Re: Bug#95975: mutt: doesn't use charset anymore

[Paul Slootman <paul@debian.org>]

reopen 95975
thanks

> Package: mutt
> Version: 1.3.15-2

> Since upgrading to testing, mutt refuses to display iso-8859-1
> high-bit characters such as u-umlaut (ü). Instead, \374 is displayed.
> 
> :set charset shows charset="iso-8859-1"; the message's Content-Type
> is:
> 
> Content-Type: text/plain;
>     charset="iso-8859-1" 
> 
> so that shouldn't be the problem.  Hitting 'v' and then piping the
> message body through 'cat' displays it all correctly.

>> RTFM README.Debian.

Thanks for this eloquent explanation.

So I should now set en environment variable to get mutt working the way
it used to, which was a "reasonable" mode of operation.  IMHO that's in
violation of policy section 10.9:

	A program must not depend on environment variables
	to get reasonable defaults.


So what's the point of the charset setting? After all, the manual.txt
(which isn't a plain text file, but that's beside the point for this
discussion) still states:

  6.3.20.  charset

  Type: string
  Default: ""

  Character set your terminal uses to display and enter textual data.


Obviously it doesn't work that way anymore!  So don't say I should read
the FM,  I F did. README.Debian is NOT a manual. manual.txt is.

So fix the FM if the way it works has changed. Perhaps even give an
error if charset is defined, as it apparently isn't used anymore.


Paul Slootman