Re: [Evolution] Forwarding mail with embedded images

[George Reeke <reeke mail rockefeller edu>]

Dear Guenther and list
   (my original mail and your reply edited for length)

On Wed, 2005-11-16 at 13:06 +0100, guenther wrote:
[The part with two > > is from my original posting, GNR]
> > Dear Guenther and list,
> >    The problem with forwarding mail as an attachment is that
> > you don't get to edit it.  This is unacceptable when dealing
> > with personal matters and so I do not want it to be my default.

> IHMO a mail is a document and may not be edited when forwarding.
> Forwarding means, I am sending the mail as is, including the headers
> (and thus the original author).

Well, as you say, that's your opinion.  Without going into a long
discourse on the nature of my correspondence, I just would say
that I don't think it is the business of the system developers
to dictate what I do and do not want to forward from one friend
or colleague to another.  I very often want to forward an attachment
without the text that came with it.  That is forbidden by your view
of the world.  I already agreed that there may be situations in
a business environment where that is the necessary way to handle
forwarding, and that is why I said that it's fine with me if the
option requires a root password to change it.  But it should be
there.

> If you want to edit the mails content, you may just as well Reply and
> change the recipient.

Thank you, I hadn't thought of that.

> > Similarly with not being able to
> > edit a message before saving it (for example, to delete long
> > included threads or other attachments as a previous poster
> > requested).
>
> Not sure if I understand what you mean. But if you really do save a
> mail, please note that you save a *mail*. Including headers and stuff.
> Saving the mails contents is not saving a mail.

What I meant is just what I said:  I want to be able to edit an
incoming mail, then save.  These edits typically would consist of
(1) deleting attachments that I already have saved in some other
appropriate directory.  In my situation, these may be multimegabyte
documents that I really don't need multiple copies of, (2) adding a
note as to what action I took in response to this mail, for example,
a phone call, or (3) deleting inclusions of threads where I have
already saved the original posting, (4) deleting html copies of
information that is perfectly good as plain text.  I appreciate
very much that this would not be legal record of what I received,
and I would never pretend that it was.  But just what is Evo
protecting by forbidding this kind of editing?  Obviously, one
can go into one's mail archive with emacs and accomplish the same
thing--it's just a hell of lot less convenient.
   I would be very happy to be given a choice here also, possibly
that could be disabled by a root administrator.  Your way "save
mail" and my way "save edited mail" as menu choices would be just fine.

> The same goes with "removing attachments from a mail in my folder",
> which was discussed quite often in the past. This alters the mail and
> thus is not what the sender intended it to be.

I'm interested in what I want to save on my machine.  I don't expect
to get sued if I delete somebody's duplicate attachment.  What if I
delete the entire mail--that is not what the sender intended it to
be either, but I presume you are not suggesting I should have to
save everything I receive.
   (But I'd be happy to be able to do it before saving, not
necessarily after it's in a folder.)


> >    So I do hope the developers will provide a way to allow Evo
> > to be configured to permit editing of emails before storing and/or
> > forwarding (I was told in an earlier post that all forwarding
> > would be as an attachment in future versions).

> "Editing a mail before saving" would need Evo to be some kind of a
> general purpose mail format editor, which it is not (currently). This
> would require quite a lot of new code and a new UI. Don't hold your
> breathe for this one, but feel free to file it as a feature request in
> bugzilla.

OK.  Since I can already do it when replying, this would not seem
to be all that hard.

> Note, all above is my personal, not so humble opinion. Feel free to have
> your own.

Right-o.

> ...guenther

George Reeke