Re: [Nmh-workers] Attach and disposition

[Paul Fox]

earl wrote:
 > On Wed, May 14, 2014 at 3:27 PM, Paul Fox wrote:
 > 
 > >  > If you specify a disposition of
 > >  > attachment (which we do), you can't complain about gmail doing what you
 > >  > told it.
 > >
 > > au contraire.  i can certainly complain, which is what i did.  and now
 > > we're talking about how to fix it.
 > 
 > Since the disposition was "attachment", it is perfectly acceptable for
 > an MUA to require you to save to a file instead of displaying inline.
 > Otherwise, why even have a content-disposition header?

that's a great question.  remember, i use mh as my mailer.  with that
as my baseline, you can see that i might not understand the detailed
differences between dispositions, since mh pretty much treats them
pretty much all the same:  poorly.  i assumed gmail would handle them
well, and it turns out it doesn't.  (there's no reason gmail couldn't
offer to display many types of attachments.)

i'm just a user.  i used the most convenient method of forwarding an
entire mail message that nmh provides -- the method that i've been
encouraged to switch to over writing build directives, and i didn't
get the results i expected.  sounds like maybe someone else had a
similar surprise with calendar programs, so i don't seem to be alone.

 > If your intent is, "display inline if you are able," then the
 > disposition should have been "inline.".  One should not expect an MUA to
 > rendering an "attachment" disposition inline (an MUA may still do it,
 > but the sender should not expect it).

pardon me for having higher expectations than i should have.

paul

 > Any "fix" would be to have your message composed so the disposition is
 > "inline".  I think something like Lyndon's proposal should work.

=----------------------
 paul fox, address@hidden (arlington, ma, where it's 58.3 degrees)