[469] in Release_7.7_team
Re: sun4 8.0A: show
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Mike Barker)
Wed Apr 10 10:41:00 1996
To: sol24@MIT.EDU, irix53@MIT.EDU
Cc: release-team@MIT.EDU
Date: Wed, 10 Apr 1996 10:40:52 EDT
From: Mike Barker <mbarker@MIT.EDU>
Since jhawk has raised the issue...
-Carla is clearly correct hear -- any change like this to mh's
-behavior needs to be done as part of a release, and done across
-the board on all platforms.
Adding mime support to mh as part of release 8.0 was agreed to some
time ago. In the 8.0 build tree, we made the modification in the mh
make file to include the provided mime support, and indeed, it is
present.
It is a major user-visible change in behavior. It may not have been
very well documented.
So jhawk is correct, we are upgrading to relatively standard mh
behavior as part of a new release (the summer release). It will also
be done on all two platforms.
As for documentation on what the change is, I haven't had a chance to
review it, but we have simply enabled the existing mime support in mh.
Basically, though, when viewing mime formatted messages, they will no
longer simply be displayed via more. Instead, the parts of the
message will be handled differently depending on the type of handling
for this content type described in mailcap.
I think it would make a great contribution to the summer release
effort if jhawk or others want to document:
1. What are the default content types in the mailcap files?
(what does show do with each type?)
2. What other content types are in common use at MIT?
3. What customization of the mailcap files might individuals
want to perform?
4. Are there other user-visible capabilities or changes as
a result of having the mime support that has
been requested for the last two years?
I believe that we should NOT modify the default mh mime mailcaps at
this time. If I understand the system correctly, it is quite easy for
individuals to customize the behavior. Let's start with system level
"out of the box" and spend a while learning what kind of handling is
useful before we try to deal with every possible content type.
Final note: part of the mime paradigm is that we do NOT have to try to
provide handling for every possible content type a priori. I would
much rather spend time on other issues right now than trying to extend
the set of content types being handled by default. I do think that by
this time next year we may be in a position to consider extending the
set of content types which are handled by default.
-This is a release-team issue, not a sol24 issue, however, I think.
-I've bcc-ed release-team, and if there's further discussion on this
- it should move there and sol24 dropped from the cc list.
Sorry, but as leader of the release-team, this is a sol24 and irix53
"issue" as far as it is an issue. Basically, there is a change in mh
performance. The people testing the summer release on both platforms
should be aware that this change exists, and should make note of its
effects.
Thank you for your interest.
Mike Barker
