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</style></head><body><div class="navheader"><table width="100%" summary="Navigation header"><tr><th colspan="3" align="center">Chapter 5. Mutt's MIME Support</th></tr><tr><td width="20%" align="left"><a accesskey="p" href="advancedusage.html">Prev</a> </td><th width="60%" align="center"> </th><td width="20%" align="right"> <a accesskey="n" href="optionalfeatures.html">Next</a></td></tr></table><hr /></div><div class="chapter" lang="en" xml:lang="en"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h2 class="title"><a id="mimesupport"></a>Chapter 5. Mutt's MIME Support</h2></div></div></div><div class="toc"><p><b>Table of Contents</b></p><dl><dt><span class="sect1"><a href="mimesupport.html#using-mime">1. Using MIME in Mutt</a></span></dt><dd><dl><dt><span class="sect2"><a href="mimesupport.html#mime-pager">1.1. Viewing MIME Messages in the Pager</a></span></dt><dt><span class="sect2"><a href="mimesupport.html#attach-menu">1.2. The Attachment Menu</a></span></dt><dt><span class="sect2"><a href="mimesupport.html#compose-menu">1.3. The Compose Menu</a></span></dt></dl></dd><dt><span class="sect1"><a href="mimesupport.html#mime-types">2. MIME Type Configuration with mime.types</a></span></dt><dt><span class="sect1"><a href="mimesupport.html#mailcap">3. MIME Viewer Configuration with Mailcap</a></span></dt><dd><dl><dt><span class="sect2"><a href="mimesupport.html#mailcap-basics">3.1. The Basics of the Mailcap File</a></span></dt><dt><span class="sect2"><a href="mimesupport.html#secure-mailcap">3.2. Secure Use of Mailcap</a></span></dt><dt><span class="sect2"><a href="mimesupport.html#advanced-mailcap">3.3. Advanced Mailcap Usage</a></span></dt><dt><span class="sect2"><a href="mimesupport.html#mailcap-example">3.4. Example Mailcap Files</a></span></dt></dl></dd><dt><span class="sect1"><a href="mimesupport.html#auto-view">4. MIME Autoview</a></span></dt><dt><span class="sect1"><a href="mimesupport.html#alternative-order">5. MIME Multipart/Alternative</a></span></dt><dt><span class="sect1"><a href="mimesupport.html#attachments">6. Attachment Searching and Counting</a></span></dt><dt><span class="sect1"><a href="mimesupport.html#mime-lookup">7. MIME Lookup</a></span></dt></dl></div><p>
Quite a bit of effort has been made to make Mutt the premier text-mode
MIME MUA. Every effort has been made to provide the functionality that
the discerning MIME user requires, and the conformance to the standards
wherever possible. When configuring Mutt for MIME, there are two extra
types of configuration files which Mutt uses. One is the
<code class="literal">mime.types</code> file, which contains the mapping of file extensions to
IANA MIME types. The other is the <code class="literal">mailcap</code> file, which specifies
the external commands to use for handling specific MIME types.
</p><div class="sect1" lang="en" xml:lang="en"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h2 class="title" style="clear: both"><a id="using-mime"></a>1. Using MIME in Mutt</h2></div></div></div><p>
There are three areas/menus in Mutt which deal with MIME, they are the
pager (while viewing a message), the attachment menu and the compose
menu.
</p><div class="sect2" lang="en" xml:lang="en"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title"><a id="mime-pager"></a>1.1. Viewing MIME Messages in the Pager</h3></div></div></div><p>
When you select a message from the index and view it in the pager, Mutt
decodes the message to a text representation. Mutt internally supports
a number of MIME types, including <code class="literal">text/plain, text/enriched,
message/rfc822, and message/news</code>. In addition, the export
controlled version of Mutt recognizes a variety of PGP MIME types,
including PGP/MIME and application/pgp.
</p><p>
Mutt will denote attachments with a couple lines describing them.
These lines are of the form:
</p><pre class="screen">
[-- Attachment #1: Description --]
[-- Type: text/plain, Encoding: 7bit, Size: 10000 --]
</pre><p>
Where the <code class="literal">Description</code> is the description or filename given for the
attachment, and the <code class="literal">Encoding</code> is one of
<code class="literal">7bit/8bit/quoted-printable/base64/binary</code>.
</p><p>
If Mutt cannot deal with a MIME type, it will display a message like:
</p><pre class="screen">
[-- image/gif is unsupported (use 'v' to view this part) --]
</pre></div><div class="sect2" lang="en" xml:lang="en"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title"><a id="attach-menu"></a>1.2. The Attachment Menu</h3></div></div></div><p>
The default binding for <code class="literal"><view-attachments></code> is “<span class="quote">v</span>”, which displays the
attachment menu for a message. The attachment menu displays a list of
the attachments in a message. From the attachment menu, you can save,
print, pipe, delete, and view attachments. You can apply these
operations to a group of attachments at once, by tagging the attachments
and by using the <code class="literal"><tag-prefix></code> operator. You can also reply to the
current message from this menu, and only the current attachment (or the
attachments tagged) will be quoted in your reply. You can view
attachments as text, or view them using the mailcap viewer definition.
</p><p>
Finally, you can apply the usual message-related functions (like
<a class="link" href="gettingstarted.html#resend-message"><code class="literal"><resend-message></code></a>, and the
<code class="literal"><reply></code> and <code class="literal"><forward></code>
functions) to attachments of type <code class="literal">message/rfc822</code>.
</p><p>
See the help on the attachment menu for more information.
</p></div><div class="sect2" lang="en" xml:lang="en"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title"><a id="compose-menu"></a>1.3. The Compose Menu</h3></div></div></div><p>
The compose menu is the menu you see before you send a message. It
allows you to edit the recipient list, the subject, and other aspects
of your message. It also contains a list of the attachments of your
message, including the main body. From this menu, you can print, copy,
filter, pipe, edit, compose, review, and rename an attachment or a
list of tagged attachments. You can also modifying the attachment
information, notably the type, encoding and description.
</p><p>
Attachments appear as follows:
</p><pre class="screen">
- 1 [text/plain, 7bit, 1K] /tmp/mutt-euler-8082-0 <no description>
2 [applica/x-gunzip, base64, 422K] ~/src/mutt-0.85.tar.gz <no description>
</pre><p>
The '-' denotes that Mutt will delete the file after sending (or
postponing, or canceling) the message. It can be toggled with the
<code class="literal"><toggle-unlink></code> command (default: u). The next field is the MIME
content-type, and can be changed with the <code class="literal"><edit-type></code> command
(default: ^T). The next field is the encoding for the attachment,
which allows a binary message to be encoded for transmission on 7bit
links. It can be changed with the <code class="literal"><edit-encoding></code> command
(default: ^E). The next field is the size of the attachment,
rounded to kilobytes or megabytes. The next field is the filename,
which can be changed with the <code class="literal"><rename-file></code> command (default: R).
The final field is the description of the attachment, and can be
changed with the <code class="literal"><edit-description></code> command (default: d).
</p></div></div><div class="sect1" lang="en" xml:lang="en"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h2 class="title" style="clear: both"><a id="mime-types"></a>2. MIME Type Configuration with <code class="literal">mime.types</code></h2></div></div></div><p>
When you add an attachment to your mail message, Mutt searches your
personal <code class="literal">mime.types</code> file at <code class="literal">${HOME}/.mime.types</code>, and then
the system <code class="literal">mime.types</code> file at <code class="literal">/usr/local/share/mutt/mime.types</code> or
<code class="literal">/etc/mime.types</code>
</p><p>
The <code class="literal">mime.types</code> file consist of lines containing a MIME type and a space
separated list of extensions. For example:
</p><pre class="screen">
application/postscript ps eps
application/pgp pgp
audio/x-aiff aif aifc aiff
</pre><p>
A sample <code class="literal">mime.types</code> file comes with the Mutt distribution, and
should contain most of the MIME types you are likely to use.
</p><p>
If Mutt can not determine the mime type by the extension of the file you
attach, it will look at the file. If the file is free of binary
information, Mutt will assume that the file is plain text, and mark it
as <code class="literal">text/plain</code>. If the file contains binary information, then Mutt will
mark it as <code class="literal">application/octet-stream</code>. You can change the MIME
type that Mutt assigns to an attachment by using the <code class="literal"><edit-type></code>
command from the compose menu (default: ^T). The MIME type is actually a
major mime type followed by the sub-type, separated by a '/'. 6 major
types: application, text, image, video, audio, and model have been approved
after various internet discussions. Mutt recognizes all of these if the
appropriate entry is found in the <code class="literal">mime.types</code> file. It also recognizes other
major mime types, such as the chemical type that is widely used in the
molecular modeling community to pass molecular data in various forms to
various molecular viewers. Non-recognized mime types should only be used
if the recipient of the message is likely to be expecting such attachments.
</p></div><div class="sect1" lang="en" xml:lang="en"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h2 class="title" style="clear: both"><a id="mailcap"></a>3. MIME Viewer Configuration with Mailcap</h2></div></div></div><p>
Mutt supports RFC 1524 MIME Configuration, in particular the Unix
specific format specified in Appendix A of RFC 1524. This file format
is commonly referred to as the mailcap format. Many MIME compliant
programs utilize the mailcap format, allowing you to specify handling
for all MIME types in one place for all programs. Programs known to
use this format include Firefox, lynx and metamail.
</p><p>
In order to handle various MIME types that Mutt can not handle
internally, Mutt parses a series of external configuration files to
find an external handler. The default search string for these files
is a colon delimited list containing the following files:
</p><div class="orderedlist"><ol type="1"><li><p><code class="literal">$HOME/.mailcap</code></p></li><li><p><code class="literal">$PKGDATADIR/mailcap</code></p></li><li><p><code class="literal">$SYSCONFDIR/mailcap</code></p></li><li><p><code class="literal">/etc/mailcap</code></p></li><li><p><code class="literal">/usr/etc/mailcap</code></p></li><li><p><code class="literal">/usr/local/etc/mailcap</code></p></li></ol></div><p>
where <code class="literal">$HOME</code> is your home directory. The
<code class="literal">$PKGDATADIR</code> and the
<code class="literal">$SYSCONFDIR</code> directories depend on where Mutt
is installed: the former is the default for shared data, the
latter for system configuration files.
</p><p>
The default search path can be obtained by running the following
command:
</p><pre class="screen">
mutt -nF /dev/null -Q mailcap_path
</pre><p>
In particular, the metamail distribution will install a mailcap file,
usually as <code class="literal">/usr/local/etc/mailcap</code>, which contains some baseline
entries.
</p><div class="sect2" lang="en" xml:lang="en"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title"><a id="mailcap-basics"></a>3.1. The Basics of the Mailcap File</h3></div></div></div><p>
A mailcap file consists of a series of lines which are comments, blank,
or definitions.
</p><p>
A comment line consists of a # character followed by anything you want.
</p><p>
A blank line is blank.
</p><p>
A definition line consists of a content type, a view command, and any
number of optional fields. Each field of a definition line is divided
by a semicolon ';' character.
</p><p>
The content type is specified in the MIME standard type/subtype method.
For example,
<code class="literal">text/plain, text/html, image/gif, </code>
etc. In addition, the mailcap format includes two formats for
wildcards, one using the special '*' subtype, the other is the implicit
wild, where you only include the major type. For example, <code class="literal">image/*</code>, or
<code class="literal">video,</code> will match all image types and video types,
respectively.
</p><p>
The view command is a Unix command for viewing the type specified. There
are two different types of commands supported. The default is to send
the body of the MIME message to the command on stdin. You can change
this behavior by using %s as a parameter to your view command.
This will cause Mutt to save the body of the MIME message to a temporary
file, and then call the view command with the %s replaced by
the name of the temporary file. In both cases, Mutt will turn over the
terminal to the view program until the program quits, at which time Mutt
will remove the temporary file if it exists.
</p><p>
So, in the simplest form, you can send a text/plain message to the
external pager more on stdin:
</p><pre class="screen">
text/plain; more
</pre><p>
Or, you could send the message as a file:
</p><pre class="screen">
text/plain; more %s
</pre><p>
Perhaps you would like to use lynx to interactively view a text/html
message:
</p><pre class="screen">
text/html; lynx %s
</pre><p>
In this case, lynx does not support viewing a file from stdin, so you
must use the %s syntax.
</p><div class="note"><h3 class="title">Note</h3><p>
<span class="emphasis"><em>Some older versions of lynx contain a bug where they
will check the mailcap file for a viewer for text/html. They will find
the line which calls lynx, and run it. This causes lynx to continuously
spawn itself to view the object.</em></span>
</p></div><p>
On the other hand, maybe you don't want to use lynx interactively, you
just want to have it convert the text/html to text/plain, then you can
use:
</p><pre class="screen">
text/html; lynx -dump %s | more
</pre><p>
Perhaps you wish to use lynx to view text/html files, and a pager on
all other text formats, then you would use the following:
</p><pre class="screen">
text/html; lynx %s
text/*; more
</pre><p>
This is the simplest form of a mailcap file.
</p></div><div class="sect2" lang="en" xml:lang="en"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title"><a id="secure-mailcap"></a>3.2. Secure Use of Mailcap</h3></div></div></div><p>
The interpretation of shell meta-characters embedded in MIME parameters
can lead to security problems in general. Mutt tries to quote parameters
in expansion of %s syntaxes properly, and avoids risky characters by
substituting them, see the <a class="link" href="reference.html#mailcap-sanitize" title="3.120. mailcap_sanitize">$mailcap_sanitize</a> variable.
</p><p>
Although Mutt's procedures to invoke programs with mailcap seem to be
safe, there are other applications parsing mailcap, maybe taking less care
of it. Therefore you should pay attention to the following rules:
</p><p>
<span class="emphasis"><em>Keep the %-expandos away from shell quoting.</em></span>
Don't quote them with single or double quotes. Mutt does this for
you, the right way, as should any other program which interprets
mailcap. Don't put them into backtick expansions. Be highly careful
with eval statements, and avoid them if possible at all. Trying to fix
broken behavior with quotes introduces new leaks - there is no
alternative to correct quoting in the first place.
</p><p>
If you have to use the %-expandos' values in context where you need
quoting or backtick expansions, put that value into a shell variable
and reference the shell variable where necessary, as in the following
example (using <code class="literal">$charset</code> inside the backtick expansion is safe,
since it is not itself subject to any further expansion):
</p><pre class="screen">
text/test-mailcap-bug; cat %s; copiousoutput; test=charset=%{charset} \
&& test "`echo $charset | tr '[A-Z]' '[a-z]'`" != iso-8859-1
</pre></div><div class="sect2" lang="en" xml:lang="en"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title"><a id="advanced-mailcap"></a>3.3. Advanced Mailcap Usage</h3></div></div></div><div class="sect3" lang="en" xml:lang="en"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h4 class="title"><a id="optional-mailcap-fields"></a>3.3.1. Optional Fields</h4></div></div></div><p>
In addition to the required content-type and view command fields, you
can add semi-colon ';' separated fields to set flags and other options.
Mutt recognizes the following optional fields:
</p><div class="variablelist"><dl><dt><span class="term">copiousoutput</span></dt><dd><p>
This flag tells Mutt that the command passes possibly large amounts of
text on stdout. This causes Mutt to invoke a pager (either the internal
pager or the external pager defined by the pager variable) on the output
of the view command. Without this flag, Mutt assumes that the command
is interactive. One could use this to replace the pipe to <code class="literal">more</code>
in the <code class="literal">lynx -dump</code> example in the Basic section:
</p><pre class="screen">
text/html; lynx -dump %s ; copiousoutput
</pre><p>
This will cause lynx to format the text/html output as text/plain
and Mutt will use your standard pager to display the results.
</p></dd><dt><span class="term">needsterminal</span></dt><dd><p>
Mutt uses this flag when viewing attachments with <a class="link" href="mimesupport.html#auto-view" title="4. MIME Autoview"><span class="command"><strong>auto_view</strong></span></a>, in order to decide whether it should honor the setting
of the <a class="link" href="reference.html#wait-key" title="3.304. wait_key">$wait_key</a> variable or
not. When an attachment is viewed using an interactive program, and the
corresponding mailcap entry has a <span class="emphasis"><em>needsterminal</em></span> flag, Mutt will use
<a class="link" href="reference.html#wait-key" title="3.304. wait_key">$wait_key</a> and the exit status
of the program to decide if it will ask you to press a key after the
external program has exited. In all other situations it will not prompt
you for a key.
</p></dd><dt><span class="term">compose=<command></span></dt><dd><p>
This flag specifies the command to use to create a new attachment of a
specific MIME type. Mutt supports this from the compose menu.
</p></dd><dt><span class="term">composetyped=<command></span></dt><dd><p>
This flag specifies the command to use to create a new attachment of a
specific MIME type. This command differs from the compose command in
that Mutt will expect standard MIME headers on the data. This can be
used to specify parameters, filename, description, etc. for a new
attachment. Mutt supports this from the compose menu.
</p></dd><dt><span class="term">print=<command></span></dt><dd><p>
This flag specifies the command to use to print a specific MIME type.
Mutt supports this from the attachment and compose menus.
</p></dd><dt><span class="term">edit=<command></span></dt><dd><p>
This flag specifies the command to use to edit a specific MIME type.
Mutt supports this from the compose menu, and also uses it to compose
new attachments. Mutt will default to the defined editor for text
attachments.
</p></dd><dt><span class="term">nametemplate=<template></span></dt><dd><p>
This field specifies the format for the file denoted by %s in the
command fields. Certain programs will require a certain file extension,
for instance, to correctly view a file. For instance, lynx will only
interpret a file as <code class="literal">text/html</code> if the file ends in <code class="literal">.html</code>.
So, you would specify lynx as a <code class="literal">text/html</code> viewer with a line in
the mailcap file like:
</p><pre class="screen">
text/html; lynx %s; nametemplate=%s.html
</pre></dd><dt><span class="term">test=<command></span></dt><dd><p>
This field specifies a command to run to test whether this mailcap
entry should be used. The command is defined with the command expansion
rules defined in the next section. If the command returns 0, then the
test passed, and Mutt uses this entry. If the command returns non-zero,
then the test failed, and Mutt continues searching for the right entry.
Note that the content-type must match before Mutt performs the test.
For example:
</p><pre class="screen">
text/html; firefox -remote 'openURL(%s)' ; test=RunningX
text/html; lynx %s
</pre><p>
In this example, Mutt will run the program RunningX which will return 0
if the X Window manager is running, and non-zero if it isn't. If
RunningX returns 0, then Mutt will call firefox to display the
<code class="literal">text/html</code> object. If RunningX doesn't return 0, then Mutt will go on
to the next entry and use lynx to display the <code class="literal">text/html</code> object.
</p></dd></dl></div></div><div class="sect3" lang="en" xml:lang="en"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h4 class="title"><a id="mailcap-search-order"></a>3.3.2. Search Order</h4></div></div></div><p>
When searching for an entry in the mailcap file, Mutt will search for
the most useful entry for its purpose. For instance, if you are
attempting to print an <code class="literal">image/gif</code>, and you have the following
entries in your mailcap file, Mutt will search for an entry with the
print command:
</p><pre class="screen">
image/*; xv %s
image/gif; ; print= anytopnm %s | pnmtops | lpr; \
nametemplate=%s.gif
</pre><p>
Mutt will skip the <code class="literal">image/*</code> entry and use the <code class="literal">image/gif</code>
entry with the print command.
</p><p>
In addition, you can use this with <a class="link" href="mimesupport.html#auto-view" title="4. MIME Autoview"><span class="command"><strong>auto_view</strong></span></a>
to denote two commands for viewing an attachment, one to be viewed
automatically, the other to be viewed interactively from the attachment
menu. In addition, you can then use the test feature to determine which
viewer to use interactively depending on your environment.
</p><pre class="screen">
text/html; firefox -remote 'openURL(%s)' ; test=RunningX
text/html; lynx %s; nametemplate=%s.html
text/html; lynx -dump %s; nametemplate=%s.html; copiousoutput
</pre><p>
For <a class="link" href="mimesupport.html#auto-view" title="4. MIME Autoview"><span class="command"><strong>auto_view</strong></span></a>, Mutt will choose the third
entry because of the copiousoutput tag. For interactive viewing, Mutt
will run the program RunningX to determine if it should use the first
entry. If the program returns non-zero, Mutt will use the second entry
for interactive viewing.
</p></div><div class="sect3" lang="en" xml:lang="en"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h4 class="title"><a id="mailcap-command-expansion"></a>3.3.3. Command Expansion</h4></div></div></div><p>
The various commands defined in the mailcap files are passed to the
<code class="literal">/bin/sh</code> shell using the <code class="literal">system(3)</code> function. Before the
command is passed to <code class="literal">/bin/sh -c</code>, it is parsed to expand
various special parameters with information from Mutt. The keywords
Mutt expands are:
</p><div class="variablelist"><dl><dt><span class="term">%s</span></dt><dd><p>
As seen in the basic mailcap section, this variable is expanded
to a filename specified by the calling program. This file contains
the body of the message to view/print/edit or where the composing
program should place the results of composition. In addition, the
use of this keyword causes Mutt to not pass the body of the message
to the view/print/edit program on stdin.
</p></dd><dt><span class="term">%t</span></dt><dd><p>
Mutt will expand %t to the text representation of the content
type of the message in the same form as the first parameter of the
mailcap definition line, ie <code class="literal">text/html</code> or
<code class="literal">image/gif</code>.
</p></dd><dt><span class="term">%{<parameter>}</span></dt><dd><p>
Mutt will expand this to the value of the specified parameter
from the Content-Type: line of the mail message. For instance, if
Your mail message contains:
</p><pre class="screen">
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1
</pre><p>
then Mutt will expand %{charset} to iso-8859-1. The default metamail
mailcap file uses this feature to test the charset to spawn an xterm
using the right charset to view the message.
</p></dd><dt><span class="term">\%</span></dt><dd><p>
This will be replaced by a %
</p></dd></dl></div><p>
Mutt does not currently support the %F and %n keywords
specified in RFC 1524. The main purpose of these parameters is for
multipart messages, which is handled internally by Mutt.
</p></div></div><div class="sect2" lang="en" xml:lang="en"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title"><a id="mailcap-example"></a>3.4. Example Mailcap Files</h3></div></div></div><p>
This mailcap file is fairly simple and standard:
</p><pre class="screen">
# I'm always running X :)
video/*; xanim %s > /dev/null
image/*; xv %s > /dev/null
# I'm always running firefox (if my computer had more memory, maybe)
text/html; firefox -remote 'openURL(%s)'
</pre><p>
This mailcap file shows quite a number of examples:
</p><pre class="screen">
# Use xanim to view all videos Xanim produces a header on startup,
# send that to /dev/null so I don't see it
video/*; xanim %s > /dev/null
# Send html to a running firefox by remote
text/html; firefox -remote 'openURL(%s)'; test=RunningFirefox
# If I'm not running firefox but I am running X, start firefox on the
# object
text/html; firefox %s; test=RunningX
# Else use lynx to view it as text
text/html; lynx %s
# This version would convert the text/html to text/plain
text/html; lynx -dump %s; copiousoutput
# I use enscript to print text in two columns to a page
text/*; more %s; print=enscript -2Gr %s
# Firefox adds a flag to tell itself to view jpegs internally
image/jpeg;xv %s; x-mozilla-flags=internal
# Use xv to view images if I'm running X
# In addition, this uses the \ to extend the line and set my editor
# for images
image/*;xv %s; test=RunningX; \
edit=xpaint %s
# Convert images to text using the netpbm tools
image/*; (anytopnm %s | pnmscale -xysize 80 46 | ppmtopgm | pgmtopbm |
pbmtoascii -1x2 ) 2>&1 ; copiousoutput
# Send excel spreadsheets to my NT box
application/ms-excel; open.pl %s
</pre></div></div><div class="sect1" lang="en" xml:lang="en"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h2 class="title" style="clear: both"><a id="auto-view"></a>4. MIME Autoview</h2></div></div></div><p>
Usage:
</p><div class="cmdsynopsis"><p><code class="command">auto-view</code>
<em class="replaceable"><code>mimetype</code></em>
[
<em class="replaceable"><code>mimetype</code></em>
...]<br /><code class="command">unauto-view</code> {
<em class="replaceable"><code>*</code></em>
|
<em class="replaceable"><code>mimetype</code></em>
... }</p></div><p>
In addition to explicitly telling Mutt to view an attachment with the
MIME viewer defined in the mailcap file, Mutt has support for
automatically viewing MIME attachments while in the pager.
</p><p>
To work, you must define a viewer in the mailcap file which uses the
<code class="literal">copiousoutput</code> option to denote that it is non-interactive.
Usually, you also use the entry to convert the attachment to a text
representation which you can view in the pager.
</p><p>
You then use the <span class="command"><strong>auto_view</strong></span> <code class="literal">.muttrc</code> command to list the
content-types that you wish to view automatically. For instance, if you
set it to:
</p><pre class="screen">
auto_view text/html application/x-gunzip \
application/postscript image/gif application/x-tar-gz
</pre><p>
Mutt could use the following mailcap entries to automatically view
attachments of these types.
</p><pre class="screen">
text/html; lynx -dump %s; copiousoutput; nametemplate=%s.html
image/*; anytopnm %s | pnmscale -xsize 80 -ysize 50 | ppmtopgm | \
pgmtopbm | pbmtoascii ; copiousoutput
application/x-gunzip; gzcat; copiousoutput
application/x-tar-gz; gunzip -c %s | tar -tf - ; copiousoutput
application/postscript; ps2ascii %s; copiousoutput
</pre><p>
<span class="command"><strong>unauto_view</strong></span> can be used to remove previous entries from the autoview list.
This can be used with <a class="link" href="configuration.html#message-hook" title="20. Change Settings Before Formatting a Message"><span class="command"><strong>message-hook</strong></span></a> to autoview messages based on size, etc.
“<span class="quote"><span class="command"><strong>unauto_view</strong></span> *</span>” will remove all previous entries.
</p></div><div class="sect1" lang="en" xml:lang="en"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h2 class="title" style="clear: both"><a id="alternative-order"></a>5. MIME Multipart/Alternative</h2></div></div></div><p>
Mutt has some heuristics for determining which attachment of a
<code class="literal">multipart/alternative</code> type to display. First, Mutt will check the
<span class="command"><strong>alternative_order</strong></span> list
to determine if one of the available types is preferred. It consists of
a number of mimetypes in order, including support for implicit and
explicit wildcards, for example:
</p><pre class="screen">
alternative_order text/enriched text/plain text application/postscript image/*
</pre><p>
Next, Mutt will check if any of the types have a defined
<a class="link" href="mimesupport.html#auto-view" title="4. MIME Autoview"><span class="command"><strong>auto_view</strong></span></a>, and use that. Failing
that, Mutt will look for any text type. As a last attempt, Mutt will
look for any type it knows how to handle.
</p><p>
To remove a MIME type from the <span class="command"><strong>alternative_order</strong></span> list, use the
<span class="command"><strong>unalternative_order</strong></span> command.
</p></div><div class="sect1" lang="en" xml:lang="en"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h2 class="title" style="clear: both"><a id="attachments"></a>6. Attachment Searching and Counting</h2></div></div></div><p>
If you ever lose track of attachments in your mailboxes, Mutt's
attachment-counting and -searching support might be for you. You can
make your message index display the number of qualifying attachments in
each message, or search for messages by attachment count. You also can
configure what kinds of attachments qualify for this feature with the
<span class="command"><strong>attachments</strong></span> and <span class="command"><strong>unattachments</strong></span> commands.
</p><p>
In order to provide this information, Mutt needs to fully MIME-parse
all messages affected first. This can slow down operation especially for
remote mail folders such as IMAP because all messages have to be
downloaded first regardless whether the user really wants to view them
or not.
</p><p>
The syntax is:
</p><div class="cmdsynopsis"><p><code class="command">attachments</code>
<em class="replaceable"><code>{ + | - }disposition</code></em>
<em class="replaceable"><code>mime-type</code></em>
<br /><code class="command">unattachments</code>
<em class="replaceable"><code>{ + | - }disposition</code></em>
<em class="replaceable"><code>mime-type</code></em>
<br /><code class="command">attachments</code>
<em class="replaceable"><code>?</code></em>
</p></div><p>
<span class="emphasis"><em>disposition</em></span> is the attachment's Content-Disposition type — either
<code class="literal">inline</code> or <code class="literal">attachment</code>.
You can abbreviate this to <code class="literal">I</code> or <code class="literal">A</code>.
</p><p>
Disposition is prefixed by either a + symbol or a - symbol. If it's
a +, you're saying that you want to allow this disposition and MIME
type to qualify. If it's a -, you're saying that this disposition
and MIME type is an exception to previous + rules. There are examples
below of how this is useful.
</p><p>
<span class="emphasis"><em>mime-type</em></span> is, unsurprisingly, the MIME type of the attachment you want
to affect. A MIME type is always of the format <code class="literal">major/minor</code>, where
<code class="literal">major</code> describes the broad category of document you're looking at, and
<code class="literal">minor</code> describes the specific type within that category. The major
part of mime-type must be literal text (or the special token “<span class="quote"><code class="literal">*</code></span>”), but
the minor part may be a regular expression. (Therefore, “<span class="quote"><code class="literal">*/.*</code></span>” matches
any MIME type.)
</p><p>
The MIME types you give to the <span class="command"><strong>attachments</strong></span> directive are a kind of
pattern. When you use the <span class="command"><strong>attachments</strong></span> directive, the patterns you
specify are added to a list. When you use <span class="command"><strong>unattachments</strong></span>, the pattern
is removed from the list. The patterns are not expanded and matched
to specific MIME types at this time — they're just text in a list.
They're only matched when actually evaluating a message.
</p><p>
Some examples might help to illustrate. The examples that are not
commented out define the default configuration of the lists.
</p><div class="example"><a id="ex-attach-count"></a><p class="title"><b>Example 5.1. Attachment counting</b></p><div class="example-contents"><pre class="screen">
## Removing a pattern from a list removes that pattern literally. It
## does not remove any type matching the pattern.
##
## attachments +A */.*
## attachments +A image/jpeg
## unattachments +A */.*
##
## This leaves "attached" image/jpeg files on the allowed attachments
## list. It does not remove all items, as you might expect, because the
## second */.* is not a matching expression at this time.
##
## Remember: "unattachments" only undoes what "attachments" has done!
## It does not trigger any matching on actual messages.
## Qualify any MIME part with an "attachment" disposition, EXCEPT for
## text/x-vcard and application/pgp parts. (PGP parts are already known
## to mutt, and can be searched for with ~g, ~G, and ~k.)
##
## I've added x-pkcs7 to this, since it functions (for S/MIME)
## analogously to PGP signature attachments. S/MIME isn't supported
## in a stock mutt build, but we can still treat it specially here.
##
attachments +A */.*
attachments -A text/x-vcard application/pgp.*
attachments -A application/x-pkcs7-.*
## Discount all MIME parts with an "inline" disposition, unless they're
## text/plain. (Why inline a text/plain part unless it's external to the
## message flow?)
##
attachments +I text/plain
## These two lines make Mutt qualify MIME containers. (So, for example,
## a message/rfc822 forward will count as an attachment.) The first
## line is unnecessary if you already have "attach-allow */.*", of
## course. These are off by default! The MIME elements contained
## within a message/* or multipart/* are still examined, even if the
## containers themseves don't qualify.
##
#attachments +A message/.* multipart/.*
#attachments +I message/.* multipart/.*
## You probably don't really care to know about deleted attachments.
attachments -A message/external-body
attachments -I message/external-body
</pre></div></div><br class="example-break" /><p>
Entering the command “<span class="quote"><span class="command"><strong>attachments</strong></span> ?</span>”
as a command will list your current settings in Muttrc format, so that
it can be pasted elsewhere.
</p></div><div class="sect1" lang="en" xml:lang="en"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h2 class="title" style="clear: both"><a id="mime-lookup"></a>7. MIME Lookup</h2></div></div></div><p>
Usage:
</p><div class="cmdsynopsis"><p><code class="command">mime-lookup</code>
<em class="replaceable"><code>mimetype</code></em>
[
<em class="replaceable"><code>mimetype</code></em>
...]<br /><code class="command">unmime-lookup</code> {
<em class="replaceable"><code>*</code></em>
|
<em class="replaceable"><code>mimetype</code></em>
... }</p></div><p>
Mutt's mime_lookup list specifies a list of mime-types that should not
be treated according to their mailcap entry. This option is designed to
deal with binary types such as <code class="literal">application/octet-stream</code>. When an attachment's
mime-type is listed in mime_lookup, then the extension of the filename will
be compared to the list of extensions in the <code class="literal">mime.types</code> file. The mime-type
associated with this extension will then be used to process the attachment
according to the rules in the mailcap file and according to any other configuration
options (such as <span class="command"><strong>auto_view</strong></span>) specified. Common usage would be:
</p><pre class="screen">
mime_lookup application/octet-stream application/X-Lotus-Manuscript
</pre><p>
In addition, the <code class="literal">unmime_lookup</code> command may be
used to disable this feature for any particular mime-type if it had been
set, for example, in a global <code class="literal">.muttrc</code>.
</p></div></div><div class="navfooter"><hr /><table width="100%" summary="Navigation footer"><tr><td width="40%" align="left"><a accesskey="p" href="advancedusage.html">Prev</a> </td><td width="20%" align="center"> </td><td width="40%" align="right"> <a accesskey="n" href="optionalfeatures.html">Next</a></td></tr><tr><td width="40%" align="left" valign="top">Chapter 4. Advanced Usage </td><td width="20%" align="center"><a accesskey="h" href="index.html">Home</a></td><td width="40%" align="right" valign="top"> Chapter 6. Optional Features</td></tr></table></div></body></html>
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