Re: How to place a request of receipt for an outgoing mail?
On Thu, Jan 03, 2002 at 11:30:53AM +0800, Charles Jie wrote: After reading Cliff's post and mutt's manual, I am not sure whether Disposition-Notification-To: will do what I want. I've read all the other arguments about whether read-receipts are a good thing. Whether they are or not they are sometimes required. At one time my boss (who runs Pegasus mail) was wanting read receipts from every project member when he was sending out meeting notifications. That way if someone didn't show up for a meeting he would know that they at least got the message. Fortunately, mutt is flexible enough to handle what I wanted to do. I wasn't about to change mailers (and operating systems!) just to send a read receipt for a stupid meeting notice. I solved the problem by having mutt pipe the message across a perl script just before displaying it in the pager. If a header line exists in the message that asks for a receipt then the script prompts me to see whether I actually want to send the receipt. If I answer yes then it will fire off the receipt and store the message id someplace so that it won't prompt me for a receipt if I read the same message again. Once you know the proper header line you can respond to any mailer that asks for a read-receipt. It's up to you whether you actually want to send the receipt or not. The delay during the piping operation is so short that it's not really even noticable. I'll be happy to send you my script if you think it would help you out. -- Chris Linux is the answer. Now, what was your question?
Re: How to place a request of receipt for an outgoing mail?
Chris -- ...and then Chris Gentle said... % % On Thu, Jan 03, 2002 at 11:30:53AM +0800, Charles Jie wrote: % % After reading Cliff's post and mutt's manual, I am not sure whether % Disposition-Notification-To: will do what I want. % % I've read all the other arguments about whether read-receipts are a % good thing. Whether they are or not they are sometimes required. Agreed! ... % Fortunately, mutt is flexible enough to handle what I wanted to do. Of course :-) ... % I'll be happy to send you my script if you think it would help you % out. I'm interested, at least. I bet it's short; how about a posting? % % -- % Chris Linux is the answer. Now, what was your question? TIA HAND :-D -- David T-G * It's easier to fight for one's principles (play) [EMAIL PROTECTED] * than to live up to them. -- fortune cookie (work) [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.justpickone.org/davidtg/Shpx gur Pbzzhavpngvbaf Qrprapl Npg! msg22458/pgp0.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: How to place a request of receipt for an outgoing mail?
Hi, Erika, It looks your postman is specailly friendly to you and you never have to sign a receipt for a registered snail mail. (Or you just reject them all. :) I think such function or mechanism USEFUL because some people, including me, need it from time to time. And I believe most of people won't abuse it and annoy others. It could be thought more positively. best, charlie On Sat, Jan 05, 2002 at 06:28:05PM +0100, Erika Pacholleck wrote: [03.01.02 11:30 +0800] Charles Jie -- : What I want to get is the RECIPIENT's answering (eg. thru a dialog box), not of the system. The value of this mechanism is that the recipient is automatically prompted for a receipt, and I can get noticed as soon as possible when he/she is back or available - avoiding many calls in vain. How do you want to prompt at the recipients side? You might get from my headers my MUA (if I do not forbid to send it) but besides this maybe-information you don't know anything, not the system I am running nore the layout. Or do you expect every MUA to include a mechanism to interupt with prompting? And what, just in case M$ has already thought of this, I click it away? Do you expect to stop the whole system until the recipient has sent out the receipt? If it is that important mail might not be the right choice at all. -- Erika Pacholleck [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: How to place a request of receipt for an outgoing mail?
[03.01.02 11:30 +0800] Charles Jie -- : What I want to get is the RECIPIENT's answering (eg. thru a dialog box), not of the system. The value of this mechanism is that the recipient is automatically prompted for a receipt, and I can get noticed as soon as possible when he/she is back or available - avoiding many calls in vain. How do you want to prompt at the recipients side? You might get from my headers my MUA (if I do not forbid to send it) but besides this maybe-information you don't know anything, not the system I am running nore the layout. Or do you expect every MUA to include a mechanism to interupt with prompting? And what, just in case M$ has already thought of this, I click it away? Do you expect to stop the whole system until the recipient has sent out the receipt? If it is that important mail might not be the right choice at all. -- Erika Pacholleck [EMAIL PROTECTED] mutters: insert vowels of last name
Re: How to place a request of receipt for an outgoing mail?
Hello Cliff, On Wednesday, January 2, 2002 at 3:18:21 PM +0100, Cliff Sarginson wrote: Put this line in your muttrc to always request for receipt: my_hdr Disposition-Notification-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] The MTA's involved have to understand this, all of them along the way if I recall correctly, so it is not a guarantee. You are confusing 2 different things, DSN and MDN: DSN is Delivery Status Notification. It's a set of SMTP extensions defined in RFC 1891 and reply MIME type in RFC 1894 and 2852, all MTAs in the path to your recipient must understand it, you set the DSN request in mutt with the dsn_notify and dsn_return variables (I never tested: my outgoing MTA isn't compatible), and is basically a way to customize bounces: you can say when you want a bounce (only on error, or also on success), and what you want inside (only your header, or the full message). It's the last MTA who replies: generally an MTA at your recipient's provider says it has delivered to a POP3 account... Nothing says the mail has been read or even has reached your recipient's computer. MDN is Message Disposition Notification. It's a purely MUA to MUA thing, the request and the reply's MIME type format are defined in RFC 2298, and your recipient is asked to send back an MDN or not (on each mail or thru some sort of global option). The MDN says you if (and when) the mail has been displayed on screen (well, doesn't mean read or understood!), or filtered out, manually deleted before being displayed, processed by a bot, printed, faxed, failed, etc... Charles was talking about MDN. Since people get the option not to allow the sending of the receipt back in Outlook and Netscape it means squat anyway. I think, and the RFC confirms, it MUST be a recipient's choice. Frankly it is a diabolical practise, causes uneccessary and pointless mail. Your Personal Opinion, or just some sort of universal truth? ;-) If a mail is so important that you *must* be certain it has been read then phone the person up. Perhaps he has no phone, or you don't want to bother him? Or the mail is not *so* important, but you'd like to have a confirmation? Accepting to send an MDN is also easier and faster than composing an « OK well received » type reply. Since the mechanism is inherently unreliable anyway, what is the point of using it ? Yes it's unreliable, also because not all MUA are MDN aware. But it can be usefull at times. And sometimes needed: I know of a company who, at time of choosing an internal mail system, choosed Lotus Notes against an open SMTP based system just (or nearly just) because of a more reliable MDN-like feature in Notes. Bye!Alain.
Re: How to place a request of receipt for an outgoing mail?
On Thursday, January 3, 2002 at 11:30:53 AM +0800, Charles Jie wrote: After reading Cliff's post and mutt's manual, I am not sure whether Disposition-Notification-To: will do what I want. It will. Exactly as the « request read receipt for all outgoing mails » option in tools/options/receipts or « request read receipt » function in tools menu in the composition window of MSOE will. Exactly as the same function in Netscape will. In fact these functions only effect is to add this field in outgoing headers. Exactly like with OE or NC, you will only receive back a receipt if the recipient has an MDN compatible mailer, opens your mail, and accepts to send the receipt. Cliff has mixed things, and seems to dislike the DSN and/or MDN systems. Mutt's manual version 1.2.5 doesn't talk at all about MDN. It talks about DSN. BTW: Cliff's reaction teach us that MDN requests can be taken as something rude, annoying or privacy intrusive by some recipients in some circumstances. Or something like a reply requirement. So use it carefully. There should be some sort of « acceptable MDN usage policy » addendum to Netiquette. ;-) It's said it's dealt with by MTA. And reports success when the transmission succeeds. -- Does that mean the mail just succeessfully drops into the recipient's mbox instead of being opened for reading? Yes. Into his system mailbox, or POP3 account, or anywhere the last MTA of the MTAs chain delivers. But that's DSN. Bye!Alain. PS: Had to reread carefully my own mail to correct mixed up TLAs. Hope there is no more error. All these Three Letters Acronyms are a headache! :-)
Re: How to place a request of receipt for an outgoing mail?
Hello Charles, hello ALL, and happy new year for everyone! I'm new in this list, and not really fluent in english, sorry. But it's a good day to begin. :-) On Monday, December 31, 2001 at 11:15:10 AM +0800, Charles Jie wrote: I was able to request for receipt in my mail while using Outlook Express or Netscape. But how to do it in Mutt? Put this line in your muttrc to always request for receipt: my_hdr Disposition-Notification-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Or just insert the field into header while composing a mail for a one time request. AFAIK Mutt itself doesn't reply to such incoming requests, nor deals automatically with the message/disposition-notification reports comming back. Am I right? Or is there a script or patch somewhere? Bye!Alain.
Re: How to place a request of receipt for an outgoing mail?
On Tue, Jan 01, 2002 at 09:05:40PM +0100, Alain Bench wrote: Hello Charles, hello ALL, and happy new year for everyone! I'm new in this list, and not really fluent in english, sorry. But it's a good day to begin. :-) On Monday, December 31, 2001 at 11:15:10 AM +0800, Charles Jie wrote: I was able to request for receipt in my mail while using Outlook Express or Netscape. But how to do it in Mutt? Put this line in your muttrc to always request for receipt: my_hdr Disposition-Notification-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Or just insert the field into header while composing a mail for a one time request. AFAIK Mutt itself doesn't reply to such incoming requests, nor deals automatically with the message/disposition-notification reports comming back. Am I right? Or is there a script or patch somewhere? The MTA's involved have to understand this, all of them along the way if I recall correctly, so it is not a guarantee. Since people get the option not to allow the sending of the receipt back in Outlook and Netscape it means squat anyway. Frankly it is a diabolical practise, causes uneccessary and pointless mail. If a mail is so important that you *must* be certain it has been read then phone the person up. Since the mechanism is inherently unreliable anyway, what is the point of using it ? -- Regards Cliff
Re: How to place a request of receipt for an outgoing mail?
Frankly it is a diabolical practise, causes uneccessary and pointless mail. If a mail is so important that you *must* be certain it has been read then phone the person up. Since the mechanism is inherently unreliable anyway, what is the point of using it ? Exactly. Every now and then, I have to remove undeliverable notification receipts from the mail queue. Undeliverable, because the original mails apparently underwent some internal-external address rewriting, but the address in the DSN header was not rewritten.
Re: How to place a request of receipt for an outgoing mail?
Hi, thank you, Alain, et al, After reading Cliff's post and mutt's manual, I am not sure whether Disposition-Notification-To: will do what I want. It's said it's dealt with by MTA. And reports success when the transmission succeeds. -- Does that mean the mail just succeessfully drops into the recipient's mbox instead of being opened for reading? What I want to get is the RECIPIENT's answering (eg. thru a dialog box), not of the system. The value of this mechanism is that the recipient is automatically prompted for a receipt, and I can get noticed as soon as possible when he/she is back or available - avoiding many calls in vain. many thanks, charlie On Tue, Jan 01, 2002 at 09:05:40PM +0100, Alain Bench wrote: Put this line in your muttrc to always request for receipt: my_hdr Disposition-Notification-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
