Debian bug report logs - #932
Pine over-encodes files and auto-requests document

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From sowhat.micro.umn.edu!tedhajek Thu Jun  1 19:06:08 1995
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Date: Thu, 1 Jun 1995 21:06:45 -0500 (CDT)
From: Ted Hajek <tedhajek@sowhat.micro.umn.edu>
Reply-To: Ted Hajek <tedhajek@boombox.micro.umn.edu>
To: Ian Jackson <iwj10@cus.cam.ac.uk>, debian-bugs@Pixar.com
Cc: Debian bugs submission address <debian-bugs@Pixar.com>
Subject: Re: Bug#932: Pine over-encodes files and auto-requests document
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On Wed, 31 May 1995, Ian Jackson wrote:

> Package: pine
> Version: 3.91-2
> 
> 1.
> 
> When you use `^J' in the message compose screen to attach a file, Pine
> base-64 encodes it even if it's a plain text file.
> 
> This just happened to me - someone tried to use Pine to mail me a
> uuencoded gzipped tarfile, and Pine re-encoded the uuencoded text !
> It did this even though it sent the whole message using an (unstated)
> Content-Transfer-Encoding of 7bit, whereas it is perfectly happy to
> send the file unmangled if you use `^R' to include it.
>
> Luckily I had a copy of Pine available to unpack the resulting mess,
> and was able to figure out how to use it.  Other less experienced
> correspondents of Debian users may be less fortunate.
> 
> Of course, doubly-encoding file increases its size by another factor
> of 1.3, which can be a considerable waste of space, bandwidth, etc,
> for a large file.
> 
> Perhaps the `^J' option should have a warning attached, to inform the
> user that many recipients will be unable to unpick the result.

Yes, it probably should.
 
> What does the `^J' command use to find out the content-type to use for
> the file it is attaching ?  If it always uses text/plain then clearly
> a MIME attachment is the wrong thing to do and the feature should be
> disabled completely !

I have to admit that this is annoying behavior.  This is a big problem
here at the University of Minnesota, where half the people read mail using
POP clients that binhex enclosures and the other half use Pine.  I've been
bitten by this and have been forced to modify my actions to satisfy the
software.  Not exactly a sublime user interface. 

Here's what the Pine FAQ says:

>How can someone without a MIME-aware mail program decipher an attachment? 
>
>Regarding attachments: Pine uses the MIME Internet standard for this. 
>MIME (Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions) uses "Base64" encoding rather
>than uuencode, because uuencode uses characters that are transformed by
>some email gateways, and there are also several incompatible versions of
>uuencode. 

Again, why encode 7-bit clean text?

>However, you can certainly uuencode a file outside of pine, then use the
>Composer's Ctrl-R (file inclusion) command to insert the encoded file in
>the message. 

As you've discovered.

>If you use Pine's attachment feature, your recipient does need to have
>MIME-capable software. Fortunately, this is not hard to find. Even the
>major proprietary mail vendors have committed to MIME support, but some of
>their upgraded products are still some months away. One product which can
>decipher a MIME attachment is munpack from Carnegie Mellon. It is
>available from ftp.andrew.cmu.edu in the /pub/mpack directory. 


> 2.
> 
> When I start Pine, it asks me:
>   SPECIAL OFFER:  Would you like to receive (via email) a brief document
>     entitled "Secrets of Pine" ?
> The default answer is `yes'.
> 
> This document should be included in Debian, in /usr/doc, and the Pine
> program should display a reference to it rather than offering to send
> a request somewhere.  Many Debian systems will not have working
> internet-connected mail systems, and the resulting bounce message will
> only confuse users.
> 
> I've seen this document request feature confuse new users even when it
> works correctly.

Good idea.  I'll fix this in the next package revision.  Thanks for the 
comments.

 / Ted Hajek                              I spend too much time \
<  Distributed Computing Services            raiding windmills.  >
 \ University of Minnesota               -Toad the Wet Sprocket /

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Date: Wed, 31 May 95 21:20 BST
From: iwj10@cus.cam.ac.uk (Ian Jackson)
To: Debian bugs submission address <debian-bugs@pixar.com>
Subject: Pine over-encodes files and auto-requests document

Package: pine
Version: 3.91-2

1.

When you use `^J' in the message compose screen to attach a file, Pine
base-64 encodes it even if it's a plain text file.

This just happened to me - someone tried to use Pine to mail me a
uuencoded gzipped tarfile, and Pine re-encoded the uuencoded text !
It did this even though it sent the whole message using an (unstated)
Content-Transfer-Encoding of 7bit, whereas it is perfectly happy to
send the file unmangled if you use `^R' to include it.

Luckily I had a copy of Pine available to unpack the resulting mess,
and was able to figure out how to use it.  Other less experienced
correspondents of Debian users may be less fortunate.

Of course, doubly-encoding file increases its size by another factor
of 1.3, which can be a considerable waste of space, bandwidth, etc,
for a large file.

Perhaps the `^J' option should have a warning attached, to inform the
user that many recipients will be unable to unpick the result.

What does the `^J' command use to find out the content-type to use for
the file it is attaching ?  If it always uses text/plain then clearly
a MIME attachment is the wrong thing to do and the feature should be
disabled completely !


2.

When I start Pine, it asks me:
  SPECIAL OFFER:  Would you like to receive (via email) a brief document
    entitled "Secrets of Pine" ?
The default answer is `yes'.

This document should be included in Debian, in /usr/doc, and the Pine
program should display a reference to it rather than offering to send
a request somewhere.  Many Debian systems will not have working
internet-connected mail systems, and the resulting bounce message will
only confuse users.

I've seen this document request feature confuse new users even when it
works correctly.


Ian.