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List:       mutt-users
Subject:    Re: display text when a main contains HTML and text
From:       Cameron Simpson <cs () zip ! com ! au>
Date:       2014-09-19 23:18:00
Message-ID: 20140919231800.GA46524 () cskk ! homeip ! net
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On 18Sep2014 22:17, Ed Blackman <ed@edgewood.to> wrote:
> On Thu, Sep 18, 2014 at 12:52:25PM +0200, Nathan Schwarz wrote:
> > But alternative_order works fine, no more html-mail or lynx-dumps :)
> 
> However, note that at least some multipart/alternative emails come 
> with an empty or trivial text/plain part.  I don't know why someone 
> would go to the trouble of writing a tool that would send multipart 
> and then not put anything in the text/plain, but it does happen.  If 
> you use alternative_order to prefer plain text (as I do), you'll need 
> to recognize that sometimes you will need to manually select the HTML 
> part read the email.

I also don't understand why some tools send both and make the plain text 
useless. A useless plaintext is not "alternative" :-(

My muttrc says this:

   message-hook . 'unalternative_order *; alternative_order text/plain text/html'

   # Apple Mail embeds attachments in the HTML part instead of outside the \
multipart/mixed  message-hook '~h "X-Mailer: Apple Mail" ~X 1-' 'unalternative_order \
*; alternative_order text/html multipart/mixed text/plain'

   # senders who can't seem to master multipart/mixed, and send empty or useless \
text/plain sections  # or just badly badly formatted plain text, such as gmail or \
live.com etc  message-hook '%f htmlers | ~f @outlook.com | ~f live.com | ~f \
@gmail.com' 'unalternative_order *; alternative_order text/html text/plain'

In short:
Prefer plain text.
Unless it is Apple Mail and there is an attachment, because Apple Mail seems to 
embed the attachments only in the HTML half inside of outside.
And unless it comes from sources known to produce useless plain text: outlook, 
live, gmail or the addresses in my "htmlers" address group.

Cheers,
Cameron Simpson <cs@zip.com.au>

The reason that God was able to create the world in seven days is that he
didn't have to worry about the installed base.  - Enzo Torresi


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