[MlMt] Do we need a better way to disable text/not-really-plain?

[Rob McBroom]

On 15 Jan 2014, at 10:03, Bill Cole wrote:

> For a fan of standards and simple email, the last token in this MIME 
> sub-part header generated by MailMate is appalling:
>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8; format=flowed; 
> markup=markdown

That should only be present if the sender explicitly enables Markdown 
when composing messages. I notice your message doesn’t have it, for 
example.

> Even worse: that non-standard "markup=markdown" parameter causes 
> MailMate to translate what is labeled as "text/plain" into HTML which 
> it then renders, instead of simply presenting the plain text.

That’s sort of the point. ;-)

> This can include turning supposedly-plain text incantations into 
> active (clickable) strings and hiding the original text. WHICH IS AS 
> WRONG AS A TEXT/PLAIN RENDERER CAN GET!

If the sender has claimed to be using Markdown, but then included 
something that won’t render correctly, you should take it up with 
them. (Can you give an example of something that looks “wrong”?)

> Is the audience for a better default behavior and/or a more 
> support-worthy switch larger than myself and the small crowd of very 
> geeky people I've convinced to use MM? Put another way: is no one who 
> doesn't work professionally with the problem of email as an attack 
> vector even bothering to disable this misfeature?

I can only speak for myself, but I think the implementation is great. 
Plain text is easier to write, nearly universally portable, and uses 
less bandwidth, but (rendered) HTML is much nicer to *read*. So it’s 
the best of both worlds.

The only thing I would change is that switching to the plain text 
alternative should show the original Markdown as written. If that were 
the case, I think the “Prefer plain text” Viewer preference would 
make MailMate behave the way you want.

In the meantime, I suppose you could use ⌥⌘U instead of ⌥⌘[.

-- 
Rob McBroom
http://www.skurfer.com/
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