Re: MIME tests one and two results - Outlook Express

[amu@mit.edu (Aaron M. Ucko)]

Wes Hardaker <wjhardaker@ucdavis.edu> writes:

> >>>>> On 22 Nov 1998 08:26:00 +0100, Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen <larsi@gnus.org> said:
> 
> Lars> The multipart/altenative only showed the text/enriched part, and
> Lars> didn't indicate in any way that there were alternatives.  And it
> Lars> didn't even render the text/enriched part correctly.  Very
> Lars> interesting.
> 
> I think many mailers treat the alternative as "their choice" type of
> actions, not "users choice".

That's what emime does, and what section 5.1.4 of RFC 2046 suggests:

   Systems should recognize that the content of the various parts are
   interchangeable.  Systems should choose the "best" type based on the
   local environment and references, in some cases even through user
   interaction.  As with "multipart/mixed", the order of body parts is
   significant.  In this case, the alternatives appear in an order of
   increasing faithfulness to the original content.  In general, the
   best choice is the LAST part of a type supported by the recipient
   system's local environment.

(Emime is Marc Horowitz's MIME-parsing code for Gnus; the version I
use is available at <http://web.mit.edu/amu/elisp/emime.el>.)

-- 
Aaron M. Ucko, KB1CJC <amu@mit.edu> (finger amu@monk.mit.edu)