MIME - Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions

Netscape

For users with Windows 95/98/NT systems, this is the ideal solution. It also works well under Linux and Solaris.

• Uses IMAP (preferred) or POP to talk to polaris if your desktop is 95/98/NT; use movemail if on Linux or Solaris.

• Can display MIME messages either inline, or as an attachment (preferred).

• Recommended version: 4.5 or better (not 4.05!); IMAP support significantly improved.

Pine

Ideal for users of Unix systems who may need a "dumb terminal" (vt100, xterm, telnet) interface.

Emacs/VM

With GNU emacs 20.2.1 and VM 6.35, MIME capability is built-in.

• Use uppercase "D" to toggle between raw, intermediate and summary modes.

• (setq vm-auto-displayed-mime-content-types '("text" "multipart" "image")) will auto-display certain types.

• (setq vm-send-using-mime t) if you want outgoing MIME attachments to work via <control-c><control-a>. Set it to nil to suppress this.

•       (setq vm-mime-external-content-types-alist
        '(
  	("text/html" "netscape")
  	("image/gif" "xv")
  	("image/jpeg" "xv")
  	("video" "xanim")
  	("audio/x-pn-realaudio" "rvplayer")
  	("audio" "xwave")
  	)
        )

  Problems: with content-disposition "inline", netscape automatically invoked. Can be dangerous if you have java and/or javascript enabled.

For a more thorough description of these mail programs, see the Gold Book entry on Mail User Agents.