[Alpine-info] Forwarded mail partially invisible in Outlook

[Olaf Skibbe]

Dear Eduardo,

Thanks for the extensive explanations.

A few remarks:

On Mon, 19 Feb 2024 at 11:21, Eduardo Chappa wrote:


> The problem is not Alpine, the problem is the outlook interface.


Just to avoid any misunderstandings: I used the Outlook web interface 
(OWA), but the same behavior can be observed by the (locally installed) 
Outlook mail client.


>  When a message is exported through the web, the default is to export 

> certain parts but not all. In theory the full message could be 

> exported, but the default is to export a part of it. What I mean is 

> that when you open the message to read it the client has a choice, 

> they can either pick the html part (default) or the text/plain part. 

> The latter has to be requested explicitly. You could get both, but 

> that would be slow, or you could request the full message (even 

> slower), so guess what the Outlook interface is doing: Picking up the 

> default, that is the HTML part.


Yes, I understand this. But I assume there is more to it. There are many 
clients which can be defaulted to show the HTML part.

All clients I know of (including Outlook) would show the text/plain part 
when a mail contains only this.

All clients I know of (excluding Outlook) would show the text/plain 
part, if this is the only content part of the actual mail, even if an 
attached mail contains an HTML part. They can distinguish between the 
actual mail text and the attachment. (I assume this depends of the 
declaration of the parts?)

Even Outlook can do this. When I add only an inline picture, *or* when I 
add only an attached file to the mail which is to be forwarded, Outlook 
behaves fine and displays the text/plain part of the actual mail 
*together* with the HTML part of the forwarded mail.

But obviously, when the mail which is to be forwarded contains the right 
choice of attachments (inline picture *and* attached file), Outlook can 
be tricked into not showing the text/plain part of the actual mail.


> Would it be better to add html editing capabilities to Alpine?


Not for me, thanks! Alpine allows me to do everything I want to with the 
HTML mails I receive (if necessary I use the browser to view them, e.g. 
for HTML tables). I hardly ever miss the possibility to compose HTML 
mails.

By the way, thank you very much, Eduardo, for keeping Alpine alive! I am 
using it for hours every day, and I am always impressed how good and 
fast it is in handling large mailboxes.

Cheers,
Olaf