Jay> So if we want Content-type to be purely about
Jay> interpretation, and I think it should be, then we should
Jay> (1) forget about multipart/attachments, (2) remove
Jay> multipart/parallel, (3) remove the "displayed serially"
Jay> semantics from multipart/mixed, and (4) figure out
Jay> another way of including presentation information.
Jay> Content-Disposition is a good idea, maybe
Jay> Content-Presentation is more intuitive. Here's a new
Jay> take:
At this late date, it is not really feasible to make this kind of
surgery to 1431, is it?
Right, it isn't feasible at this point.
Still, I support your desire to remove the
"displayed serially"; "mixed" does not imply time in the way
"parallel" does; it strikes me that most graphical MUAs will simply
display multipart/mixed as a list of icons or buttons, allowing the
user to choose which she wants to look at, and when. Because of this,
it might be for the best to replace the text:
"and intended to be displayed serially."
with
"of each other."
in section 7.2.2.
Ah -- this makes it clear what the problem is. I certainly don't have a problem
with this change.
Perhaps we should have a multipart/sequential? Might be good for
shipping jokes around, allowing you to press <return> for the
punchline :)
If we want to pursue this for whatever reason we can always do it in another
RFC.
Ned