From eed0ee77fad418670c2f87f581e8745871142739 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Eli Zaretskii Date: Mon, 22 Jan 2001 17:15:50 +0000 Subject: [PATCH] (Rmail Display): Document rmail-redecode-body. --- man/rmail.texi | 42 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++-- 1 file changed, 40 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-) diff --git a/man/rmail.texi b/man/rmail.texi index e86e211c471..1945545b724 100644 --- a/man/rmail.texi +++ b/man/rmail.texi @@ -976,7 +976,7 @@ means to show the reformatted header, and a zero or negative argument means to show the full header. @vindex rmail-highlighted-headers - When used with a terminal that supports multiple fonts, Rmail + When used with a terminal that supports multiple fonts or colors, Rmail highlights certain header fields that are especially interesting---by default, the @samp{From} and @samp{Subject} fields. The variable @code{rmail-highlighted-headers} holds a regular expression that @@ -993,10 +993,48 @@ highlighting as well. @xref{Faces}, for how to do this. @code{rmail-highlighted-headers} to @code{nil}. @findex goto-addr -URLs in messages may be highlighted and activated for following with the + URLs in messages may be highlighted and activated for following with the mouse or keyboard by customizing the hook @code{rmail-show-message-hook} to add @code{goto-addr}. +@cindex decoding mail messages (Rmail) + Rmail automatically decodes messages which contain non-@sc{ascii} +characters, like it does with visited files and output from +subprocesses. Rmail uses the standard ``charset=@var{encoding}'' +header in the message to find out how was the message encoded by the +sender. It then maps @var{encoding} into the corresponding coding +system (@pxref{Coding Systems}), and uses that coding system to decode +message text. If the message header doesn't have the charset +specification, or if the @var{encoding} it specifies is not recognized +by Emacs, Rmail attempts to detect the encoding by applying the usual +heuristics and defaults (@pxref{Recognize Coding}). + +@findex rmail-redecode-body +@cindex fixing incorrectly decoded mail messages + Occasionally, a message might be decoded incorrectly, either because +Emacs failed to guess the encoding in the absence of the ``charset'' +specification, or because the ``charset'' specification was wrong. +For example, a misconfigured mailer could send a message with a +``charset=iso-8859-1'' header whereas the mssage is encoded in koi8-r. +Whenever you see a message text garbled or some of its characters +displayed as empty boxes, you can try to fix that by decoding the +message again using a specific coding system. (This requires that you +guess the correct encoding, or talk to the sender and ask them.) To +that end, invoke the @code{rmail-redecode-body} command. It prompts +for a name of a coding system and then redecodes the message body +using that coding system. + + Redecoding the message body is a lossless operation with most +encodings, in particular with 8-bit encodings such as iso-8859 or +koi8. So, if the initial attempt to redecode the message didn't +result in a legible text, you could try other possible encodings, +until you succeed. + + With some encodings, notably those from the iso-2022 family, +@code{rmail-redecode-body} might fail to recover the original form of +the message. However, such encodings rarely cause the kind of trouble +for which @code{rmail-redecode-body} is intended to be used. + @node Rmail Editing @section Editing Within a Message -- 2.39.2