[Nmh-workers] (no subject)

[norm]

(I'm splitting a thread)

Ken Hornstein <address@hidden> writes:
>
> Weeeellll .... we're actually following the recommendations of the RFCs
> here.  To answer your question very shortly, yes, you can make it display
> the text/plain part with the -part or -type options to mhshow (I'm guessing
> it will be something like "-part 2", but look at the output of mhlist;

If I understand you, you are talking about a script that  does
an mhlist, to get the arguments to mhshow.

> you could also do "-type text/plain").

But that only works when there IS a text/plain part. If there isn't, mhshow
soldiers on and pretends that there is one. That' not what I want.

>
> Now, should we be displaying the text part?  Technically, they're BOTH
> text parts; one is text/html, the other is text/plain.  They're listed
> as a multipart/alternative; that means that they're supposed to be
> (roughly) the same, but in "better" formats.  So mhshow uses the best
> format that it knows how to display; in your case, it knows how to
> display text/html content, so that's what it picks.  We've talked about
> putting in a default preference order for multipart/alternative content,
> but that hasn't happened yet.

How is it decided that text/html is a better format than text/plain?
It seems to this native user that where, as in this instance,
and as is commonly the case, the
text/html and text/plain parts are essentially identical then text/plain
is a better format than text/html. Otherwise text/html is a better format
than text/plain. Further, it seems to me that it would not be hard
to determine if  the text/plain and text/html parts are essentially identical.

As to mhshow's -type arguments:  Even after your message gave me
some understanding of this, I still can't understand the man page's
cryptic references to -type. Am I suggesting that a better explanation
be added to the man page?  I don't know. I don't think so. The man
page is already way too long. Then what am I suggesting? I don't know.

    Norman Shapiro