lee(_at_)sq(_dot_)com (Liam R. E. Quin) said:
Liam> Should mailtool use "content-type: application" for
Liam> attachments, or should there be a "content-type:
Liam> attachment" added to the draft?
Laurens Troost:
I think it important to distinguish between content-type and
disposition. Content-Type should indicate the kind of data in a
bodypart, not it's placement in the body of the message. [...]
A Content-Disposition header separates these two attributes neatly.
Thanks for the reply, Laurens. My suggestion of using Content-Type was as
much as anything to draw attention to the need for defining something new.
A frame document with TIFF attachments could be represented as
Content-Type: application/FrameMaker; version = 5.1;
Content-Type: multipart/attachments
Content-Type: image/TIFF;
Content-Type: image/TIFF;
(I've used indenting to show nesting here, and omitted all other headings)
I don't have strong feelings on the subject, though, except that I do think
that the idea of attachments should be represented clearly and distinctly, as
it's an idea in widespread use, both electronically and in the paper office
memo.
It's also possible that you should be able to have attachments in multiple
formats -- e.g. here's a picture of my right foot in TIFF and in EPS.
If it makes sense for the body of the message, it makes sense for the
attachments.
Hence, attachments should be capable of being arbitrary MIME objects.
Probably your suggestion of a Disposition header is better than a new
message content type field, although it does seem to me that a part of an
attachment is like a part of a multipart message.
Lee
--
lee(_at_)sq(_dot_)com (Liam Quin) the barefoot programmer; SoftQuad Inc +1 416
239 4801
OPEN LOOK UI FAQ; Metafont list; HexSweeper NeWS game; lq-text text retrieval