Mailing List Archive

On Sat, 13 Jan 2001, Mike Heins wrote:

> Thanks for weighing in.
>
> At this point, no text/html or multipart/alternative content types
> are allowed, and the mail list program will enforce this. Voluntary
> compliance has not worked, so we go to the hammer. 8-)

Not that I have anything against this (and I dislike HTML mail as much as
the next guy), but does multipart/alternative actually cause any problems?
I ask because I am in the process of writing some scripts to generate
multipart/alternative emails and I'm interested in any problems that
people may have with them...

Regards,

-McKay.

Quoting Robert J. McKay (robert@mckay.com):
>
> On Sat, 13 Jan 2001, Mike Heins wrote:
>
> > Thanks for weighing in.
> >
> > At this point, no text/html or multipart/alternative content types
> > are allowed, and the mail list program will enforce this. Voluntary
> > compliance has not worked, so we go to the hammer. 8-)
>
> Not that I have anything against this (and I dislike HTML mail as much as
> the next guy), but does multipart/alternative actually cause any problems?
> I ask because I am in the process of writing some scripts to generate
> multipart/alternative emails and I'm interested in any problems that
> people may have with them...

It causes problems for mail lists because it expands (and destroys with
inline HTML) the digest.

It causes less problems in one-to-one mail.

--
Akopia, Inc., 131 Willow Lane, Floor 2, Oxford, OH 45056
phone +1.513.523.7621 fax 7501 <heins@akopia.com>

Research is what I'm doing when I don't know what I'm doing.
-- Wernher Von Braun

On Jan 13, 6:56am, Robert J. McKay wrote:
} Subject: Re: [ic] HTML Mail
}
} On Sat, 13 Jan 2001, Mike Heins wrote:
}
} > Thanks for weighing in.
} >
} > At this point, no text/html or multipart/alternative content types
} > are allowed, and the mail list program will enforce this. Voluntary
} > compliance has not worked, so we go to the hammer. 8-)
}
} Not that I have anything against this (and I dislike HTML mail as much as
} the next guy), but does multipart/alternative actually cause any problems?
} I ask because I am in the process of writing some scripts to generate
} multipart/alternative emails and I'm interested in any problems that
} people may have with them...
}
} Regards,
}
} -McKay.

I read email with a GUI (but text-based) email program on Unix. When it
sees a multipart/alternative email, it's treated the same as an attachemnt.
I have to click on the attachment icon which opens another window, in
order to read the contents.

In addition, when replying to a multipart/alternative email, the email
contents is not included in the message, meaning I have to cut and paste
if I want to include parts of the original message.

That's why *I* don't like multipart/alternative email.

-Bill