On Mon, 2010-08-09 at 03:27 +0100, Marko Vojinovic wrote: > Aaahhh, well, so you are saying that an e-mail can contain both plain > text version and html version of the same message simultaneously? Yes, that's the main use of multipart/alternative. It means that the message has multiple parts, and that some parts are alternatives for each other (e.g. plain text or HTML, though it could be other rendering techniques, too). Generally, it's in referral to the message. Though, theoretically, you could have multipart alternatives for other portions of message content (e.g. show an attached TIFF or JPEG file). In some cases, the plain text part may just be a wimp out message saying "your mail client cannot display the contents of this message, upgrade it." Which, strictly speaking is a non-compliant message, as the plain text wimp out message is not an alternative rendering of the HTML version. Quite a few sending clients will put such a pre-amble before both sections. So that a compliant client will show you the plain text or the HTML version, and clients that can't handle MIME multiparts will show a warning preamble (this message is a multipart...) before all of the content. Spam often contains bogus crap in the plain text part, and the spam in the HTML alternative. Some anti-spam systems will assess the content of both sections, and flag such badly mismatched content is being very highly likely to be spam. Clients that can handle multiparts usually let you pick your preferred default. It'd be quite crap of such clients not to give you a choice. -- [tim@localhost ~]$ uname -r 2.6.27.25-78.2.56.fc9.i686 Don't send private replies to my address, the mailbox is ignored. I read messages from the public lists. -- users mailing list users@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx To unsubscribe or change subscription options: https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/users Guidelines: http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Mailing_list_guidelines
