Re: The issue of mime parsing

Rickard Armiento (Wed, Apr 02, 2003 at 11:25:00AM +0200):
> Stefan Karrmann:
> > If the IM2k-message is MIME/multipart with MIME/external-body contents
> > it will be small and the MUA can download the external bodies as the
> > recipient likes it.
> 
> This is exactly my argument for mandating the use of *only*
> MIME/external-body for the body parts. Are there any arguments
> for allowing generic MIME?
> 
> Now, if only MIME/external-body is allowed, then your "ISP-IM2000
> message data" would never contain any actual message content. To
> eliminate one unnessecary round of traffic we could simply take your
> message field structure to be the *notification* field structure.
> 
> The workflow would then be:
>   1. Notification (using something like your field structure).
>   2. Receivers MUA parses the notification including the
>      "external-body-only MIME" data (the manifest).
>   3. Receivers MUA fetches any body parts it wants and displays them.

How does im2k knows who has fetched a body part? You need this
information to know the delivery status of the message. If you
use a different external-body for each receiver the 'external-body'
server have to tell im2k who has fetched the message.

> This is compared to (I belive this is your picture; feel free to
> correct me):
>   1. Notification (using some really simple field structure).
>   2. Recivers MUA parses the notification and fetches
>      a message that uses your message field structure.
>   3. Recivers MUA parses the message, including any generic MIME
>      in the body part and displays the content.
>   4. If the sender has chosen to include some parts as
>      MIME/external-body the receivers MUA may also download
>      and display them.
> 
> I honestly belive the first solution to be the more simple one.

It keeps the knowledge of the delivery status in im2k.

Sincerly,
-- 
Stefan Karrmann