Re: MIME implementation documentation

[Bart Schaefer <[e-mail]>]

On Aug 17,  9:36am, [e-mail] wrote:
} Subject: Re: MIME implementation documentation
}
} Are Nested Body Parts widely implemented?

Do the various multipart/security extensions count as nested body parts
for this purpose?

}    The question is if there exist MUAs that:
}     1. Generate nested multiparts through a reasonable user interface
}     2. Usefully display nested multiparts
}        
}    The following MUAs have reasonable support for generating nested
}    multiparts:
}      *

Ishmail.  The "Add Container" menu item.

}    The following MUAs have reasonable support for displaying nested
}    multiparts:
}      * EXMH 1.6.7

Metamail.  Or does it not count?

Ishmail, I'm fairly sure.  Is anybody from HaL on this list?

Z-Mail does provide for display of nested body parts, but it does so by
invoking metamail for the second nesting level and beyond.

I'd be willing to bet that there are IMAP4 clients very near release that
support this; certainly any IMAP4 server has the ability to parse a nested
MIME structure and present it to clients.

} Are External Body Parts widely implemented?
} 
}    The question is if there exist MUAs that:
}     1. Generate External Body Parts through a reasonable user interface
}     2. Usefully handle External Body Parts

Are special cases included?  MediaMail (Z-Mail as bundled with IRIX 5/6)
and the forthcoming Z-Mail 4.0 for Unix both generate a special "removed
by recipient" external body part to preserve the MIME body structure when
a user requests that an individual body part be deleted from a message.
However, such messages would never be sent to another UA unless forwarded.

Also, the "reassembler" agent included with MediaMail, whose primary
purpose is to automatically collect message/partial sections and rebuild
the single original message, will strip out attachments larger than a
specified threshold and replace them with a message/external-body with
access-type=local-file.  This all happens without any user interface at
all (except one button click to install the reassembler, and a file to
edit if you want to change the stripping threshold).

MediaMail and Z-Mail both "usefully handle" these cases for display, and
can be programmed to handle other external types (the default setup is to
invoke metamail for most access-types).

}    The following MUAs have reasonable support for generating External
}    Body Parts:
}      *

Is the "reassembler" agent an MUA?

}    The following MUAs have reasonable support for handling External Body
}    Parts:
}      * MH 6.8.3

Metamail.

Z-Mail with the caveats noted above.

-- 
Bart Schaefer                             Brass Lantern Enterprises
http://www.well.com/user/barts            http://www.nbn.com/people/lantern

New male in /home/schaefer:
>N  2 Justin William Schaefer  Sat May 11 03:43  53/4040  "Happy Birthday"