[Mailman-Users] header/footer attachments

[Christopher Adams]

Thanks for your reply.

I think you misunderstood me. I didn't mean that the header and/or footer
was added to other attachments.

Typically, what happens  is that  list subscribers attach a PDF or Word
document, using Outlook or Groupwise mail. All the lists have a standard
footer set by default. Many times they send in HTML format, even when they
think they are sending in plain text, as that is what it appears like to
them. In my experience with Outlook and based on information from previous
list messages here, if a message with PDF or Word attachment is sent in
plain text or HTML to a list with a footer set in Mailman, the message will
come across with the document attached as well as a separate footer
attachment. If no document is attached, regardless of the mail format, the
footer will appear in the message. However, yahoo mail handles it normally
and Thunderbird includes a footer attachment, but also displays it.

I guess I was surprised that I hadn't figured out that it depended on
whether a document was attached.

So, I will put that one to rest.

I also am wondering how much other mailman administrators and list owners
make use of the built-in content filtering. As I understand it, if content
filtering is activated and say, for example,  text/plain is added to 'Remove
message attachments that have a matching content type', any footer that is
attached should be removed. Again, based on the description of
content-filtering, in the 'filter_action' option, "This action is not taken
if after filtering the message still contains content. In that case the
message is always forwarded on to the list membership" means that any
message body would be delivered and only the attached footer would be
dropped.

On 7/13/06, Mark Sapiro <msapiro at value.net> wrote:
>
> Christopher Adams wrote:
>
> >I am trying to verify that this is normal behavior for Mailman. I have
> >been doing this for a number of years and never
> >realized this. According to a previous post to the list:
> >
> >>Are you saying that the original posts to the list contain attachments
> >>that go to the list? If so, the list header and footer will always be
> >>added as separate MIME parts (attachments).
> >
> >I interpret this to mean that ANY message with an attachment, sent to
> >a list that has header and footers appended, will
> >put the footer and header into an attachment, along with the original
> >attachment.
> >
> >I would like to verify that this is true before I pass the information
> >on to list owners.
>
>
> Attachment is a very vague word in this context. What happens to list
> headers and footers depends on the MIME structure of the message. Most
> messages that have what are normally called 'attachments' have a main
> MIME type of multipart/mixed. For this type of message, Mailman will
> add the header by inserting it in a text/plain sub-part as the first
> sub-part of the multipart/mixed message and will add the footer by
> inserting it in a text/plain sub-part as the last sub-part of the
> multipart/mixed message.
>
> It will not add the header and footer to the 'attachment'. Whether the
> header and footer appear as inline text along with the 'message body'
> or as separate attachments is entirely a function of the MUA used to
> view the message.
>
> --
> Mark Sapiro < msapiro at value.net>       The highway is for gamblers,
> San Francisco Bay Area, California    better use your sense - B. Dylan
>
>


-- 
Christopher Adams
adamsca at gmail.com