Re: [ANNOUNCE] mutt 1.5.16 released
On 2007-06-17 09:48:48 -0400, Derek Martin wrote:
> On Sun, Jun 17, 2007 at 05:13:27AM +0200, Vincent Lefevre wrote:
> > > > Also the .mailcap (to view attachments with external tools) also needs
> > > > programming knowledge.
> > >
> > > No it doesn't. My mailcap has no code in it whatsoever. Just simple
> > > command lines (which is not code). Typing the name of a program with
> > > arguments is not the same as writing code.
> >
> > You don't know what you're talking about. This simply doesn't work.
>
> You're probably right. I've only been using mailcap for about 15
> years... I probably have no idea what I'm talking about.
>
> FWIW, my mailcap consists of exactly this:
>
> image/*; gthumb %s
> application/msword; ooffice %s
> application/pdf; evince %s
> application/postscript ; evince %s
> text/html; /usr/bin/htmlview %s ; copiousoutput
This does not work under Mac OS X.
> No code at all, unless you consider the parameter substitution to be
> code... which I don't.
But I assume that you're not able to give a mailcap that works under
Mac OS X without a line of code.
Also your mailcap is simplistic. In practice, you should test that
DISPLAY is set before starting an X11 client, so that a fallback can
be used.
> > > Besides which, even if it were necessary, Unix machines normally have
> > > system administrators, especially in places where the end users are
> > > neither system admins nor programmers. All that is needed is a
> > > sysadmin with half a clue to create a system mailcap that works for
> > > everyone.
> >
> > So, the sysadmin could also solve the problem with vi...
>
> He could, but he shouldn't have to.
Then this is also true for the mailcap file.
> If the problem needs solving, that's Mutt's job. A lot of people
> reading mail on a Unix system are people who are just starting out
> with Linux... they have an inclination to tinker but still they are
> not programmers, and again, regardless of whether they are capable
> or not, it should never be the user's job to fix flaws in his mail
> client... that's the job of the application developer. Mutt's
> designed to work with vi on Unix systems.. if it can't deal with the
> stock vi on some systems without falsely reporting the editor
> failed, that seems obviously to be a flaw to me.
The flaw is in vi. This is not Mutt's job to fix flaws in other
software.
--
Vincent Lefèvre <vincent@xxxxxxxxxx> - Web: <http://www.vinc17.org/>
100% accessible validated (X)HTML - Blog: <http://www.vinc17.org/blog/>
Work: CR INRIA - computer arithmetic / Arenaire project (LIP, ENS-Lyon)