MIMEALTPREFS

Syntax

Envariable: N/A
Element: <MIMEALTPREFS>
content-type
content-type
...
</MIMEALTPREFS>
Command-line Option: N/A

Description

MIMEALTPREFS allows you to specify media-type preferences for multipart/alternative data, overriding the default preferences as specified in mail messages.

When a multipart/alternative entity is processed, the last filterable media-type is normally used. However, it is sometimes desirable to override this behavior for certain media-types. For example, it has become more common for many MUAs to generate the following message structures:

  multipart/alternative
    text/plain
    text/html

A message with HTML, and a plain text equivalent for those receiving MUAs who may not be able to render HTML in email. When MHonArc processes such a message, MHonArc will use the text/html part since it is filterable and comes after text/plain.

There are some who would like to have nothing to do with HTML in email. Or, due to security concerns, would prefer to not minimize the amount of HTML from email in their archives. With MIMEALTPREFS, you can tell MHonArc to prefer the text/plain over the text/html part with the following setting:

<MIMEAltPrefs>
text/plain
text/html
</MIMEAltPrefs>

Media-types listed in MIMEALTPREFS are from most prefered to least prefered.

Note, MIMEALTPREFS augments the normal processing of multipart/alternative entities. For example, say the following message entity structure exists,

  multipart/alternative
    text/plain
    text/enriched
    text/html

and we are using the MIMEALTPREFS setting,

<MIMEAltPrefs>
text/plain
text/html
</MIMEAltPrefs>

So which entity will MHonArc actually use? In this case, the text/enriched part will be used. The reason is that the text/html will be excluded since there does exist a text/plain alternative entity. However, MHonArc still tries to use the last filterable alternative part, which in this case is text/enriched.

In order to have text/plain chosen, the following MIMEALTPREFS setting would be needed,

<MIMEAltPrefs>
text/plain
text/enriched
text/html
</MIMEAltPrefs>

This says that text/enriched is preferred over text/html. And text/plain is preferred over text/enriched and text/html.

NOTE

Each time <MIMEALTPREFS> occurs in a resource file, the last encountered setting will override any previous values. Therefore, specifying the override attribute is redundant.

Default Setting

Nil

Resource Variables

N/A

Examples

None.

Version

2.5.8