[Users] Questions regarding character encoding of text/plain attachments

[Michael Gmelin]

Hi,

I noticed the following issue:

When sending a text file attachment, claws uses content-type text
plain, even if it is encoded in UTF-8 and ends up base64-encoded.

So the mime header of the attachment looks like this:

Content-Type: text/plain
Content-Transfer-Encoding: base64
Content-Disposition: attachment; filename=china.txt

In some cases it would be preferable to have a header like this:

Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8
Content-Transfer-Encoding: base64
Content-Disposition: attachment; filename=china.txt

(depending on the content it might be quoted printable, but this
doesn't make a difference)

Questions:
1. Is there a reasonable way to auto-detect and set the encoding?
2. If not, is there a way to make this happen on user request (like,
   selecting the encoding)?
3. If not, what is the rationale for not doing this. I could imagine
   something like "the receiving system should assume UTF-8 in the
   absence of a character encoding specification" or "the receiving
   system should handle encodings transparently". In this case it would
   be good to get some reference supporting one or both of these
   arguments (RFC anyone?)

Thanks,
Michael

-- 
Michael Gmelin