Using Alpine in an X11 Terminal

2008-03-23T16:34:00.007Z

Alpine is my primary IMAP, NNTP, & ESMTP client and for years I've used it without a mouse. Using the keyboard is usually an efficient way to navigate, manage, and write messages, but sometimes I dream about being able to use a mouse. With the release of Alpine 1.10 on 2008-March-18 and my recent upgrade to Mac OS X Leopard, I decided to try using it in an X11 Terminal again. In the past I've failed to get it to work well, but today I succeeded! Here are some details about how I got it to work.

Important: These instructions worked on Leopard, but will probably not work on Tiger (or earlier) because the X11 configuration is significantly different in Leopard than in earlier versions of OS X. Details about X11 on Leopard are here and here.

Install the latest Alpine. For details, see my blog item titled Building and Installing Alpine (Apache-Licensed Pine).

In a Terminal.app window, run
```
xterm -e alpine &
```
In Alpine, go to Main > Setup > Config (MSC) and set this feature:
```
[X]  Enable Mouse in Xterm
```
Read Alpine's built-in Help about Enable Mouse in Xterm (by typing Ctrl-G or ?), but note that in Leopard you should not explicitly set the DISPLAY environment variable. Instead, it will be set automatically when xterm runs. This is one of the changes in Leopard.

Read the built-in Help about the following two features and decide if you would like to set them. Here are the settings that I use:
```
[X]  Enable Newmail in Xterm Icon
[ ]  Enable Newmail Short Text in Icon
```

In Alpine, go to Main > Setup > Kolor (MSK) and set

Color Style
  Set    Rule Values
  ---  ----------------------
  ( )  no-color
  ( )  use-termdef
  ( )  force-ansi-8color
  ( )  force-ansi-16color
  (*)  force-xterm-256color

After you set the color style, use the Space and - keys to navigate the SETUP COLOR screen and choose colors that you like.

Save your settings and quit Alpine.

Quit X11.

In a Terminal.app window, run
```
xterm -e alpine &
```
and check that the mouse and colors are working.

If you plan to run Alpine in an X11 Terminal regularly, set up an alias in your ~/.bashrc (or ~/.bash_profile) that you can use to launch xalpine with the xterm settings (fonts, geometry, etc.) that you like. For example, here is the alias that I'm currently using:
```
alias xal='xterm -fa DejaVu\ Sans\ Mono -fs 18 -geometry 116x32+0+0 -e alpine &'
```

Tip 1: The DejaVu fonts, which include the DejaVu Sans Mono font that I use in my 'xal' alias above, are libre and include many Unicode characters. To see if the DejaVu fonts are installed on your system, view this DejaVu Testing page in your web browser.

Tip 2: Cmd-double-clicking anywhere on a URL in an xterm will send it to your default web browser.

Tip 3: To select text in xalpine, you need to hold down the Shift key while using the mouse to select the text. After the text is selected, Cmd-C can be used to copy the text.

Tip 4: To paste text into xalpine, you need to first type Ctrl-\ to turn off Alpine's Xterm mouse tracking, then middle-click (Alt-click) at the location where you would like the text to be pasted. Note that in order for this to work you need to go to X11 > Preferences > Input and check 'Emulate three button mouse'.

Please post any tips, suggestions, or questions you have about using Alpine in an X11 Terminal.

Building and Installing Alpine (Apache-Licensed Pine)

2007-01-30T17:45:00.000Z

Alpine, the University of Washington's new Apache-Licensed Pine, has been in alpha testing since 2006 November 29 and it's now at a point where I feel comfortable recommending it to power Pine users. If you would like to participate in the alpha test, go to the Alpine Information Center and join the alpine-alpha mailing list.

Here is what I did to build and install Alpine on my Mac OS X system.

If you have not done so already, download and install the latest Xcode package from the Apple Developer Center.
Backup any Pine and Alpine files that are in /usr/local/bin. These will be replaced by Step 12 below.
Go to ftp.cac.washington.edu/alpine and get the latest alpine-x.xx.tar.bz2 (where x.xx is the version number). I prefer to get the .bz2 file because it is smaller than the .Z and .gz files.
Put this tarball in your build directory, for example in ~/Build.
Open a Terminal window.
To change to your build directory, type:
```
cd ~/Build
```
To check the MD5 checksum of the tarball, run one of the following commands:
```
/sbin/md5 /absolute/path/to/alpine-x.xx.tar.bz2
/usr/bin/openssl md5 /absolute/path/to/alpine-x.xx.tar.bz2
```
I recommend that you specify the absolute path to both the command and the tarball to ensure you are not specifying trojans. The MD5 checksum should match the MD5 checksum that is in the x.xx release announcement message in the alpine-alpha mailing list.
To unbzip2 and untar the tarball, type:
```
tar jxvf alpine-x.xx.tar.bz2
```
To change to the newly created alpine-x.xx directory, type:
```
cd alpine-x.xx
```
To read the README and the configuration help, type:
```
less README
./configure --help |less
```
To build Alpine, type the following (which are discussed in the README):
```
./configure
make
```
After the build is finished, type:
```
sudo make install
```
You will be prompted for your Mac OS X password.
To check that Alpine was built and installed correctly, type:
```
man alpine
alpine
```
Make sure that these two commands invoke the correct version (x.xx). If these commands do not work, you probably need to add /usr/local/man to your MANPATH environment variable and /usr/local/bin to your PATH environment variable. For details, see the man page for your shell (man bash, man tcsh, etc.). To determine your shell, run finger -l.

To learn more about Alpine, which is basically Pine 5.0, see:

man alpine
alpine -h | less
Alpine Release Notes, which can be viewed by typing MR (Main > RelNotes) in Alpine
Alpine's built-in context-sensitive Help, which can be viewed by typing ^G (Get Help) or ? in Alpine
Alpine-alpha list archives
All About Pine: POP, IMAP, NNTP, & ESMPT Client for Unix, MS Windows, and Mac OS X
Power Pine: Getting the Most Out of Unix-, Mac-, and PC-Pine

Good luck with Alpine and I hope to see you in the Alpine-alpha list!

Tip 1: You should be able to use a modified version of these instructions to build Alpine on any Unix-like system. For example, I used Steps 3-11 to build Alpine on my DreamHost shared hosting account, which runs Debian Linux.

Tip 2: The Alpine FTP site includes pre-built versions of Alpine for MS Windows (PC-Alpine): alpine-x.xx-wnt.zip and setup_alpine_x.xx.exe. Details are in ftp://ftp.cac.washington.edu/alpine/README

See Also: Paul Heinlein's Pine and Alpine on Mac OS X, which includes notes on building and running Pine or Alpine under Mac OS X.

Deflexion.com

Using Alpine in an X11 Terminal

Building and Installing Alpine (Apache-Licensed Pine)