[CLUE-Tech] my beloved pine and pico

[Sean LeBlanc]

On 02-06 23:21, Angelo Bertolli wrote:
> 
> >Also, as much as people think emacs is the editor from hell, it can
> >actually be quite easy to use.  For one thing there is no distinction
> >between "command" mode and "edit" mode (ala, vi).  Plus, with the
> >menus and such, I think a newbie could do quite well.
> >
> >
> > 
> >
> No, of course it's much easier to use ctrl-c ctrl-m ctrl-x ctrl-f to 
> load a file!  Honestly I think vi is easier.  I only say that because I 
> could never get the hang of emacs, and I appreciate the efficiency of vi 
> once you get used to it.  I wish I could start using emacs because it is 
> more than just an editor, and can be configured to become an IDE or 
> other cool things.  (I bet emacs could even serve as a shell.)  But I 
> can't even figure out how to use it.  I was really naive to think I 
> could figure out the .emacs file which are probably 100x more confusing.

<snip>

I know you are joking (sorta), but loading a file is C-x C-f. A good
shell (use it on Windoze all the time under Emacs) can be found via M-x
eshell.

I agree that Emacs is a tough thing to master, though. Today as a matter of
fact, I was just wrestling with how to edit an Ant build script (XML, *and*
you have to have Ant build its own DTD - an added wrinkle). I did find my
way through it, but I'm still not satisfied with the current color scheme. I
still barely understand the way in which files are compiled, things like
"faces" etc., and I'm no Lisper, even though I did have an AI course that
used Lisp.
 
As for the original poster, if you are looking for a replacement for pine,
check out mutt. I went through sylpheed,balsa, and a few other GUI mail clients
before finally settling on mutt. I'm very happy with it. CLI is much better
when SSH'ing home - you don't need all that X cruft just to read mail
remotely. An added bonus is that all those goofy HTML mails don't render! :) 

-- 
Sean LeBlanc:seanleblanc at americanisp.net  
http://users.americanisp.net/~seanleblanc/
Get MLAC at: http://sourceforge.net/projects/mlac/
There are things known and there are things unknown, and in between are the 
doors. 
-Jim Morrison (member of the "Doors")