In <199910181553(_dot_)QAA16006(_at_)clw(_dot_)cs(_dot_)man(_dot_)ac(_dot_)uk>
Charles Lindsey <chl(_at_)clw(_dot_)cs(_dot_)man(_dot_)ac(_dot_)uk> writes:
Currently, there seem three schools of thought:
1. You display the first part inline, and consider all the subsequent
ones to be "attachments".
2. You display all the parts inline, with some separator between them,
such as a ruled line across the page.
3. You display all the parts inline, with no visible separator. With
care, you can even arrange to change parts within a single line (perhaps
to intrpoduce a new character set or languauge) and have the result
displayed seemlessly.
OK, let me sum up what seems to be the consensus of this list.
It seems that #1 is regarded as generally a bad idea. Text/plain parts
SHOULD be displayed inline unless the Content-Disposition indicates
otherwise.
As between #2 and #3, there is less agreement. It seems that to use #3 as
a means of changing charset/language in mid-line was never intended, and
there are better ways of doing it (use UTF-8, or some other form of
Unicode, and use the Unicode language-changung feature). Nevertheless, if
the user DOES choose to end the first part without any CRLF, then joining
the next part on without a break is clearly NOT WRONG (but that does not
necessarily make it RIGHT).
OTOH, several people have pointed out that some indication to the
recipient that a new part has been entered is often useful (for example,
the option to copy either part to a file on its own might still be a
useful feature to have.
At any rate, the purpose of my original question was to get help in
deciding what, if anything, the upcoming USEFOR draft on the News
protocols should say. We have a particular concern as to how signatures
should be treated, depending on whereabouts they may occur within the
various parts.
My inclination is that the draft should state that the preferred behaviour
for user agents is to show all text types inline by default (i.e. unless the
Content-Disposition indicated otherwise), but other types probably not
inline. We might even give this recommendation the strength of a SHOULD.
As to whether adjacent inline sections should be merged into one (as in
#3), I would probably leave that undefined. Or I might just say that
behaviour when a part did not end with CRLF might be different.
Eventually, the market will decide.
Does that all sound like a sensible interpretation of the discussion, and
a reasonable way forward for the News standard that will not adversely
affect future mail work?
--
Charles H. Lindsey ---------At Home, doing my own thing------------------------
Email: chl(_at_)clw(_dot_)cs(_dot_)man(_dot_)ac(_dot_)uk Web:
http://www.cs.man.ac.uk/~chl
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