[Ti] Mail attachment problems: a suggestion

[Mark O'Brien]

On Thursday, March 13, 2003, at 04:28  AM, F. Mortes wrote:

> I've had similar problems sending attachments (Word, Excel files) with 
> Mail. I believe this has to do with the way Mail encodes attachments 
> and the fact that Mac files come with a resource fork which Wintel 
> machines don't know what to do with.
>
> GrimRipper (get it from Versiontracker.com) will add a service you can 
> access by holding the Control key and clicking on files you want to 
> attach to a message. This service allows you to delete the resource 
> fork. It's really made a difference for me.
>

It's not only Wintel machines that don't know what to do with Mac 
files. Mac users with AOL have the same problem, at least in OS 9. AOL 
splits Mac files into two separate files (data and resource), and then 
joins them again in some kind of MIME format. I understand they do this 
whenever there are two or more attachments, or if an attachment is 
larger than some predetermined size. I may not have all the 
technicalities right, but bottom line: my Mom gets my photos via AOL in 
OS 9 and can't see them. Oh, she can download the MIME file and drop it 
on Stuffit Expander, and then try to find the JPG file, but that's a 
bit much for this 74 year old newbie.

My solution - I recently switched from Entourage to Mail.app for most 
of my email needs. But in iPhoto's preferences, I still designate 
Entourage as my email client for when I want to email photos. In 
Entourage, I can set my Attachment settings to "Encode for Windows 
(Base 64/MIME); No Compression". This has the effect of only sending 
the data fork.

Grim Ripper would give me a file Mail.app could send to Windows users, 
and I might use it if I were just dragging a JPG off my desktop. But I 
like the convenience and economy of sending from within iPhoto.

The real answer (short of converting everybody else from Wintel and 
AOL) is for Apple to include some kind of preference settings for how 
Mail.app handles outgoing attachments.

Mark