Re: Not downloading attachments over IMAP

[Kai.Grossjohann@CS.Uni-Dortmund.DE (Kai Großjohann)]

Simon Josefsson <jas@extundo.com> writes:

> On Wed, 28 Nov 2001, Kai Großjohann wrote:
>
>> Couldn't nnimap fetch the message structure and rewrite the `large'
>> parts into external bodies?  Isn't there a MIME type where one stores
>> a reference to the real part, rather than the data itself, in the
>> message?
>
> Yup.  multipart/external.  But isn't it kind of gross to have the backend
> change the contents of a message?  I wouldn't want that.  But I guess it 
> could be useful.  Hm.

Maybe the real solution is for Gnus to provide a way to fetch the
MIME tree for a message from the backend.  But I think that so far,
there is only one backend which allows for retrieval of the MIME
tree: nnimap.

Maybe rewriting nnimap to do what I suggested would also help in
devising a good interface for retrieving the MIME tree, and then the
nnimap functions can be moved into the Gnus proper, more or less: you
have nnchoke-retrieve-mime-tree which returns a useful data
structure, and the Gnus proper then decides what to do with it.
You'll also need nnchoke-retrieve-mime-part, of course.

How about that?

I wish I had time to work on this.

kai
-- 
Simplification good!  Oversimplification bad!  (Larry Wall)