[Nmh-workers] Default and selectable Content-Transfer-Encoding issues

[Ken Hornstein]

So I've been working on allowing users to select a Content-Transfer-Encoding
in mhbuild directives.  Right now the syntax for that looks like:

#type/subtype <id> [description] {disposition} *cte filename

So you might have, for example:

#text/calendar {inline} *b64 /tmp/calendar.cal

You get the idea.

That's relatively straightforward.  Easy enough to do.  I am coding some
stuff to check for invalid content (like, if you select 8bit without
providing a line break within 998 characters, that sort of thing).  But
it brings up some issues regarding the _default_ Content-Transfer-Encoding.

As discussed, I was thinking of making the default CTE 8bit.  I recall
that change was relatively non-controversial.  But it does beg the
question of exactly how that will work.

Right now if the text parts contain any 8bit or long lines (> 76 characters)
the content is forced as quoted-printable.  Obviously with a default of 8bit,
8bit characters are fine.  But should lines > 76 be 8bit, or q-p?  I'm unsure
which one is right.  Thoughts?

--Ken