misquoting of multipart messages

[Wilhelm Müller]

When a message contains, say, a text part and a zip file, vm-reply-include-text does not quote the text part, but the mime button:

    ZZ> xmultipart message, 2 parts [Click mouse-2 to display parts]

(ZZ is the attribution name I was prompted for.) This is independent of the decoding stage the message is in, even with vm-auto-decode-mime-messages set to nil, the button is inserted.

The last time it worked was with VM version 8.0.9, so I'm currently stuck with that version.

[Uday Reddy (reddyuday)]

Hi Wilhelm, I haven't seen this behaviour. So, a sample message that exhibits the problem would help.

Also, which version of VM did you try this on?

[Wilhelm Müller (muewi-acm)]

Hello Uday!

    Uday> I haven't seen this behaviour.

Ok, I tracked it down to the following: I used

(setq vm-auto-displayed-mime-content-types '("text/plain" "text/enriched"))

so multipart messages were not automatically decoded. When I added
"multipart" to the list, message yanking worked again, but included
the button for the zip attachment in the yanked message.

Reading through the change log since 8.0.9 (and a bit of code for
vm-yank-message), I tracked it down to the intro of
vm-included-mime-types-list. Reverting vm-auto-displayed-mime-content-types
my previous value and setting vm-included-mime-types-list to that one,
too, fixed all my problems (with vm-reply-include-text, that is ;-)

Funny what effects seemingly innocuous changes may have...

And supercite didn't have anything to do with it.

    Uday> So, a sample message that exhibits the problem would help.

Well, I don't think that's needed anymore. But maybe the behaviour
I encountered could end up somewhere in the documentation?

    Uday> Also, which version of VM did you try this on?

8.1.93a, but that's not of importance anymore, either.

Thanks for your help,

Wilhelm

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[Uday Reddy (reddyuday)]

Wilhelm Müller writes:

> Ok, I tracked it down to the following: I used
>
> (setq vm-auto-displayed-mime-content-types '("text/plain"
> "text/enriched"))
>
> so multipart messages were not automatically decoded. When I added
> "multipart" to the list, message yanking worked again, but included
> the button for the zip attachment in the yanked message.

Good that you have found the solution. But this still counts as a bug
in my book because of its unexpected behavior.

- The vm-auto-displayed-mime-content-types problem should have blocked
the multipart message from being displayed properly as well. Was that
the case?

- You say that it works fine in 8.0.9. Does it mean that "mutipart"
didn't need to be included in vm-auto-displayed-mime-content-types in
that version? The NEWS file doesn't say that there has been a change
to this policy either.

- Intuitively, it seems to me that "multipart" types should be handled
automatically and shouldn't be controllable from the
auto-displayed... variable. Do you agree?

Secondly, it seems to me that vm-reply-include-text shouldn't depend
on the auto-displayed... variable either. I will look into this.

Cheers,
Uday

[Wilhelm Müller (muewi-acm)]

    Uday> - The vm-auto-displayed-mime-content-types problem should have blocked
    Uday> the multipart message from being displayed properly as well. Was that
    Uday> the case?

No, well, the message was not decoded, so I saw raw MIME code and had
to hit D. But that I didn't mind.

    Uday> - You say that it works fine in 8.0.9. Does it mean that "mutipart"
    Uday> didn't need to be included in vm-auto-displayed-mime-content-types in
    Uday> that version? The NEWS file doesn't say that there has been a change
    Uday> to this policy either.

I guess my seeing raw MIME was a consequence of the missing "multipart".

    Uday> - Intuitively, it seems to me that "multipart" types should be handled
    Uday> automatically and shouldn't be controllable from the
    Uday> auto-displayed... variable. Do you agree?

Partially--as long as I can distinguish between multipart/mixed and
multipart/alternative (I've "(setq vm-mime-alternative-select-method 'all)").

    Uday> Secondly, it seems to me that vm-reply-include-text shouldn't depend
    Uday> on the auto-displayed... variable either. I will look into this.

If I understand the code correctly, vm-yank-message invokes
vm-yank-message-mime when vm-reply-include-text is nil, and here the
auto-display variables kick in; only the alternative select method is
forced to be 'best-internal.

Guten Rutsch,
happy New Year,

Wilhelm

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[Uday Reddy (reddyuday)]

Wilhelm Müller writes:

> Partially--as long as I can distinguish between multipart/mixed and
> multipart/alternative (I've "(setq vm-mime-alternative-select-method 'all)").

I am not sure what you mean. If a multipart item gets displayed as a
button, all that you can do is to see the raw mime. I don't think you
can process it any further, can you? What do you do if there is an
attachment inside that needs to be decoded?

Cheers,
Uday

[Wilhelm Müller (muewi-acm)]

    Uday> I am not sure what you mean. If a multipart item gets displayed as a
    Uday> button, all that you can do is to see the raw mime.

Currently, the following happens:

(a) I see raw MIME code, I hit D.
(b) A `button' is displayed, saying something like "multipart/mixed"
    or "multipart/alternative".
(c) I hit D again.
(d) A button for each part is displayed, indicating its type.

Now I can either hit D again (getting me back to raw MIME) or operate
on each button I'm interested in, either with the mouse or with
$-something.

Wilhelm

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[Uday Reddy (reddyuday)]

That is nice. So, you need vm-included-mime-types-list to extract
the text. Quoting from the manual:

"By default, VM uses its MIME displaying mechanism to extract the
included text to be cited in replies. If this does not work
correctly, you can set the variable `vm-included-mime-types-list' to
selectively include the MIME types that should be covered in the
included text. The list should have `text/plain' at a minimum and
could include other types such as `text/enriched' and `message'.
Setting the variable to nil returns you to the default behaviour."

I will re-write the doc string for vm-included-mime-types-list to make
this clear.

Cheers,
Uday

[Uday Reddy (reddyuday)]

The documentation change made it into 8.2.0a release.