On Sat, Jul 18, 2009 at 03:37:32PM -0600, lee wrote: > > To the best of my knowledge, it isn't defined anywhere. But that doesn't > > matter. > > The common understanding of an attachment is that it is a file, with a > > filename, > > that has been sent as a separate item from the message. > > Well, then most people have a wrong understanding.
This is an absurdly prescriptivist statement. > > > In Kyles example, that would be saving the html attachment to view it > > > in a web browser. The user might do that himself, the MUA might do it > > > automatically. If you use a MUA that cannot display text/plain, you > > > might save the text/plain to display it ... > > > > This is NOT a typical use case. > > Why not? Mutt does it, sup does it. Sure, many MUAs will let you do it, but it's not a typical use case. As in, if you did a survey of all the people on the planet, and asked them if they had ever saved the HTML component of a simple email message, I am willing to bet the number would be under 1%. > > The authors of the MUA. > > The RFC leaves it up to the user how he wants to display a (part of a) > message. And since each user has preferences, it's not up to the > authors of the MUA to force the user to display a message in a > particular way or to decide what the user would consider as an > attachment. I never said force. I'm only talking about sane defaults. > > And you should be free to configure your MUA to display those as > > attachments, > > but the way you think about message parts is uncommon, and would be > > confusing > > for the average user. > > Yeah, I configured mutt to count all attachments, but mutt doesn't do > that. It doesn't go into some containers. > > Don't get me wrong: Reasonable defaults are fine and should be there, > and since its up to each user, it doesn't matter what you or I or most > users consider as an attachment. As you say, each user should be free > to configure his MUA the way he wants. Agreed. Best, -- Noah Slater, http://tumbolia.org/nslater
