Jeff Abrahamson on 3 Nov 2005 15:20:00 -0000


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Re: [PLUG] OT: MIME and messages from Apple Mail


On Thu, Nov 03, 2005 at 09:04:50AM -0500, Toby DiPasquale wrote:
>   [53 lines, 382 words, 2594 characters]  Top characters: teaisnho
> 
> On Thu, Nov 03, 2005 at 07:50:44AM -0500, Jeff Abrahamson wrote:
> > I have a friend who is using Apple Mail who is having trouble sending
> > me image attachments.  Or, rather, I'm having trouble receiving them.
> > 
> >     X-Mailer: Apple Mail (2.734)
> > 
> > The problem is that while his MUA should (and used to) do something
> > like this:
> > 
> >   I   1 <no description>                 [text/plain, 7bit, us-ascii, 0.3K]
> >   I   2 chris_southern_ca_siding.jpg             [image/jpeg, base64, 8.7M]
> > 
> > It's actually started doing this:
> > 
> >   I   1 <no description>                   [multipa/alternativ, 7bit, 2.7M]
> >   I   2    <no description>               [text/plain, quoted, utf-8, 0.6K]
> >   I   3    <no description>                   [multipa/related, 7bit, 2.7M]
> >   I   4      <no description>         [text/html, quoted, iso-8859-1, 2.2K]
> >   I   5      IMG_2965.JPG                        [image/jpeg, base64, 2.7M]
> > 
> > Note that the image attachment is part of the text/html bundle and so
> > the supposedly equivalent text/plain bundle doesn't get the pic.
> > 
> > At first I thought this was a simple drag-and-drop vs attach subtlety,
> > but he says no.  Any suggestions how either to help him or compensate
> > here?  (The problem is that I'm not shown that there's an image
> > attached, although I can see, if I notice, that the message is much
> > bigger than the text would suggest.)
> 
> I hate to break this to you, but Apple Mail is doing the correct thing
> here. This is the standard way to wrap an embedded image in an
> HTML-formatted message which also carries a plain text part for MUAs that
> can't display HTML.

I'm not clear why this is the right thing, although I agree with
everything you said other than that one bit.  If I attach a file that
is not image/jpeg, say a Word file or a PDF, I wouldn't expect that to
get slipped into the text/html portion, even though an html browser
can probably display it.

There's a context where image/jpeg should be embedded in the
text/html, say because it's linked.  But there's also a context where
you're saying, "Here's an attached file."  Why should the latter be
precluded for image/* attachments?

(Maybe it is, I'd just like to understand why.)

-- 
 Jeff

 Jeff Abrahamson  <http://www.purple.com/jeff/>    +1 215/837-2287
 GPG fingerprint: 1A1A BA95 D082 A558 A276  63C6 16BF 8C4C 0D1D AE4B

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