[pmmail-list] PMMail does not understand MIME format

[Dr. Jeffrey Race]

Whether it appears depends on the PMMail version and OS.  My PMMail 1.96
for OS/2 shows the "This message is in MIME format. . . . ." text, as it
should because it is the first part of the message.   It properly shows
the next part as an attachment, which one would have to open in another
ap.

PMMail for Windows would show an attachment (e.g. html-formatted e-mail)
instead.   However I refuse such messages as they are notorious virus
vectors.

MIME is not an e-mail format; it is an attachment format.  Correspondents
might properly be warned that they transmit such at their own risk as many
MTAs or MUAs auto-trash such attachments.  See
<http://www.camblab.com/nugget/htmlmail.pdf>

Jeffrey Race

On Mon, 10 Nov 2003 10:47:52 -0800, Tim Roberts wrote:

>On Mon, 10 Nov 2003 11:08:01 -0700 (MST), James Moe wrote:
>
>>On Mon, 10 Nov 2003 09:09:35 -0800, Tim Roberts wrote:
>>
>>>That little nugget is extremely common in MIME messages, and it is both
>>>valid and correct: a mail reader that handles MIME will not show it.  And,
>>>ordinarily, PMMail does not show it to me.  However, it does in this case.
>>>
>>It showed it to me in this version. Since the warning message is part of 
>>the text/plain section, that is what I expect. 
>
>No, it is NOT part of the text/plain section!  It is part of the message
>body, immediately following the headers, but outside of any MIME section. 
>According to the MIME spec, a MIME-compliant mailer is supposed to ignore
>any text in this region (and PMMail usually does).  In fact, the MIME spec
>suggests you put exactly this kind of warning message there for non-MIME
>mailers.
>
>Here an excerpt from the message in question, starting towards the end of
>the headers.  The text/plain part starts with "7 November 2003".
>
>--- begin excerpt ---
>Date:         Fri, 7 Nov 2003 15:08:28 +1300
>Reply-To:     Emarenzi@DOC.GOVT.NZ
>From:         Elizabeth Marenzi <Emarenzi@DOC.GOVT.NZ>
>Subject:      29th What's Up DOC? Web Site Newsletter
>To:           DOC-NZ-UPDATE@LISTSERV.DOC.GOVT.NZ
>Content-Type: multipart/alternative;
>              boundary="----_=_NextPart_001_01C3A4D4.09115A20"
>
>This message is in MIME format. Since your mail reader does not understand
>this format, some or all of this message may not be legible.
>
>------_=_NextPart_001_01C3A4D4.09115A20
>Content-Type: text/plain;
>        charset="iso-8859-1"
>
>7 November 2003
>
>What's Up DOC?
>
>New on the Site
>
>--- end excerpt ---
>
>--
>- Tim Roberts, timr@probo.com
>  Providenza & Boekelheide, Inc.
>
>
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