On Thu, 4 Jul 2002, Roger B.A. Klorese wrote:
> Actually Outlook Express, at any rate, does a better job these days with
> standards than Eudora does.
So far I've refrained from expressing my particular reason for considering
Outlook Express pernicious. I assumed that someone else would have raised
it. But I haven't seen it mentioned.
Outlook (and OE), which I will continue to collectively refer to as
"Outhouse" as juvenile as that may be, have a peculiar interpertation of
the Contet-Type, header for attachments.
If I send an attachment with
Content-Type: text/plain; filename="foo.xls"
OE will ingore the "text/plain" specification and go with the .xls
extension. While this keeps within the letter of the standard, it is
clearly a violation of the spirit of the standard, which was designed to
allow document exchange among heteorgeneous systems. That's why you've got
the three way distinction in mime: filenaming convention, content type,
and application. When you communicate you should be using the content
type, so that each party is free to use their own filenaming conventions
and application choice.
My what Outhouse does, however, is export Window's filenaming conventions
to other systems. This, I consider pernicious. Also there is no benefit to
Outhouse users for this design feature. (Note that I am not objecting to
taking a guess based on filename for something that comes
application/octet-stream) So I can only assume that this design feature is
a deliberate attempt to hamper interoperability with those who don't use
Windows.
Experiment with this will mailers of your choice. As far as I know, only
Outlook and Outlook Express to this.
-j
--
Jeffrey Goldberg http://www.goldmark.org/jeff/
Relativism is the triumph of authority over truth, convention over justice
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