MIME handling for common MS Windows attachments?

MIME handling for common MS Windows attachments?

[John Cooper]

[NT Emacs 20.3.1, Pterodactyl Gnus v0.69]

By default pGnus doesn't seem to offer to attempt external display of common
Microsoft attachments, e.g., MS Word (MIME type application/msword), excel,
powerpoint, etc.

I just created the following entry in ~/.mailcap which allows word files to be
launched:

application/msword; C:/Progra~1/Micros~1/Office/WINWORD.EXE %s

  [Note: my shell-file-name is cmdproxy and using spaces in the path failed]


Is it intended for pGnus to eventually support many Windows file types OOTB?
If not, has anyone put together a comprehensive .mailcap for many of these?

Thanks,

    --- John

Re: MIME handling for common MS Windows attachments?

[Hrvoje Niksic]

Stainless Steel Rat <ratinox@peorth.gweep.net> writes:

> "JC" == John Cooper <John.Cooper@citrix.com> writes:
> 
> JC> By default pGnus doesn't seem to offer to attempt external display of
> JC> common Microsoft attachments, e.g., MS Word (MIME type
> JC> application/msword), excel, powerpoint, etc.
> 
> That would more or less be because that is the way RMS wants it to
> be.  Supporting non-free software out of the box goes against the
> philosophy of the FSF.

I still think relieving users by defaulting ms-word to MS Word
viewers, etc., might be useful, even if strictly against FSF's
philosophy.

Re: MIME handling for common MS Windows attachments?

[Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen]

Hrvoje Niksic <hniksic@srce.hr> writes:

> I still think relieving users by defaulting ms-word to MS Word
> viewers, etc., might be useful, even if strictly against FSF's
> philosophy.

I think so, to.  Defaulting *.doc to ms-word is bad, but I see no harm 
in defaulting application/ms-word to MS Word (or something else that
can understand these files).

Could someone who uses stuff like that mail me a patch for mailcap.el?

A more sticky issue is whether to default image/* to the un-free, but
commonly installed xv, or to some free image viewing program.

What image viewing programs exist out there?

(Well, it isn't really a sticky issue, because we could default to
free programs, and then use non-free programs as the backup default
values if the free programs don't exist on the system.)

-- 
(domestic pets only, the antidote for overdose, milk.)
  larsi@gnus.org * Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen

Re: MIME handling for common MS Windows attachments?

[Karl Eichwalder]

Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen <larsi@gnus.org> writes:

|   A more sticky issue is whether to default image/* to the un-free, but
|   commonly installed xv, or to some free image viewing program.

Just for the record, xv isn't "free" either.

|   What image viewing programs exist out there?

xli and ee (from GNOME).

-- 
Karl Eichwalder

Re: MIME handling for common MS Windows attachments?

[Hrvoje Niksic]

Karl Eichwalder <ke@gnu.franken.de> writes:

> Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen <larsi@gnus.org> writes:
> 
> |   A more sticky issue is whether to default image/* to the un-free, but
> |   commonly installed xv, or to some free image viewing program.
> 
> Just for the record, xv isn't "free" either.

Lars knows that.  Read carefully: "un-free, but commonly installed xv".

Re: MIME handling for common MS Windows attachments?

[Karl Eichwalder]

Hrvoje Niksic <hniksic@srce.hr> writes:

|   Lars knows that.  Read carefully: "un-free, but commonly installed xv".

Thanks for the reminder; you're right I missed the point ;-(

-- 
Karl Eichwalder

Re: MIME handling for common MS Windows attachments?

[Hrvoje Niksic]

Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen <larsi@gnus.org> writes:

> Defaulting *.doc to ms-word is bad,

Agreed.

> but I see no harm in defaulting application/ms-word to MS Word (or
> something else that can understand these files).

And agreed.

> Could someone who uses stuff like that mail me a patch for
> mailcap.el?

I've now asked around, it seems things are not as easy as I thought.
If we discount the giant stuff such as StarOffice (and, of course, The
Real Thing on Windows-running Emacsen), a useful default can be
constructed.  There is an `mswordview' that can grok *some* of the
Word formats (only Word 97, I'm told.)  We need to do the following:

1) Look at the contents of the part, and see if it is something
   mswordview can grok (one should study mswordview source to see how
   this is done).

2) If yes, then invoke mswordview which will produce HTML.  Feed the
   resulting HTML to W3.

3) If mswordview cannot grok it, it displays a list of other programs, 
   which supposedly can.  We should look into using them.

Not a bright future, all in all.

The following information provided by Drazen Kacar <dave@srce.hr>:

> A more sticky issue is whether to default image/* to the un-free,
> but commonly installed xv, or to some free image viewing program.
[...]
> (Well, it isn't really a sticky issue, because we could default to
> free programs, and then use non-free programs as the backup default
> values if the free programs don't exist on the system.)

The trouble is that xv is much better than most of the other stuff out 
there, especially for 8bit displays.  Defaulting to free stuff might
be a politically good idea, but it's a lousy choice for users.

> What image viewing programs exist out there?

There is imlib/gtk-based gqview, then there's ee (Electric Eyes) (also
imlib-based), ImageMagick's display (it produces high quality display,
but it's very slow, making it unsuitable for MIME viewers).

Re: MIME handling for common MS Windows attachments?

[Steinar Bang]

>>>>> Hrvoje Niksic <hniksic@srce.hr>:

> I've now asked around, it seems things are not as easy as I thought.
> If we discount the giant stuff such as StarOffice (and, of course, The
> Real Thing on Windows-running Emacsen), a useful default can be
> constructed.  There is an `mswordview' that can grok *some* of the
> Word formats (only Word 97, I'm told.)  

Here's what I've saved up links for:
	<URL:http://word2x.alcom.co.uk/>
	<URL:http://www.gnu.org/~caolan/docs/MSWordView.html>
	<URL:http://www.ice.ru/~vitus/catdoc/>

Word2x attempts to convert Word documents to either HTML, TeX or plain 
text, while preserving as much of the structure as possible.  Seems to 
support at least Word 6 and 7.  MSWordView does indeed support only
Word 8 (Office97) and has HTML as its only output.

catdoc is simpler, and aims at just preserving the text from the Word
document. 

Re: MIME handling for common MS Windows attachments?

[Russ Allbery]

Hrvoje Niksic <hniksic@srce.hr> writes:

> The trouble is that xv is much better than most of the other stuff out
> there, especially for 8bit displays.  Defaulting to free stuff might be
> a politically good idea, but it's a lousy choice for users.

This hasn't been my experience; ImageMagick is enough better than xv that
I never use xv any more.

>> What image viewing programs exist out there?

> There is imlib/gtk-based gqview, then there's ee (Electric Eyes) (also
> imlib-based), ImageMagick's display (it produces high quality display,
> but it's very slow, making it unsuitable for MIME viewers).

This surprises me.  I've found ImageMagick relatively competative with xv
for most images.  It's a good bit slower when it has to dither 24-bit, but
that's not the common case for a MIME viewer, surely.  And the quality
difference is noticeable.

I'll point out as an aside that xv doesn't appear to deal at all well with
virtual desktops, tending (at least for me) to put the popup window in the
upper left corner pane.  ImageMagick correctly displays the image in the
current pane.

-- 
Russ Allbery (rra@stanford.edu)         <URL:http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/>

Re: MIME handling for common MS Windows attachments?

[Karl Kleinpaste]

Russ Allbery <rra@stanford.edu> writes:
> This hasn't been my experience; ImageMagick is enough better than xv that
> I never use xv any more.
> This surprises me.  I've found ImageMagick relatively competative with xv
> for most images.

I keep hearing about IM, but I'd never used it, so I just experimented
a while with it.  Woof -- I thought xv was memory intensive:

USER       PID %CPU %MEM  SIZE   RSS TTY STAT START   TIME COMMAND
karl      7932  8.5 11.0  8308  6944  p2 S    08:30   0:01 xv .pict/s/ssf-nasa.j
karl      7935 46.7 31.4 22284 19828  p2 S    08:31   0:05 display .pict/s/ssf-n

19Mbytes resident, just to display *one* .jpg?  3 times xv's already
large requirements?  Sure, the image is 1280x1024 and 227Kbytes.  But
/really/ now.  Even with a puny 333x800, 33Kbyte image, xv weighs in
at 4Mbytes while display punishes the scales at 7.8Mbytes.

I'll stick with xv; my machine pages hard enough as it is.

(General IM operational gripes: Why can't I type `q' on the image to
make the program exit, or get a nice directory listing that doesn't do
some weird thumbnail thing when I select an image from it?  [I want a
listing such as one gets in an xv controls window -- general
selectability, without thumbnailing.]  And just what is the supposed
mnemonic value in having Transform->Flop as horizontal swap while
Transform->Flip is vertical swap -- I'm supposed to remember this sort
of cuteness?  Also, the "image info" window's presence prevents
anything else from being done until you dismiss it -- but often I want
xv's info window to remain across images.  This UI needs help.)

> I'll point out as an aside that xv doesn't appear to deal at all well with
> virtual desktops, tending (at least for me) to put the popup window in the
> upper left corner pane.

My offhand suspicion is that you're using an old window manager.  xv
pops up windows wherever I am under fvwm2, for example.  But I
remember tvtwm suffering that sort of problem.

Re: MIME handling for common MS Windows attachments?

[Alan Shutko]

On 13 Jan 1999, Russ Allbery wrote:

> for most images.  It's a good bit slower when it has to dither 24-bit, but
> that's not the common case for a MIME viewer, surely.  And the quality

I don't think so... I can easily see people passing around jpegs from
their scanner/digital camera.  In fact, I tend to think more people will
be passing around 24-bit images than 8-bit.

Re: MIME handling for common MS Windows attachments?

[Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen]

Russ Allbery <rra@stanford.edu> writes:

> This hasn't been my experience; ImageMagick is enough better than xv that
> I never use xv any more.

I've now made mailcap default to display and ee before xv.

-- 
(domestic pets only, the antidote for overdose, milk.)
  larsi@gnus.org * Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen

Re: MIME handling for common MS Windows attachments?

[Russ Allbery]

Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen <larsi@gnus.org> writes:
> Russ Allbery <rra@stanford.edu> writes:

>> This hasn't been my experience; ImageMagick is enough better than xv
>> that I never use xv any more.

> I've now made mailcap default to display and ee before xv.

If you make it selectable, I don't mind if xv is first (apparently other
people have a very different experience than I do).  Just as long as it's
selectable.  :)

-- 
Russ Allbery (rra@stanford.edu)         <URL:http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/>

Re: MIME handling for common MS Windows attachments?

[Hrvoje Niksic]

Russ Allbery <rra@stanford.edu> writes:

> Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen <larsi@gnus.org> writes:
> > Russ Allbery <rra@stanford.edu> writes:
> 
> >> This hasn't been my experience; ImageMagick is enough better than xv
> >> that I never use xv any more.
> 
> > I've now made mailcap default to display and ee before xv.
> 
> If you make it selectable, I don't mind if xv is first (apparently
> other people have a very different experience than I do).  Just as
> long as it's selectable.  :)

You can either select it via `View Interactively...', or override it
in your own .mailcap, e.g. like this:

image/*; YOUR-VIEWER-HERE %s

Re: MIME handling for common MS Windows attachments?

[Matt Armstrong]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 724 bytes --]

Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen <larsi@gnus.org> writes:

> Hrvoje Niksic <hniksic@srce.hr> writes:
> 
> > I still think relieving users by defaulting ms-word to MS Word
> > viewers, etc., might be useful, even if strictly against FSF's
> > philosophy.
> 
> I think so, to.  Defaulting *.doc to ms-word is bad, but I see no harm 
> in defaulting application/ms-word to MS Word (or something else that
> can understand these files).

I think defaulting .doc to ms-word is good when running under Win32.

Anyway, Debian Linux has an /etc/mime.types file that does what
mailcap.el's mailcap-mime-extensions does.  I'm not sure how Debian
specific it is, but are people open to having Gnus look for it (or
maybe a ~/.mime.types file)?


[-- Attachment #2: Debian's /etc/mime.types file --]
[-- Type: text/plain, Size: 4151 bytes --]

###############################################################################
#
#  MIME types and the extensions that represent them
#
#  This file is part of the "mime-support" package.  Please send email (not a
#  bug report) to the maintainer if you would like new types and/or extensions
#  to be added.
#
###############################################################################


application/activemessage
application/andrew-inset
application/applefile
application/atomicmail
application/cu-seeme				csm cu
application/dca-rft
application/dec-dx
application/dsptype				tsp
application/excel				xls
application/futuresplash			spl
application/ghostview
application/mac-binhex40			hqx
application/macwriteii
application/msword				doc dot
application/news-message-id
application/news-transmission
application/octet-stream			bin
application/oda					oda
application/pdf					pdf
application/pgp-signature			pgp
application/postscript				ps ai eps
application/powerpoint				ppt
application/remote-printing
application/rtf					rtf
application/slate
application/wita
application/wordperfect5.1			wp5
application/zip					zip
application/x-123				wk
application/x-Wingz				wz
application/x-bcpio				bcpio
application/x-core
application/x-cpio				cpio
application/x-csh
application/x-debian-package			deb
application/x-director				dcr dir dxr
application/x-dvi				dvi
application/x-executable
application/x-font				pfa pfb gsf pcf pcf.Z
application/x-gtar				gtar tgz
application/x-hdf				hdf
application/x-httpd-php				phtml pht php
application/x-httpd-php3			php3
application/x-httpd-php3-source			phps
application/x-httpd-php3-preprocessed 		php3p
application/x-java				class
application/x-kdelnk
application/x-latex				latex
application/x-maker				frm maker frame fm fb book fbdoc
application/x-mif				mif
application/x-msdos-program			com exe bat
application/x-netcdf				nc cdf
application/x-ns-proxy-autoconfig		pac
application/x-object				o
application/x-perl				pl pm
application/x-rx
application/x-sh
application/x-shar				shar
application/x-shellscript
application/x-shockwave-flash			swf swfl
application/x-stuffit				sit
application/x-sv4cpio				sv4cpio
application/x-sv4crc				sv4crc
application/x-tar				tar
application/x-tcl
application/x-tex
application/x-tex-gf				gf
application/x-tex-pk				pk PK
application/x-texinfo				texinfo texi
application/x-trash				~ % bak old sik
application/x-troff				t tr roff
application/x-troff-man				man
application/x-troff-me				me
application/x-troff-ms				ms
application/x-ustar				ustar
application/x-wais-source			src

audio/basic					au snd
audio/midi					mid midi
audio/mpeg					mpga mpega mp2 mp3
audio/mpegurl					m3u
audio/x-aiff					aif aiff aifc
audio/x-pn-realaudio				ra rm ram
audio/x-pn-realaudio-plugin			rpm
audio/x-wav					wav

image/gif					gif
image/ief					ief
image/jpeg					jpeg jpg jpe
image/png					png
image/tiff					tiff tif
image/x-cmu-raster				ras
image/x-ms-bmp					bmp
image/x-portable-anymap				pnm
image/x-portable-bitmap				pbm
image/x-portable-graymap			pgm
image/x-portable-pixmap				ppm
image/x-rgb					rgb
image/x-xbitmap					xbm
image/x-xpixmap					xpm
image/x-xwindowdump				xwd

inode/chardevice
inode/blockdevice
inode/directory-locked
inode/directory
inode/fifo
inode/socket

message/external-body
message/news
message/partial
message/rfc822

multipart/alternative
multipart/appledouble
multipart/digest
multipart/mixed
multipart/parallel

text/comma-separated-values			csv
text/english
text/html					html htm
text/plain					txt
text/richtext					rtx
text/tab-separated-values			tsv
text/x-c++hdr					h++ hpp hxx hh
text/x-c++src					c++ cpp cxx cc
text/x-chdr					h
text/x-crontab
text/x-csh					csh
text/x-csrc					c
text/x-java					java
text/x-makefile
text/x-moc					moc
text/x-pascal					p pas
text/x-setext					etx
text/x-sh					sh
text/x-tcl					tcl tk
text/x-tex					tex ltx sty cls
text/x-vCalendar				vcs
text/x-vCard					vcf

video/dl					dl
video/fli					fli
video/gl					gl
video/mpeg					mpeg mpg mpe
video/quicktime					qt mov
video/x-ms-asf					asf asx
video/x-msvideo					avi
video/x-sgi-movie				movie

x-world/x-vrml					vrm vrml wrl

[-- Attachment #3: Type: text/plain, Size: 462 bytes --]


> A more sticky issue is whether to default image/* to the un-free,
> but commonly installed xv, or to some free image viewing program.
> 
> What image viewing programs exist out there?
> 
> (Well, it isn't really a sticky issue, because we could default to
> free programs, and then use non-free programs as the backup default
> values if the free programs don't exist on the system.)

I assume that files like /etc/mailcap override Gnus' defaults?


-- 
Matt

Re: MIME handling for common MS Windows attachments?

[William M. Perry]

Matt Armstrong <mattdav+matt@best.com> writes:

> Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen <larsi@gnus.org> writes:
> 
> > Hrvoje Niksic <hniksic@srce.hr> writes:
> > 
> > > I still think relieving users by defaulting ms-word to MS Word
> > > viewers, etc., might be useful, even if strictly against FSF's
> > > philosophy.
> > 
> > I think so, to.  Defaulting *.doc to ms-word is bad, but I see no harm 
> > in defaulting application/ms-word to MS Word (or something else that
> > can understand these files).
> 
> I think defaulting .doc to ms-word is good when running under Win32.
> 
> Anyway, Debian Linux has an /etc/mime.types file that does what
> mailcap.el's mailcap-mime-extensions does.  I'm not sure how Debian
> specific it is, but are people open to having Gnus look for it (or
> maybe a ~/.mime.types file)?

  The old 'mm.el' stuff that lars based his mime decoding stuff on
supported this.  This is a very standard file, dating back to the dark
ages. :)

> > A more sticky issue is whether to default image/* to the un-free,
> > but commonly installed xv, or to some free image viewing program.
> > 
> > What image viewing programs exist out there?
> > 
> > (Well, it isn't really a sticky issue, because we could default to
> > free programs, and then use non-free programs as the backup default
> > values if the free programs don't exist on the system.)
> 
> I assume that files like /etc/mailcap override Gnus' defaults?

  It should, and ~/.mailcap overrides it.

-bp

Re: MIME handling for common MS Windows attachments?

[Robert Pluim]

>>>>> "Hrvoje" == Hrvoje Niksic <hniksic@srce.hr> writes:

    Hrvoje> Stainless Steel Rat <ratinox@peorth.gweep.net> writes:
    >> "JC" == John Cooper <John.Cooper@citrix.com> writes:
    >>
    JC> By default pGnus doesn't seem to offer to attempt external
    JC> display of common Microsoft attachments, e.g., MS Word (MIME
    JC> type application/msword), excel, powerpoint, etc.
    >>
    >> That would more or less be because that is the way RMS wants it
    >> to be.  Supporting non-free software out of the box goes
    >> against the philosophy of the FSF.

    Hrvoje> I still think relieving users by defaulting ms-word to MS
    Hrvoje> Word viewers, etc., might be useful, even if strictly
    Hrvoje> against FSF's philosophy.

How about defaulting to running "start" on Mickeysoft platforms, which will
generally Do The Right Thing, and will allow users to change things
without having to mess with mailcap files ? (but have mailcap be
preferred, obviously).

Robert
-- 
Robert Pluim                               Voice:  +33 4 92 96 17 43
Systems Development Engineer                 Fax:  +33 4 92 96 15 32
Nortel Networks
<URL:mailto:rpluim@nortelnetworks.com>

Re: MIME handling for common MS Windows attachments?

[William M. Perry]

Robert Pluim <rpluim@nortelnetworks.com> writes:

> >>>>> "Hrvoje" == Hrvoje Niksic <hniksic@srce.hr> writes:
> 
>     Hrvoje> Stainless Steel Rat <ratinox@peorth.gweep.net> writes:
>     >> "JC" == John Cooper <John.Cooper@citrix.com> writes:
>     >>
>     JC> By default pGnus doesn't seem to offer to attempt external
>     JC> display of common Microsoft attachments, e.g., MS Word (MIME
>     JC> type application/msword), excel, powerpoint, etc.
>     >>
>     >> That would more or less be because that is the way RMS wants it
>     >> to be.  Supporting non-free software out of the box goes
>     >> against the philosophy of the FSF.
> 
>     Hrvoje> I still think relieving users by defaulting ms-word to MS
>     Hrvoje> Word viewers, etc., might be useful, even if strictly
>     Hrvoje> against FSF's philosophy.
> 
> How about defaulting to running "start" on Mickeysoft platforms, which
> will generally Do The Right Thing, and will allow users to change things
> without having to mess with mailcap files ? (but have mailcap be
> preferred, obviously).

  Even better would be the ability to sniff the registry for the
appropriate mime viewer directly.  But using 'start' would be a good
start. :)

-bp

Re: MIME handling for common MS Windows attachments?

[Kai.Grossjohann]

Robert Pluim <rpluim@nortelnetworks.com> writes:

  > How about defaulting to running "start" on Mickeysoft platforms,
  > which will generally Do The Right Thing,

Well, you have to use Start to shutdown a M$ system...

kai
-- 
Just because I'm paranoid doesn't mean they're not out there to get me!

Re: MIME handling for common MS Windows attachments?

[John Cooper]

Robert Pluim <rpluim@nortelnetworks.com> writes:

 > >>>>> "Hrvoje" == Hrvoje Niksic <hniksic@srce.hr> writes:
 > 
 >     Hrvoje> Stainless Steel Rat <ratinox@peorth.gweep.net> writes:
 >     >> "JC" == John Cooper <John.Cooper@citrix.com> writes:
 >     >>
 >     JC> By default pGnus doesn't seem to offer to attempt external
 >     JC> display of common Microsoft attachments, e.g., MS Word (MIME
 >     JC> type application/msword), excel, powerpoint, etc.
 >     >>
 >     >> That would more or less be because that is the way RMS wants it
 >     >> to be.  Supporting non-free software out of the box goes
 >     >> against the philosophy of the FSF.
 > 
 >     Hrvoje> I still think relieving users by defaulting ms-word to MS
 >     Hrvoje> Word viewers, etc., might be useful, even if strictly
 >     Hrvoje> against FSF's philosophy.
 > 
 > How about defaulting to running "start" on Mickeysoft platforms, which will
 > generally Do The Right Thing, and will allow users to change things
 > without having to mess with mailcap files ? (but have mailcap be
 > preferred, obviously).

I'm currently able to send application/msword attachments to Word; however, I
also get a lot of Word attachments from Outlook users with a MIME type
application/octet-stream, which I now manually save to disk and then invoke
`cmd /c start' on them from a zsh shell window.

How easy would it be to add a new "MIME part" menu option "Save and start...",
which calls "start" (or "cmd /c start") on the saved file?  This would make
launching attachments in NT Emacs much more convenient.

    --- John

Re: MIME handling for common MS Windows attachments?

[John Cooper]

"John Cooper" <John.Cooper@citrix.com> writes:

 > ... I also get a lot of Word attachments from Outlook users with a MIME type
 > application/octet-stream, which I now manually save to disk and then invoke
 > `cmd /c start' on them from a zsh shell window.

If I select the "View Interactively" menu and enter `winword' when prompted for
Viewer, Word starts up displaying an empty document.  I seem to need to type
the following value for Viewer:

  winword<C-q><SPACE>%s

.. to get it to work.  Shouldn't Gnus add the ` %s' suffix by default?

Thanks,

    --- John

Re: MIME handling for common MS Windows attachments?

[Robert Bihlmeyer]

Hi,

>>>>> On Wed, 13 Jan 1999 16:54:10 +0100 (CET)
>>>>> Robert Pluim <rpluim@nortelnetworks.com> said:

 Robert> How about defaulting to running "start" on Mickeysoft
 Robert> platforms, which will generally Do The Right Thing, and will
 Robert> allow users to change things without having to mess with
 Robert> mailcap files ? (but have mailcap be preferred, obviously).

I'd rather not have the default start things like word or excel
automatically. Doing it on a button-click is of course ok. But to
think of the security-cheese that most M$ apps are (e.g. you can exec
arbitrary commands from excel)...

	Robbe

-- 
Robert Bihlmeyer	reads: Deutsch, English, MIME, Latin-1, NO SPAM!
<robbe@orcus.priv.at>	<http://stud2.tuwien.ac.at/~e9426626/sig.html>

Re: MIME handling for common MS Windows attachments?

[Robert Pluim]

>>>>> "Robbe" == Robert Bihlmeyer <e9426626@stud2.tuwien.ac.at> writes:

    Robbe> Hi,
>>>>> On Wed, 13 Jan 1999 16:54:10 +0100 (CET) Robert Pluim
>>>>> <rpluim@nortelnetworks.com> said:

    Robert> How about defaulting to running "start" on Mickeysoft
    Robert> platforms, which will generally Do The Right Thing, and
    Robert> will allow users to change things without having to mess
    Robert> with mailcap files ? (but have mailcap be preferred,
    Robert> obviously).

    Robbe> I'd rather not have the default start things like word or
    Robbe> excel automatically. Doing it on a button-click is of
    Robbe> course ok. But to think of the security-cheese that most M$
    Robbe> apps are (e.g. you can exec arbitrary commands from
    Robbe> excel)...

I should have said "default to running start when the user clicks on
a button". I wasn't advocating automatically starting the viewer
(unless that's what the user wants, of course). (setq-default
gnus-mime-allow-gaping-redmond-security-hole t) anyone? ;-)

Robert

Re: MIME handling for common MS Windows attachments?

[Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen]

Robert Bihlmeyer <e9426626@stud2.tuwien.ac.at> writes:

> But to think of the security-cheese that most M$ apps are (e.g. you
> can exec arbitrary commands from excel)...

Indeed.  Whether displaying it automatically or not -- doing things
that are known to be dangerous without warning gives me a bad vibe.

Most of the other viewers are "harmless" -- xv is unlikely to execute
parts of the data contained in pictures.  The Microsoft "viewers" are
all infamous for executing whatever you throw at them.

-- 
(domestic pets only, the antidote for overdose, milk.)
  larsi@gnus.org * Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen

Re: MIME handling for common MS Windows attachments?

[William M. Perry]

Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen <larsi@gnus.org> writes:

> Robert Bihlmeyer <e9426626@stud2.tuwien.ac.at> writes:
> 
> > But to think of the security-cheese that most M$ apps are (e.g. you
> > can exec arbitrary commands from excel)...
> 
> Indeed.  Whether displaying it automatically or not -- doing things
> that are known to be dangerous without warning gives me a bad vibe.
> 
> Most of the other viewers are "harmless" -- xv is unlikely to execute
> parts of the data contained in pictures.  The Microsoft "viewers" are all
> infamous for executing whatever you throw at them.

  So then I assume we pass -dSAFER to ghostview or ghostscript?  Wouldn't
want a postscript attachment deleting, renaming, or overwriting files. :)

  I know XV does this by default when viewing postscript files.

-Bill P.

Re: MIME handling for common MS Windows attachments?

[Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen]

wmperry@aventail.com (William M. Perry) writes:

>   So then I assume we pass -dSAFER to ghostview or ghostscript? 

We do in Pterodactyl Gnus 0.70.  :-)

-- 
(domestic pets only, the antidote for overdose, milk.)
  larsi@gnus.org * Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen