adixon
10-19-2006, 10:29 AM
Some of my subscribers are having a problem described a year ago. They are using Outlook Express, which handles digests as multiple attachments. Bruce responded a year and a half ago (copied below) that there were some alternatives coming but they didn't address the prob for Outlook Express users. Does anyone have an alternative short of telling subscribers to either not use the digest form of the list or to use a different mail reader?
Thanks,
AD
Here is the situation in full.
ezmlm-idx can provide 5 different formats (see also the ezmlm-get man page):
1. Flat plain text (aka RFC 1153 format). Every mail reader can read this, but replying to an individual part takes some effort, which causes frequent replies from digest users containing all of the digest as quoted text.
2. The current (default) multipart digest format, which should be RFC 2046 compliant. This is supported in most of the other programs we tested, other than Outlook Express (note that Outlook does handle it very well).
3. Same as #2, except tagged as multipart mixed instead of digest. Outlook Express did not fare significantly better on this, and a couple of clients we tested did worse.
4. Same as #2, except with unfiltered headers.
5. Same as #4, except without a summary message index.
I am aware of no format that could be sent to Outlook Express users such that the individual messages in the digest would be useable as individual messages. That is, the messages could be broken apart and viewed seperately (if desired) and replied to individually.
At this point, we only have the capability of providing a single digest format across the entire system. ezmlm-idx itself does not have a configuration file to specify which digest format to use. Instead, it would be added as a command-line option in the "editor" file. However, such an option would get wiped out when any list options are rebuilt, and the hourly cron job that also produces digests won't take such changes into account. As such, the only format we will produce is the default format.
We do have plans to introduce a configuration option for digest lists to switch between formats #1 and #2 above. This option would apply to everybody on the digest list. At the moment, this addition is still in the planning stages, and we have no firm timeline on when it would be made available.
[Edited to fix the numbering typo]
__________________
Bruce Guenter, FutureQuest http://www.FutureQuest.net/ http://untroubled.org/
Thanks,
AD
Here is the situation in full.
ezmlm-idx can provide 5 different formats (see also the ezmlm-get man page):
1. Flat plain text (aka RFC 1153 format). Every mail reader can read this, but replying to an individual part takes some effort, which causes frequent replies from digest users containing all of the digest as quoted text.
2. The current (default) multipart digest format, which should be RFC 2046 compliant. This is supported in most of the other programs we tested, other than Outlook Express (note that Outlook does handle it very well).
3. Same as #2, except tagged as multipart mixed instead of digest. Outlook Express did not fare significantly better on this, and a couple of clients we tested did worse.
4. Same as #2, except with unfiltered headers.
5. Same as #4, except without a summary message index.
I am aware of no format that could be sent to Outlook Express users such that the individual messages in the digest would be useable as individual messages. That is, the messages could be broken apart and viewed seperately (if desired) and replied to individually.
At this point, we only have the capability of providing a single digest format across the entire system. ezmlm-idx itself does not have a configuration file to specify which digest format to use. Instead, it would be added as a command-line option in the "editor" file. However, such an option would get wiped out when any list options are rebuilt, and the hourly cron job that also produces digests won't take such changes into account. As such, the only format we will produce is the default format.
We do have plans to introduce a configuration option for digest lists to switch between formats #1 and #2 above. This option would apply to everybody on the digest list. At the moment, this addition is still in the planning stages, and we have no firm timeline on when it would be made available.
[Edited to fix the numbering typo]
__________________
Bruce Guenter, FutureQuest http://www.FutureQuest.net/ http://untroubled.org/