Now you're expecting me to hunt around for viewers for .gifs and TIFFS and JPEGs and God knows what else you might want to send me ?

Actually, I'm not, any more than you're expecting me to hunt around for a copy of PGP just so I can verify your signature. Secondly, having to hunt around for viewers is something that has to do with your mailer, not MIME itself. For example, when I receive MIME email with images, they just appear inline with the text. Just because the easiest way for mailers like ELM to support MIME is to call out to metamail or the like doesn't mean that's necessarily how MIME was meant to be used...

.GIF is not part of the standard for the format of Internet email, is it ?

Yes, it is. The MIME RFC specifies image/gif and image/jpeg as the standard formats for including images in Internet email messages.

I only switched to ELM a few months ago. I guess I'm actually getting pretty comfortable with using it, which means it's time to ditch it.

That's the problem with depending on UNIX :) :) Just as a reminder, I'll point out that I do in fact sympathize, which is why I refrain from using graphics, styled text, HTML links, and so on in my messages. I just have a strong disagreement with the sentiment expressed by Tim, where limiting email to what can be punched onto Hollerith cards is seen as a feature, not a bug. On the other hand, since designing UIs for Internet software is how I make my living, I'm no doubt biased in favor of it being a bug. Amanda Walker InterCon Systems Corporation