Re: [Nmh-workers] Conflict between "mime" command and attach

[Paul Fox]

jon wrote:
 > part       text/plain                1607
 > Paul Fox writes:
 > > ken wrote:
 > >  > part       text/plain                1020
 > >  > >i don't recall us ever discussing the possibility of making the '#'
 > >  > >character that introduces mhbuild directives configurable by the user.
 > >  > >
 > >  > >for instance, if the leading character were '}', i don't think i would
 > >  > >ever have a conflict with "real" text.
 > >  > >
 > >  > >interpretation of those directives is strictly within mhbuild,
 > >  > >correct?  no leakage into other mh commands?
 > >  > 
 > >  > There used to be some leakage; for example, the old attach 
 > > implementation
 > >  > would parse the Nmh-Attachment headers and then create mhbuild 
 > > directives.
 > >  > I am not sure there is any leakage now.  But I am not in love with the 
 > > idea
 > >  > of changing the leading character, because that opens the box for "how 
 > > should
 > >  > we do MIME composition, anyway?"  Which is not going to be easy.  As a
 > > 
 > > i guess i'm not sure how letting a user change the prefix character on
 > > the existing mechanism would make that worse.
 > > 
 > > (and i'm not talking about 1.6.)
 > > 
 > > paul
 > 
 > We wouldn't be talking about this if we had a good solution!
 > 
 > My opinion is that having special characters in the body is bad, like 
 > crossing
 > the beams.  It was a good hack at the time but should be put out of our 
 > misery.
 > I think that all MIME composition should be done via headers.  Y'all have 
 > done
 > a bunch of work on my original attachment stuff.  In what way is it not good
 > enough yet?

for me?  it's new-fangled, and i don't trust it.  ;-)

seriously, it's just not how i've been doing attachments for the last
15 years.  my current mechanism [1] trivially lets me attach either
files or MH messages (e.g.  "cur", or "+mh last") and i can insert
them anywhere i want in my message.  Attach is limited (as far as i
know) to pathnames, and its attachments are always placed at the end
of the message.

up 'til now, i've used automimeproc=1, and i have a hook in my mh.edit
script that warns me about leading '#' chars in my draft.  with 1.6
i'll need to change my ways.  that may mean using Attach, but it will
only be part of my solution.

i was just floating the idea of making the '#' configurable -- that
would only be a partial solution as well.

paul

[1]  i have an 'attach' command that takes paths and/or mh message
specifications as args, and produces mhbuild directives on stdout.
so (in vi) using "!!attach cur" or "!!attach /tmp/cartoon.pdf"
populates the correct directives.  lately i've been trying to remember
to mostly use it at the bottom of the edit buffer (so attachments
come last, as a courtesy to the recipient, but that's not always what
i want.

----------------------
 paul fox, address@hidden (arlington, ma, where it's 72.0 degrees)