On Feb 14, 2012, at 1:13 PM, Rich Greenberg wrote:

> Recently I added the ability to attach pictures to 2 dog lists.  As part
> of the announcement, I said that people on standard DIGEST would not see
> the attachments, they would have to go to DIGEST MIME or DIGEST HTML to
> see them.  Well, given the chance, of course some screwed it up.
> 
> Questions for you and/or the Lsoft folks:
> 
> 1) If a DIGEST user has both MIME & HTML set, which do they get?

There are two types of MIME digest, MIME HTML and MIME NOHTML.  There is no such thing as a NOMIME HTML digest.

> 2) If someone not on DIGEST has either or both set, are they ignored?

If they are not set to DIGEST mode then they will not be sent a digest.  The MIME and HTML settings only affect subscribers set to DIGEST mode.

> 3) Can somebody give me a short explanation of how MIME differs from
>   HTML.  All I have heard is that some mailers work better with one,
>   and some work better with the other.  Or perhaps there used to be
>   differences, now they are synonyms for each other?


The MIME digests are sent using the format described here: <http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc2046#section-5.1.5>.  Exactly how they are displayed will depend on how the email program handles this sort of MIME message.

The HTML digest attempts to standardize the interface to the digest by including an HTML part which should be displayed when the digest is opened.  This HTML part contains links to the individual messages in the digest.  However, not all email programs fully implement the HTML email standards, and so the links don't work in all email programs.  (The HTML digest specifically uses the 'CID:' links described at <http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2111.txt>.)

While for the most part I've seen email programs improve their handling of both sorts of digest, my experience is that many web services, or web portals to corporate email systems, have problems with HTML digests.  However, your mileage may vary.

-jwgh
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