[Alpine-info] running Alpine off-line

[Jacob Wegelin]

Alternate subject: Can one elegantly disconnect Alpine from the internet?

Alpine is useful even when you're not connected to the internet.  (Examples are given below.)

Suppose you want to run Alpine without being distracted by any emails coming in. One way to do this is to unplug the ethernet cable from your computer. But is there an elegant or easy way to disconnect Alpine temporarily from the internet without disconnecting the computer itself?

Examples of ways that Alpine is useful when one is not connected to the internet:

Alpine is convenient as a database, in the sense that one can perform some fairly sophisticated searches of one's saved and sent emails, create new folders from what one has found, etc.

Alpine is also convenient as an environment in which carefully compose a memo carefully, that is, to work on and revise a text and to keep multiple snapshots of the process. One does this, first, by being "in" the postponed-msgs folder, moving to the bottom of the folder, then by starting to compose an email and repeatedly doing the following:

ctrl O [postpone the message]

ctrl L [refresh the view of the postponed-msgs folder]

S 0 [save current draft to a folder called "0"]

U ctrl Y [undelete current draft and open it again for editing.]

Also, you can make a snapshot of your entire INBOX, then disconnect from the internet and read your mail without being distracted by new stuff coming in. One way to make the snapshot is as follows:

Delete any Alpine folder called "inbox_snapshot".

Move "into" the INBOX and "open" it.

X  [Check that no messages in INBOX are currently deleted and not yet expunged, because you will soon remove the deletion mark from all messages.]

; A [Select all messages]

A S inbox_snapshot [Save all messages from INBOX to a new folder called inbox_snapshot, which is on your local computer]

Y [yes, this is a new folder that I want Alpine to create]

A U [Undelete all the messages in INBOX]

; A [Deselect all the messages in INBOX]

Thanks for any info on whether there is an elegant way to disconnect Alpine from the internet.

Jacob A. Wegelin
Assistant Professor
Department of Biostatistics
Virginia Commonwealth University
730 East Broad Street Room 3006
P. O. Box 980032
Richmond VA 23298-0032
U.S.A. 
http://www.people.vcu.edu/~jwegelin
jwegelin at vcu dot edu