Replies as attachments on this list...

[James Wilkinson]

Andrea Giuliano wrote:
> I see that some of you send their replies as attachments. This is not a 
> major issue, but could you please avoid this?

This could also be an artifact of the list software. Right down the
bottom of each normal text e-mail, it puts a short list "footer" (saying
that it's from the list, the list address, and how to unsubscribe).

If the e-mail is normal text, it can just append that. However, if it is
anything more complex (a signed e-mail, an attachment, a
"multipart/alternative" text/HTML message, or whatever), it assumes that
it can't reliably add a footer, puts the existing e-mail as a new MIME
part in a multipart/mixed MIME message, and adds the footer as a
different MIME part.

I suspect that Mozilla (which the OP uses) is choosing to take this
structure and show each part as attachments. This is a valid response:
it's just that many other mail clients (e.g. Mutt) will show the text
then the footer one after the other.

The practice is not so unreasonable. MIME structures can be nested: it's
how the format handles alternative plain and HTML formatted messages
with attachments, so anything that can handle MIME should be able to
decode it. Stuff that *can't* handle MIME is (a) obsolete as a general
purpose MUA, and (b) no worse off.

Besides, it is practically impossible to reliably add text to an
arbitrarily complex HTML message without implementing a HTML reader
(how do you know you aren't adding white text on white?) And that's the
part that's been causing both Konqueror and Mozilla the most grief.

And if you add text to a MIME signed e-mail part, you're going to change
the item being signed, and GPG will moan.

What do other Mozilla users see?

James.

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