Address book weirdness

[Ira]

Hello The,

I'm trying to get my wife set up on the bat, but I can't get the
address book to populate. Right click=>Specials=>add sender to address
book does nothing and scanning the inbox and telling it to add
all senders for the last 6 months also does noting, claims there
are no addresses to add. Also, I've told the bat to scan email
address in the inbox to populate the recipient on a new mail
and it fails most of the time.

What to do? If I can't get that to work, she won't let me buy
her a license.

Also, sometimes or maybe always when sending a message new or
resend, the bat automatically creates an attachment, called
message.ht or something like that. How do I make it stop?

Thanks, Ira


________________________________________________________
Current beta is 8.5.8.2 | 'Using TBBETA' information:
http://www.silverstones.com/thebat/TBUDLInfo.html

[Gwen]

Hello Ira,
On Thu, 2 Aug 2018, at 13:24:53 [GMT -0700] (which was 22:24 where I

Post by Ira
I'm trying to get my wife set up on the bat, but I can't get the
address book to populate. Right click=>Specials=>add sender to address
book does nothing and scanning the inbox and telling it to add
all senders for the last 6 months also does noting, claims there
are no addresses to add. Also, I've told the bat to scan email
address in the inbox to populate the recipient on a new mail
and it fails most of the time.

Which The Bat! version do you have?

How did you scan the mail addresses in Inbox and Sent mails?
Have you created a address book for the account in Address Book
manager with File → New → Address Book?
Have you selected for account settings a address book?
Properties → General at section "Default Address Book" select one?
Using '<Default>' is not really the correct way.

Post by Ira
Also, sometimes or maybe always when sending a message new or
resend, the bat automatically creates an attachment, called
message.ht or something like that. How do I make it stop?

That happens if HTML mails are created. The attachment Message.html is
the HTML part of the mail and can not be removed.
If you do not want this attachment then you have to use plain text
mails which have no formatting.

[Ira]

________________________________________________________
Current beta is 8.5.8.2 | 'Using TBBETA' information:
http://www.silverstones.com/thebat/TBUDLInfo.html

[Gwen]

Hello tbbeta,
On Fri, 3 Aug 2018, at 00:08:25 [GMT -0700] (which was 09:08 where I

But besides that, why does add sender to address book do nothing.
Does it not work on imap accounts?

Let me try it. I will check.

Why can't I
hide if for simple users? Heck I'd hide it for me if I could as it
just seems to be noise, same as separating the html and text
portions of a message onto different pages. Why can I just have a
message tab as that's whats important. Having to remember to check
other tabs is onerous as is at some level showing all the embedded
images as attachments. I'd be happy if I could see them if needed
but all the time I spend seeing what they are is a waste.

Then disable the display of the attachments pane.
Workplace → Attached Files → Hide
Workplace → Attached Files → Show as button
Select what you and you wife like.

[Ira]

Hello Gwen,

Post by Gwen
Then disable the display of the attachments pane.
Workplace → Attached Files → Hide
Workplace → Attached Files → Show as button
Select what you and you wife like.

Did finally find that and enable paperclip, but for her, every message has a paperclip and most have no actual attachments.

Again as I said in the reply to Marck, the world has moved past text email and not seeing that makes it a difficult program to move simple users to.

-- Ira


________________________________________________________
Current beta is 8.5.8.2 | 'Using TBBETA' information:
http://www.silverstones.com/thebat/TBUDLInfo.h

[Paul Van Noord]

8/3/2018 1:18 PM

Hi The,

On 8/3/2018 The Bat Beta wrote:

I> Did finally find that and enable paperclip, but for her, every
I> message has a paperclip and most have no actual attachments.

I> Again as I said in the reply to Marck, the world has moved past text
I> email and not seeing that makes it a difficult program to move simple users to.

Perhaps choosing an email client that best approximates your wife's
style would be a better choice than beating up a very successful client
in a futile attempt to make it suit the whims of a single
user. OperaMail and Thunderbird come to mind....

- --
Paul

32bit TB 8.5 Windows 7 Pro 7600
No IMAP No OTFE


________________________________________________________
Current beta is 8.5.8.2 | 'Using TBBETA' information:
http://www.silverstones.com/thebat/TBUDLInfo.html

[Ira]

Hello Paul,

Post by Paul Van Noord
Perhaps choosing an email client that best approximates your wife's
style would be a better choice than beating up a very successful client
in a futile attempt to make it suit the whims of a single
user. OperaMail and Thunderbird come to mind....

I tried those before choosing The Bat, they both suck!

-- Ira


________________________________________________________
Current beta is 8.5.8.2 | 'Using TBBETA' information:
http://www.silverstones.com/thebat/TBUDLInfo.html

[Marck Pearlstone]

On 03 August 2018 at 08:08 Ira wrote and made these points

(apologies for the tone in this message - it's not particularly
helpful, but I feel a need to explain, in detail, why using HTML mail
should not be considered "how to do email").

I> But besides that, why does add sender to address book do nothing.
I> Does it not work on imap accounts?

It works well on IMAP.

... <snip>

Post by Gwen
That happens if HTML mails are created. The attachment Message.html is
the HTML part of the mail and can not be removed.
If you do not want this attachment then you have to use plain text
mails which have no formatting.

I> But she's use to windows mail and it doesn't have that weirdness.

What you meant to say was "She's used to Windows Mail, which lies
about the content and hides the extra attachments created by using
HTML mail".

This is why it's against the rules to use HTML mail on this mailing
list except for testing. Which reminds me - please stop doing that!

I> If it's just the message, why show it as an attachment?

Because it's not the message. The only way of using HTML for email is
to make it an attachment. It's how email works. The Bat is all about
doing it properly, which includes telling you how your email is
constructed and what attachments you have.

I> Why can't I hide if for simple users? Heck I'd hide it for me if I
I> could as it just seems to be noise, same as separating the html and
I> text portions of a message onto different pages. Why can I just
I> have a message tab as that's whats important.

Of course you can. Just stop polluting your system and other people's
Inboxes with useless HTML attachments just to force them to read a
message in your chosen style instead of their preferred style (the
only purpose of HTML mail beyond embedding images).

I> Having to remember to check other tabs is onerous as is at some
I> level showing all the embedded images as attachments. I'd be happy
I> if I could see them if needed but all the time I spend seeing what
I> they are is a waste.

I'd have a re-read of what you've written with the added insight that
HTML mail should NOT be the default and IS NOT the standard, but a
special case for when you have to enforce a specific presentation.

[Ira]

Hello Marck,

Post by Marck Pearlstone
I'd have a re-read of what you've written with the added insight that
HTML mail should NOT be the default and IS NOT the standard, but a
special case for when you have to enforce a specific presentation.

While I agree with you mostly, and I appreciate the Bat for what
it is, it's difficult to hand to a person who's use to a
"normal" email program. The world uses HTML email and like
sticking with DOS after Windows had won, trying to pretend HTML
is not here to stay and has won is a recipe for a dying product.

The Bat is an astonishingly complete product and it does a lot
of things really well, but believing that email should be text
based, while noble, likely insures long term business failure.

Sadly the world has moved on, most of the mail lists I belonged
to have been replaced by forums, many destined to fail because
the membership is to small, a problem lists don't have.

FWIW, the issue with hiding the embedded attachments for my wife
is when she clicks the paperclip to download the promised
attachment, either there was no attachment, just embedded images
or there is an attachment but she has to find it among the 10
items, most of which aren't interesting to her.

Look, I know I'm in a situation that's somewhat akin to trying to
convince a Mac person to switch to Windows, but the point I make
is valid and implementing a "Mail or Gmail or Outlook" style
display choice would make this program much more approachable
to the average person. It would make it much easier for me to
introduce it to my clients, most of them like my wife. For them,
they have no idea there is anything other than HTML mail.

-- Ira


________________________________________________________
Current beta is 8.5.8.2 | 'Using TBBETA' information:
http://www.silverstones.com/thebat/TBUDLInfo.html

[Lüko Willms]

please excuse me to break in again, but here a correction is called for:

Hello Marck Pearlstone,
and all the others

Post by Marck Pearlstone

Post by Gwen
That happens if HTML mails are created. The attachment Message.html is
the HTML part of the mail and can not be removed.

I>> If it's just the message, why show it as an attachment?

Post by Marck Pearlstone
Because it's not the message. The only way of using HTML for email is
to make it an attachment. It's how email works.

This is wrong. This is not how Internet email works today.

Today's Internet mail is MIME encoded: Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions (MIME). As in the past, each message consists of two parts, the header, and the body, with the header being for the MTAs and email client programs to deal with , while the body is what the human reader actually sees, or should see as the content.

According to MIME, each message has at least a header indicating the MIME-Version: (which is 1.0, since no newer version of MIME exists) and a Content-Type: header, which indicates, well, of course how the body part is structured. Since the body can consist of several body parts with each of them their own characteristic. The Content-part header will indicate if it is a single body part, or a multipart message, and of which subtype the body part(s) are. If it is multipart, each body part has its own Content-Type header, and it can be multipart again. The MIME structure is recursive.

A single body part can be text, binary, or application specific, and if it is text, the content-type would be mostly text/html or text/plain.[1]

In TheBat!, one can see the structure by pressing the F9 key.

Marck Pearlstone is wrong writing "The only way of using HTML for email is to make it an attachment."

Post by Marck Pearlstone
Date: Fri, 3 Aug 2018 00:08:25 -0700
Organization: Extrasensory Software

This message was obviously originally, as sent by Ira to the mailing list, a pure HTML message with a single body part of

Post by Marck Pearlstone
Content-Type: text/html; charset=utf-8
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable

and this single body part was certainly not an "attachment". There was no other body part in it.

But the mailing list processor Mailman added another body part with the headers

Post by Marck Pearlstone
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
Content-Disposition: inline

and only content being the footer for this mailing list

Post by Marck Pearlstone
________________________________________________________
http://www.silverstones.com/thebat/TBUDLInfo.html

which is again not an attachment, as the "Content-Disposition: Inline" indicates. Otherwise it would have been of "Content-Disposition: Attachment".

Read more about MIME in the en.Wikipedia-article https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MIME with links to the relevant RFCs and other documents.

--------------
[1]This occasioned the phrase "In the beginning was text, and it was text/plain"


Cheers,
Lüko Willms
Frankfurt am Main
Germany

--
Mit freundlichen Grüßen
Lüko Willms
mailto:***@luekowillms.de

[Marck Pearlstone]

On 04 August 2018 at 10:25 Lüko Willms wrote and made these points

LW> please excuse me to break in again, but here a correction is called for:

... <snip>

Post by Marck Pearlstone
Because it's not the message. The only way of using HTML for email is
to make it an attachment. It's how email works.

LW> This is wrong. This is not how Internet email works today.
... <snip>
LW> A single body part can be text, binary, or application
LW> specific, and if it is text, the content-type would be mostly text/html or text/plain.[1]

... <snip>
LW> Marck Pearlstone is wrong writing "The only way of using HTML
LW> for email is to make it an attachment."

Thanks for this correction. You are absolutely right.

LW> Look at Ira's message which Marck Pearlstone is replying to, identified by these headers:
... <snip>

Post by Marck Pearlstone
Content-Type: text/html; charset=utf-8
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable

LW> and this single body part was certainly not an "attachment".
LW> There was no other body part in it.

LW> But the mailing list processor Mailman added another body part with the headers
... <snip>
LW> and only content being the footer for this mailing list

... <snip>

In which case, I can see and sympathise with the point Ira made that
an email consisting only of an HTML part shouldn't be showing as an
attachment.

I wouldn't like to see TB functionality compromised by smoothing out
that interface element at the expense of the ability to save message
parts externally in the correct content-type file type.

Perhaps a switchable option to "Attachments: Show all parts / Show
only real attachments" would provide the flexibility for power and
standard users alike.

[Lüko Willms]

Guten Tag, Marck Pearlstone,

Post by Marck Pearlstone
In which case, I can see and sympathise with the point Ira made that
an email consisting only of an HTML part shouldn't be showing as an
attachment.

First, I had no chance of seeing a message with a single body part of text/html.

Second, TheBat! is wrong by calling the individual body parts "attachments", as in the menu which is called in German "Arbeitsplatz" (and in English probably work space? desk top?) where the fifth menu entry claims to provide configuration for how to show "attachments".

On the other hand, it is nice when I can see all the various body parts, but normally they are accessible also by the tabs at the bottom of the message content (sub-) window.

[Ira]

Hello Marck,

Post by Marck Pearlstone
I wouldn't like to see TB functionality compromised by smoothing out
that interface element at the expense of the ability to save message
parts externally in the correct content-type file type.
Perhaps a switchable option to "Attachments: Show all parts / Show
only real attachments" would provide the flexibility for power and
standard users alike.

Thank you. That's all I'm asking for. I've no desire to make the program less flexible, I just want a "Friendly" button so when I install it at a clients, wife included, they don't say, this is to confusing. Heck, most of the time I wish all that stuff was hidden. It's not often I care about the structure of an email, I just want to read it and open or save the attachments if there are any.

-- Ira


________________________________________________________
Current beta is 8.5.8.2 | 'Using TBBETA' information:
http://www.silverstones.com/thebat/TBUDLInfo.html

[Anton Belenki]

Post by Ira
What to do? If I can't get that to work, she won't let me buy
her a license.

i'm wondering, why people even reply to this jewish manipulation.
someone had to tell them - GTFO.

--
E-mail: ***@lowtrucks.net
Web site: http://lowtrucks.net/


________________________________________________________
Current beta is 8.5.8.2 | 'Using TBBETA' information:
http://www.silverstones.com/thebat/TBUDLInfo.html

[Marck Pearlstone]

On 03 August 2018 at 09:12 Anton Belenki wrote and made these points

Post by Ira
What to do? If I can't get that to work, she won't let me buy
her a license.

AB> i'm wondering, why people even reply to this ****** manipulation.
AB> someone had to tell them - ****.

Hate speech is not welcome. Your membership of this list is revoked.

[Ira]

________________________________________________________
Current beta is 8.5.8.2 | 'Using TBBETA' information:
http://www.silverstones.com/thebat/TBUDLInfo.html

[Lüko Willms]

Guten Tag, Ira,

Post by Ira
I'm trying to get my wife set up on the bat, but I can't get the
address book to populate. Right click=>Specials=>add sender to address
book does nothing and scanning the inbox and telling it to add
all senders for the last 6 months also does noting, claims there
are no addresses to add.

Have you checked which address book is selected?

I see in my case quite often that not my personal addressbook is selected, but some LDAP database.

[Ira]

Hello Lüko,

Post by Lüko Willms
Have you checked which address book is selected?
I see in my case quite often that not my personal
addressbook is selected, but some LDAP database.

But, she has many address books and on my install I get a choice of which address book to add the email to, on hers it's as if I didn't even ask to have it added. Except for one of the folders where it does work. To the best of my knowledge the proper mailbox is chosen.

-- Ira


________________________________________________________
Current beta is 8.5.8.2 | 'Using TBBETA' information:
h