[Mailman-Users] Why do some get digests as a series of attachments?

[Mark Sapiro]

On 09/02/2016 11:23 PM, Richard Johnson wrote:
> Actually, my list is setup to send all digests in text format.  I was toying with the idea of sending in MIME format. Maybe that would be better?


I assume you mean that Digest options -> mime_is_default_digest is set
to Plain, but that only sets the default for new subscribers. It's a
user option and any user can change her setting.

Also, if you change it to MIME, that only affects people who subscribe
after the change. It doesn't change any current members.


> But it sounds as if you're saying that a user can specify that they want MIME instead of there configured version, somewhere in their personal config?


Yes. The user can set it on her options page - "Get MIME or Plain Text
Digests?" and the admin can set it for a user with the 'plain' checkbox
on the Membership Management... -> Membership List pages (unchecked = MIME)

I think MIME digests are better. They have several advantages IF (and
it's upper case IF on purpose) the user's mail client deals well with
the format. Mobile phone apps as a class are generally quite bad at
dealing with MIME digests as are some web mail apps.

Each user needs to decide for herself which is preferred based on the
client(s) she uses.

Personally, I set digest mode to MIME on those few lists I subscribe to
in digest form, and I just don't try to read them on my phone or just
read the TOC and maybe delete the digest as uninteresting. If I want to
read and possibly reply to a message in the digest, I use a real MUA on
a real computer.

-- 
Mark Sapiro <mark at msapiro.net>        The highway is for gamblers,
San Francisco Bay Area, California    better use your sense - B. Dylan