PATCH: send files as message/external-body;access-type=local-file

[Albrecht Dreß <albrecht dress arcormail de>]

[sorry for my long silence; I moved to a new job two weeks ago and was 
*packed* with work]

I just submitted a patch to bugzilla against the cvs of Oct. 12, 2001
which enables sending files as `message/external-body;access-type=local-file' 
attachments according to RFC 2046:

	http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=61156

Usage
=====

Attach a file as usual. Then right click on the icon and select the
popup menu item "attach as reference". A dialog pops up with a warning
message. If you select yes, the icon and label change to
"message/external-body". Right clicking again, you can revert this by
selecting the "attach as file" menu item. In this case, no
confirmation is necessary.

Remarks
=======

It is not possible to send a temporary item (e.g. a forwarded
message/rfc822) as reference, and there is no menu item "attach as
reference". These items live only temporarily and are removed
automatically, in most cases before the recipient has any chance to
read them. In this case, the file has to be saved first.

When postponing a message, the attachment is saved as file, not as
reference. The reason is in a way the same as above; the file might be
deleted or moved before the message is sent. To force sending as a
reference upon continue, save the attachment first to a "real" file
and attach it again.

It is only possible to use the access type local-file. The other
access types defined by RFC2046 (ftp, tftp, anon-ftp and mail-server)
usually require deeper insight into the configuration of the system
(e.g. ftp lives in its own "jail" in most cases). Adding all the
necessary dialogs etc. IMHO would blow the scope of balsa.

I have no idea which other MUA's support receiving and reading
external-body parts. Balsa, of course, does; pine and StarOffice
don't.

The message in the dialog may be really funny for a native speaker
because my english is really bad. Maybe somone can fix that... And
there is no proper icon for the message/external-body (and other
message/...) MIME type.

Hope you like it,

	Albrecht.

-- 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
     Albrecht Dreß  -  Monschauer Straße 22  -  D-53121 Bonn (Germany)
       Phone (+49) 228 6199571  -  mailto:albrecht.dress@arcormail.de
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