Re: Those MIME requirements

[Richard Coleman <coleman@math.gatech.edu>]

> B>   Content-disposition should be honored.  If someone mails me a
> B> word file and I have a converter set up in my mailcap for showing
> B> it (or however we might do such a thing), I might not want to have
> B> it shown inline anyway.
> 
> OTOH, there are a number of mailers which don't have the concept of
> showing things inline, so they always call things attachments.  And I
> think it's a terrible pain not to be able to view text files inline,
> simply because the other end told me not to.

Content-Disposition only specifies the default action that should
be taken for an attachment.  It's more of a hint than a rule.

So if a part of a multipart is labeled "attachment" by the
Content-Disposition header, the RFC says that the part should
not be displayed unless further action is taken by the reader.
It doesn't say it can't be displayed at all.  A menu (or button)
so that the reader can choose to view or save the attachment would
be the right thing.

Content-Disposition is a good thing.

--
Richard Coleman
coleman@math.gatech.edu