[Chandler-dev] attachments vs. multipart-alternative

[Jeffrey Harris]

Hi Brian,

> I was not advocating getting rid of ICS. I think it is a very important
> tool for adoption. I was raising the point that if ICS was an alternative
> part to the plain/text part, that the average mail user would
> have no way of adding the ICS Event / Task to his or her
> non-Chandler calendar.
> 
> Since ICS is *important* and must be easily accessible from a
> Chandler Mail Message I don't see how it could be an alternative
> part.

Yup, I understand, and I agree.  I'm saying .ics probably shouldn't
shift from being an attachment to multipart/alternative for the reasons
you mention.  As it happens, I think using multipart/alternative for
iCalendar data does work for mail clients that are closely connected to
calendar agents, like GMail, iCal, Outlook, Lightning, and Notes, but
that's not enough to make such a change.

Attachments are visible and can be manipulated much more easily than
MIME alternatives, we need that for iCalendar.  But I don't think we
need that for EIMML.  So I'm only advocating that we move EIMML to
multipart/alternative.

Sincerely,
Jeffrey