tlug: Mail splitter (2)

["Stephen J. Turnbull" <turnbull@example.com>]

>>>>> "ARU" == "A Random User" who just happened to be Frank Bennett
               <bennett@example.com> writes:

    ARU> --6TrnltStXW4iwmi0
    ARU> Content-Type: application/x-tcl
    ARU> Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
    ARU> Content-Description: Make-easy Tcl script for use with Procmail
    ARU> Content-Disposition: attachment; filename="procmail-demo.tcl"

Note that "Content-Disposition" is (a) advice about what to do with
the text permanently and (b) advice about what to do with it while
reading the mail.  Emphasis on _advice_; some people whose mailers'
MIME functionality is poorly configured may try to execute this
automatically.  A good MIME mailer SHOULD _offer_ to execute it, too
(except that it probably won't have a proper media type definition for
application/x-tcl).  The application/* type does NOT tell you what
this IS, it tells the MIME-enabled MUA how to display it.

Bug in Mutt (and lots of MUAs, including VM), IMHO; again IMHO, this
should be

		       Content-Type: text/x-tcl

which the MUA should treat as text/plain in the absence of knowledge
about the x-tcl subtype.  The problem is that most mailers (VM, for
sure in default configuration, although I think it can be fixed) will
try to display text/plain even if Content-Disposition is attachment.

Oh well.  I don't suppose anything will be done about this soon....

-- 
University of Tsukuba                Tennodai 1-1-1 Tsukuba 305-8573 JAPAN
Institute of Policy and Planning Sciences       Tel/fax: +81 (298) 53-5091
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