Re: Bug#3253: Pine over-encodes files (came from Bug#932)
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unless it is _really_ urgent. I pay for my PPP connections. Thanks. ]
Dale Scheetz:
> I strongly disagree. Pine is a mime'd mailer. I use Pine. I hate getting
> mail with attachments! Attachments are not easier to handle! Any other
> mail I just press enter off the index list (or 'N'ext) and I can read the
> posting. But with attachments you first have to ask to view the file, and,
> most often, then must save the file before you can view it (outside the
> mail agent) because many text files are improperly identified.
Pine is a fair first attempt at a mime'd mailer. It's not a really good
one. It's inability to show uninterpreted mime'd letters can be a major
pain in the ass when dealing with MIME types it doesn't know about it.
However, at least the versions of Pine I've used or tried (3.91-3.93),
do show attachments as well. Even base64 encoded ones -- I just tried
it. That is, if the attachment is marked "text/plain" -- if it is of
type "application/octet-stream" (i.e., binary data), then Pine doesn't
show it.
Anybody sending plain text attachments as "application/octet-stream" are
doing something wrong.
FWIW, I use exmh. It handles MIME somewhat better than Pine.
> I must point out that there are several Debian maintainers who submit
> their upload announcements as attachments.
I've never even noticed. :)
> Neither should MIME encoding be used on plain text files,
I assume you mean base64 encoding. I agree with that (and the great
thing with exmh is that asks which type want to make things). I don't
agree with not making it an attachment, if it is a separate part. If it's
something separate, not part of the message, I don't want to have to hack
and slash at the mail file to extract it into a file. I prefer to just
click once or twice with the mouse. _That_ is the reason why MIME is a
Good Thing (all the flames about base64 vs uuencode and quoted-printable
notwithstanding).
(I'll quit defending MIME now. It's not really interesting to anyone.
Besides, it's better to spend the energy on getting 1.1 out.)
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