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MIME UA summary

1994-11-07 05:30:12
This is to summarise the results of the little inquest I did on
application/wordperfect5.1. I sent round a mail containing 
application/wordperfect5.1
application/rtf
application/msword
contenttypes to two lists, the IETF 822 extensions list and the SURFnet
Mail User group list. I asked for people who could read one or more of
the application/* content types to react and tell me what software they
were using for UA, and how easy/difficult it was to configure the UA to
accept something like application/wordperfect5.1. Note that the
results reported in this mail are not guaranteed to be correct. I take
no responsibility for damage etc. resulting from actions taken on
basis of this mail. Use it as an indicator, and perform final testing
yourself. Also note that the list is non conclusive, and I'll be happy
to have reports on additions.


This mail represents a summary of the answers. I'd like to thank the
following people for their extensive answers to my queries:
Hans Michael Pronk <hpronk(_at_)sjaan(_dot_)fbk(_dot_)eur(_dot_)nl>
"R.F.Janz" <R(_dot_)F(_dot_)Janz(_at_)rc(_dot_)RUG(_dot_)NL>
Ron Croonenberg <R(_dot_)Croonenberg(_at_)atis(_dot_)nl>
sdorner(_at_)qualcomm(_dot_)com (Steve Dorner)
John R MacMillan <john(_at_)sco(_dot_)COM>
kehres(_at_)ima(_dot_)com (Tim Kehres)
dcrocker(_at_)mordor(_dot_)stanford(_dot_)edu (Dave Crocker)
Lennart =?iso-8859-1?Q?L=F6vstrand?= <Lennart_Lovstrand(_at_)NeXT(_dot_)COM>
hilbolli(_at_)hacktic(_dot_)nl (Hendrik Jan Hilbolling)
Xander(_dot_)Jansen(_at_)SURFnet(_dot_)nl
Bert(_dot_)Stals(_at_)SURFnet(_dot_)nl
Many others reacted with short messages of interest.

The results
-----------
Note that I included in every content type a "secret" word in the text
to verify whether people really were capable of reading that content
type or not. None of the UAs below have viewers for WP, RTF or msword
included inline. They all require external viewers.
The following MIME capable UAs were reported back to me:

MH 6.8  platform: Various Unix
   MH Can handle any new type of Content-type by adding a definition
   either in the system-wide $MHN or in the users local .mh_profile
   configuring MH to be able to show a WP file was easy and works.

PINE 3.91 Platform: Various Unix
   It was possible to read the various contents types (with
   appropriate viewers installed). This can be configured in
   .mailcap (People noted that teh entry needed is not conformant to
   the .mailcap rules, so this may need some experimenting).

ECS-mail 2.4 Platform: MSwindows
   No problems in reading these contenttypes with ECS mail. External
   viewer configuration based on content-type takes 2 minutes max.

EXMH  platform Unix/X-windows
   New content types can be configured in the .mailcap file. Doing
   this it was possible to read the content-type WP.

PMAIL3.2r2 Platform: MS-DOS
   The content-types can be read by adding entries to the file
   PM-MIME.R

PMAIL4W Platform MSwindows cannot display the content-types

ATISmail 1.0 Platform: MSwindows
   After adding a rule to the config file it is possible to read the
   content-types with an external viewer using ATISmail

Eudora 2.x Platform: MSwindos and Macintosh
   Can read the contenttypes. User is asked for confirmation of
   launching external viewer.
   
NeXT Mail 3.3 Platform: NEXTSTEP 3.3:
   Can read the contenttypes if external viewers are available.

Internet Exchange for cc:Mail (a cc:Mail to SMTP/MIME gateway)
   Message and MIME contenttypes were readable using cc:Mail. No
   configuration was necessary for the msword contenttype.

=============
EH941107

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