Re: Attachments vs Inserts?

In article <siegman-64C56C.09295015112005@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
AES <siegman@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> Appreciate a bit of education on attachments vs inserts in outgoing
> Eudora emails:
>
> If I drag a graphic file (PDF, JPEG) into the address area of an
> outgoing Eudora message; it appears as an attachment (by name), but not
> as a visible image in the body of the message.
>
> If I drag the same file into the body of the message, it appears as a
> graphic or image in the message body (let's say it's "embedded"), but
> not in the Attachments: header.

Yes.

This is because Eudora can build two rather different structures for
including a graphic in an email message. Mail that is more than just
plain text is encoded using a set of standards collectively called MIME
(Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions) that define these sorts of
structures, and Eudora can send either a "multipart/related" message
with a HTML part that has an image tag referring to the attached image
or it can send a "multipart/mixed" message with a text part (maybe
empty, maybe plain text, maybe HTML) and an image part.


> 1) In the latter ("embedded") case, is the file actually "attached"?
> Will it show up as a file on the HD of the message recipient? (My
> experience is, it probably will . . . ??)

Whether a distinct file is necessarily saved to disk is mailer-specific,
but the answer to the question I think you are really asking is yes.
There is an actual copy of the file sent in the mail. How a mailer
handles that can vary greatly...

>
> 2) Suppose I do _both_ of the above. Is the file attached twice? Do
> two cc of the file appear on the recipient's hard disk?

Interesting question....
A test shows that the same JPEG file dragged into both the body and the
attachment areas does in fact cause two copies to be encoded in the
mail, which is then a multipart/mixed message containing a
multipart/related entity made up of a text/html part and an image/jpeg
part and another image/jpeg that is part of the multipart/mixed.

Clear as mud, I'm sure.

> 3) How much do the answers to these questions depend on what email
> client the recipient is using? (esp. among clients currently in
> widespread use)

How the messages are constructed for transport is solely up to the
sender. What happens on the receiving end is solely up to the recipient.
A mail client might not understand MIME at all, and show the recipient
the encoded version of the pieces and the MIME structural pieces as if
they were plain text. A mailer might not understand HTML but understand
that the image is in that multipart/related and save it out or even
display it after the unrendered HTML text. A mailer may understand the
format perfectly, but only save attached or embedded files as separate
files from the "mailbox" when told to do so specifically. Eudora handles
"attached" and "embedded" parts differently, saving the former in the
configurable attachments folder (default: ~/Documents/Eudora Folder/Mail
Folder/Attachments Folder) and the latter in its immutable Parts Folder.

> 4) In earlier versions of Eudora, selecting the "Attach" menu command,
> or clicking cmd-H, and navigating to a .txt file would lead to two
> buttons: "Attach" and "Insert". The latter choice doesn't seem to be
> there any more . . .??

Indeed. I do not see it now, but recall its existence vaguely.

--
Now where did I hide that website...
.