Discussion list for EXMH users

Dave Close | 1 Jun 2011 06:41

Forwarding email

If I compose a message and then, in sedit, select "More...",
"Attachment", "Message", the message I select is forwarded as a
proper MIME attachment.  But if the recipient is using Gmail, it is
not interpreted as an RFC822 attachment. Not being a Gmail user, I can
only presume Gmail, like so many other MUAs, is keying on the filename
"extension" rather than the MIME type. Since my attachment has only
a number for a filename, Gmail doesn't know what to do.

Besides continuing to advocate for proper adherence to the standards,
is there anything I can reasonably do in Exmh to make this work so my
recipients aren't unduly confused?
--

-- 
         Dave Close, Compata, Irvine CA       +1 714 434 7359
       dave <at> compata.com              dhclose <at> alumni.caltech.edu
         "I don't need bodyguards." -- Jimmy Hoffa, June 1975

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Andy Bradford | 1 Jun 2011 07:26

Re: Forwarding email

Thus said Dave Close on Tue, 31 May 2011 21:41:08 PDT:

> Besides continuing to advocate for  proper adherence to the standards,
> is there anything I can reasonably do  in Exmh to make this work so my
> recipients aren't unduly confused?

Not likely.  I forwarded  your email  to my gmail  account and  while it
didn't  show up  as  an  ``attachment'' it  did  have  all the  relevant
details, and  in fact, looked  like the message  below. As you  can see,
Gmail knows just  fine that it is a MIME  attached forwarded message and
converted  it on  the fly  to the  inline forwarding  method: note  that
``Forwarded message'' is nowhere in the  message I sent, so Gmail put it
there. There isn't likely anything you can do about that.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Dave Close <dave <at> compata.com>
To: Discussion list for EXMH users <exmh-users <at> redhat.com>
Date: Tue, 31 May 2011 21:41:08 -0700
Subject: Forwarding email
If I compose a message and then, in sedit, select "More...",
"Attachment", "Message", the message I select is forwarded as a
proper MIME attachment.  ...

Andy

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Andy Bradford | 1 Jun 2011 07:41

Re: Forwarding email

Thus said Dave Close on Tue, 31 May 2011 21:41:08 PDT:

> If  I  compose  a  message  and  then,  in  sedit,  select  "More...",
> "Attachment", "Message", the message I select is forwarded as a proper
> MIME attachment.

My bad.  I did not  follow the instructions as  you posted them.  I used
the  ``Forward'' option  to forward  your email,  which apparently  does
something a little differently than  when you ``attach'' a message. When
I  sent  an email  and  attached  your  originaly message,  rather  than
recognized it as a message/rfc822 attachment,  it now offers me a choice
of downloading  or viewing  as text. If  I click on  it to  download, it
offers me the correct MIME type, so  presumably, if I have a system that
knows what message/rfc822 is, it should just work.

Did you try just using the Forward button? My Forward button forwards as
an  attachment,  but clearly  Forward  does  something differently  than
attaching a message; not sure why at this point.

Andy

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Andy Bradford | 1 Jun 2011 07:47

Re: Forwarding email

Thus said Dave Close on Tue, 31 May 2011 21:41:08 PDT:

> Besides continuing to advocate for  proper adherence to the standards,
> is there anything I can reasonably do  in Exmh to make this work so my
> recipients aren't unduly confused?

Yes,   there   is.   Use   the    Forward   button,   instead   of   the
(More->Attachment-> Attach Message) selection.  Make sure that your forw
is setup to expand MIME in your ~/.mh_profile:

$ grep forw ~/.mh_profile
forw: -mime

Or remember to run (More->Format mail->Run  mhn now) before you hit send
each time you forward a message.

The difference is that when you use Forward, it will attach the message,
but without a name. If you attach the message as an attachment, it gives
the attachment a  name/filename, and apparently Gmail  thinks that means
that the message/rfc822 content should be ``downloaded'' instead of just
viewed in the client.

Andy