Subject: Re: Fully integrated MIME support? (was Re: error message)

From: [email-masked] (Ian MacPhedran)
Date: 26 May 1994 18:55:13 GMT

Mike McNally ([email-masked]) wrote:
: In article <[email-masked]>,
: David L Miller  <[email-masked]> wrote:
: >
: >Yes, Pine has fuly integrated MIME support.  In many cases users do not even
: >realize they are using MIME... 

: Care to elaborate on what "fully integrated MIME support" means in this
: case?

I was going to ask something similar. I presume that this means that the
MIME capabilities are built into pine, and it does not (can not?) use an
external MIME conversion program like "metamail", as the elm (is that a
bad word on this group? :-) mailer does.

: If so, does the user have the ability to tell Pine how to handle
: different enclosure types (as with metamail and MIME extended mh?) 
: or is Pine's MIME support limited to well-known types and display
: behaviors set at compile time?

Only a few types are supported. Once pipes are supported, (maybe they
are now, I am not running the most current version) you can pipe the
MIME messages to a MIME interpretor, such as metamail.

Ian.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ian MacPhedran,   Engineering Computer Centre,   University of Saskatchewan.
2B13 Engineering Building, U. of S. Campus, Saskatoon, Sask., CANADA S7N 0W0
Phone: (306)966-4832 Fax: (306)966-8710  Email: [email-masked]

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From: [email-masked] (Rutger vd GeVEL)
Date: 26 May 1994 20:21:05 GMT

In <[email-masked]> [email-masked] writes:

> In article <[email-masked]>,
> David L Miller  <[email-masked]> wrote:
> >
> >Yes, Pine has fuly integrated MIME support.  In many cases users do not even
> >realize they are using MIME... 
>
> Care to elaborate on what "fully integrated MIME support" means in this
> case?  I know that Pine can seperate/display at least some types of
> MIME enclosures (for example image/gif and maybe audio/basic) but was
> wondering if "fully integrated MIME support" meant that recent versions
> of Pine have the ability to handle more complex / less common types of
> MIME enclosures.  
> 
> If so, does the user have the ability to tell Pine how to handle
> different enclosure types (as with metamail and MIME extended mh?) 
> or is Pine's MIME support limited to well-known types and display
> behaviors set at compile time?

Well, as far as I know Pine 3.89 (the most recent version to my knowledge)
is said to be 'minimal MIME compliant'. This means that it only knows how
to handle the following content-types:
- text/plain; charset={US-ASCI,ISO-8859-*}
- message/
- multipart/mixed
- multipart/alternative
- application/

For further details consult RFC 1521.
More exotic content-types can be specified by using a /etc/mailcap (or
~/.mailcap) file on unix systems. The format of mailcap files is discussed
in RFC 1343 (a user agent configuration mechanism for multimedia mail format
information) by N. Borenstein. There are generally two methods for a Mail User
Agent (MUA) to support MIME:
1) Via an external programm, i.e. Metamail. This means that the MUA-software
   should be adapted to call such a program at the right moment. Many
   MUA's on unix systems have already been adapted to use Metamail. Metamail
   consults the mailcap files in order to call the right viewer.
2) Via an intern mechanism: Pine has it's own mechanism to support MIME. As
   far as I know Pine (3.89) can't consult mailcap files, yet, but I have
   had indications that mailcap support is under development.

IMHO, the mailcap principle is the best way to map MIME content-types to their
viewers. The syntax is very clear and unambiguous: using one syntax for
this purpose should improve the MIME standardization process.

Best wishes,
Rutger

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Rutger S.J.A. van de GeVEL, Email: [email-masked] - MIME messages welcome. --
Student Information Management Science, Tilburg University, The Netherlands.
PGP Public Key available via PGP public key mailservers. -------------------
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