hello,

there are two tips for today which will be used together and will
provide the practical basis for implementing some of the future tips.
i will discus the two tips first and at the end have a step by step
guide for using them.  if you are unfamiliar with the format of using
commands, it might be prudent to do a character by character
exploration of them with your screen reader.   as it is in dos,
spaces; symbols; and exact spelling is important in what we will be
doing.

1.  in pine one can shell out back to the unix command prompt.   in
dos many programs also have this feature where one can temporarily go
back to the "c" prompt, do some computer function or command, and then
pop right back into the program at the point where the shell out was
done.   in pine this shell is accomplished first by adding an extra
part to the command which starts pine as follows:

pine -z

i recommend that only lower case characters be used at the unix
command line because all unix functions are in lower case and will not
work in upper case.   the -z tells pine to allow a shell.   when in
pine, holding down the control key and pressing the z key will do the
shell.  because text from within pine will be left on the screen even
though you are at the command line, using the clear command will clear
the screen and not be confusing for screen readers.  so, after doing
the control + z command, give this command to unix to clear the screen:

clear

in dos, typing exit as a command pops back into the program. in unix
fg is the command to use.   the next time you start pine try it. you
must return to pine before leaving your internet connection to avoid
problems in unix.   this is important for proper operation of pine the
next time you log onto your account. using this technique, one can
read the tips in pine, go to the command line and make the suggested
changes to the lynx configuration files and pop back into pine to
resume where you left.   don't feel you must do it this way, do what
is comfortable for you based on your experience.

2.  the second tip relates to making changes in the lynx configuration
files.   one could make changes on their machines and upload them to
the unix system.  i don't recommend this unless you know for sure that
your text editor and/or word processor are compatible with the way
unix handles text files.   instead, i will be using the pico text
editor on the unix system.   without knowing it, you already know how
to, and have already used this unix text editor.   when you write an
email message in pine it starts pico and then leaves it when you send
the message.   so, all of the editing and  moving around the screen
commands should already be familiar to you.   the only major difference
is when leaving pico.  when you send a message, you use the control +
x command.   it is the same to save a file when using pico as a text
editor. unlike how it works in pine when sending a message, pico asks
for confirmation of wanting to save any changes and to confirm the
file name upon exiting.   the prompts for both of these will be on
line 22 just as prompts are in pine.

so, this is the technique i recommend unless you prefer to do it another
way.

here are the steps to use:

a.  start pine with the -z addition to the command.

b. when reading these tips messages and you find you want to implement
some feature in lynx by changing the lynx configuration file, do a
shell from within pine with the control + z key combination.

c. when at the unix command line, do the clear command to clear the
screen.

d. type pico plus the name of the lynx file which is the topic of the
tip.  i will tell you in each tip which file is to be changed.  for
example:

pico lynx.cfg

e. when finished making the changes, save the file.

f. use the fg command to pop back to the tip message in pine and go on.

if you have any questions about these procedures, please ask.

regards,

dan