Re: [idn] IDNs in email message bodies

[bobj@netscape.com (Bob Jung)]

I have not looked at the talk, but I'd assume that if you want to send
ACE-encoded email, then it should be treated as a MIME
"Content-Transfer-Encoding" just like QP or base64.

So, your message headers would include something like:

                Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8
   Content-Transfer-Encoding:  x-ACE

-bob

"Adam M. Costello" wrote:

> I just looked at the IDNs-in-MUAs talk (thanks to StarOffice).  I agree
> with it regarding the mail headers, but I have doubts about performing
> ACE conversions in message bodies.
>
> If the Content-Type is text/plain, then the message body is plain
> text, pure and simple.  There should be no ACE encoding or decoding
> happening there.  You can include strings that happen to be (and look
> like) ACE-encoded domain names, and you can include strings that happen
> to be (and look like) non-ACE-encoded IDNs, and in either case you can
> copy and paste them into your IDN-aware browser (or other application,
> including the MUA itself) and it will work (because that application
> will perform ACE encoding if necessary).
>
> For MUAs that seek out URL-ish things in plain text message bodies and
> turn them into hyperlinks, they may need to perform conversions on the
> domain names for the purpose of creating the href attributes, but the
> visible text of the link should not be altered.
>
> AMC