[pmmail-list] HTML and other parts (was: when is the new beta coming?)

[L.Willms]

On Wed, 28 Aug 2002 17:33:32 -0400, PMMail 2000 Support wrote:

> if a
> message is declared as text/plain, then PMMail will no longer attempt
> to process the html. It is a start in the right direction, we hope you
> agree.

   Yes, I do agree. But nevertheless, there should be an option to see that 
message part with the HTML decoded. The easiest way would be like in the OS/2 
version, i.e. HTML tags stripped, and in a web browser on demand. Better the 
rendering done like now in PMMail/2000 (i.e. Win). 

   The problem with the viewing in a web browser, is the web bugs included in 
many of the HTML spam, where an image of 1x1 pixels is referenced, and with 
this reference goes an identifier of the recipient, so that the sender can 
control if, when, and from which IP and domain the message is being read. 

   For HTML rendering by PMMail, I would suggest two options, which I had seen 
in another email client:  
   [ ] follow external links
   [ ] load external images 

   which should be, IMHO, off as a default. 

   It should probably even include a [ ] use external style sheets

   Make it a new page, e.g. "Viewing" of the configuration notebook. 

   There might also be some preferences for view the "Content-type: 
multipart/ALTERNATIVE", where we user might record our preference of seeing 
the text/plain part ot the text/html alternate. multipart/alternative also 
concerns alternate parts in different languages. You should have a look into 
the relevant IETF and IANA documents. E.g. 
http://www.iana.org/assignments/media-types/index.html on media types, and 
http://www.iana.org/numbers.html in general. 

   PMMail still has the original view of email as being a text with 
attachments, which is reflected in the "Attachments |  attachment type" menu 
option in the message compose view, where UUENCODE, BINHEX, and MIME are 
listed as forms of an ATTACHMENT. 

   But the MIME view of the message body is rather that of a sequence of 
message parts, which might also be alternate (multipart/alternate) or related 
(multipart/related). 

    To this does not correspond the standard PMMail view on a message, with a 
big body text window and a small window where all the attachments are listed 
by symbols. 

   The correct MIME way is rather a tree view which reflects the sequence, 
nesting and relationships of the body parts. So, in message composition, the 
question in the "attachment types" question should be broken up in a first 
question of (crudely formulated): MIME message with possibly several parts, or 
traditional message with attachements in UUENCODE or BINHEX form, and then 
asking the encoding separately for each attachment. The first question should 
be a general preference in the "message composition" options page of the 
general configuration with the possibility of overriding this preference for 
an individual message. 

   PMMail should also make it possible to correctly specify the MIME media 
type for each part; I'm really annoyed that every simple text file is BASE64 
encoded, although it could really be text/plain. 

   I also want the possibility of creating a message part from the clip board 
instead of from a file. 

   So far for today. 

Yours, 
Lüko Willms
-----------------------------------------------
Frankfurt/Main  

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