Re: lynx-dev Lynx vs. metamail

[David Woolley]

>  
> could Gil or someone please fill in one of the many gaps in my knowledge?
> i sometimes use my own Lynx to mail documents to people;
> i use the sysadmin's elm to read/send e-mail, incl lynx-dev;
> i never use a viewer.
> 
> what is metamail?  what is the  .mailcap  file, ie what does it do?

metamail is the reference implementation of MIME.  .mailcap is the file
that tells metamail and other MIME aware Unix programs, like Lynx,
how to interpret anything except, essentially, plain ASCII text.

If you are using elm and it keeps up putting up messages about 
running "shownonascii" or puts up menus when people attach PGP 
signatures, you ARE using metamail.  If it doesn't, and if, in 
particular, you actually see the HTML half of the two version 
mailings that are commonly produced by MS Outlook, you probably need
a newer version of elm, or to enable its MIME support.