari groups, like this
#!/bin/sh

# Run alpine with just the Clarinet groups

NEWSRC=${HOME}/.newsrc.clari-news.us.easynews.com;export NEWSRC
alpine -IL -newsrc-path=${NEWSRC} -p ${HOME}/.pinerc-clari
In useing a separate .pinerc I get the longer date format, but also I can have both that-and-my regular index opened at the same time without either becoming read only. My Linux expert-and-myself found the whole rules concept confusing. Thanks for all your suggestions.
Chime

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Well, unfortunately my main malbox did become read only. If there were a way of reading mail in 1 console-and-examining a news-group in another without read only, that would be wonderful. Thanks in advance
Chime

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On 2025-07-20, Chime Hart <[email protected]> wrote:

Well, unfortunately my main malbox did become read only. If there were a way of
reading mail in 1 console-and-examining a news-group in another without read only, that would be wonderful. Thanks in advance
Chime

The problem is that that would allow two different programs to rewrite
delete etc from your incoming mail and making a complete mess of the
INBOX, probably causing you to lose all of the mail in your
inbox. If you are running two versions of alpine, the two versions of
alpine do not talks to each other (that would be a real mess to program)
and could completely mess up the inbox. (They do talk only to the extent
of one telling the other that it is also running, so the old one can
convert to read only so you do not mess up the inbox.

You could just use two different readers for mail and for news groups.
Eg, pine for mail and slrn for news groups.

(I suggest slrn since it is really fast in downloading the news)

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Thanks William for your analysis. I thought maybe news-groups-and-e-mail could be looked at independantly? I use trn4 for reading-and-downloading, but I like Alpine for posting or replying. I really didn't understand slrn, although nn was nearest to trn.
Chime

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On 2025-07-20, Chime Hart <[email protected]> wrote:

Thanks William for your analysis. I thought maybe news-groups-and-e-mail could
be looked at independantly?

Apparently not.

I use trn4 for reading-and-downloading, but I like
Alpine for posting or replying. I really didn't understand slrn, although nn

What is it about Alpine that you like for posting or replying? Remember
that you can change the program used for editiing. I use vi in both slrn
and in alpine. The default in alpine is pico.

was nearest to trn.
Chime

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William Unruh <[email protected]> wrote:

2025-07-20, Chime Hart <[email protected]> wrote:

Thanks William for your analysis. I thought maybe news-groups-and-e-mail >>could be looked at independantly?

Apparently not.

I use trn4 for reading-and-downloading, but I like
Alpine for posting or replying. I really didn't understand slrn, although nn >>was nearest to trn.

What is it about Alpine that you like for posting or replying? Remember
that you can change the program used for editiing. I use vi in both slrn
and in alpine. The default in alpine is pico.

If I need MIME headers, I have to remember to add them when using trn. alpine would do it automatically after parsing.

Other than headers, I can't think of another reason.

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Well William, Alpine is a familliar envirenment. With trn I only read-and-grab groups including binaries which for now I must run uudeview to decode. Also in Alpine, I have quoting set to its loest level, which in trn I still hear the mentions of which dates an author is replying about. For myself, listening with a screen-reader, it is an extreme waste of time.
As far as editors, I like NANO but I only use with local files. I think once I tried NANO with Alpine, but switched back to its native editor. I know nothing about Vim or Emacs.
Chime

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On Sun, 20 Jul 2025, Chime Hart wrote:

Well, unfortunately my main malbox did become read only. If there were a
way of reading mail in 1 console-and-examining a news-group in another without read only, that would be wonderful. Thanks in advance Chime

use the other rules setup, not two configuration files. From the main
screen press S R O to set them up.

--
Eduardo
https://alpineapp.email (web)
http://repo.or.cz/alpine.git (Git)

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