[Oberon] Re. adding a header field for outgoing messages.

[Chris Glur]

PETER EASTHOPE wrote:
> I am interested to incorporate the In-Reply-To 
> parameter of SMTP into the header of an 
> outgoing message.  
> [ "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-mail"
> under "3.2.1 Header" in case anyone is interested.
> IETF calls these parameters header fields.]
> 
> Automatic insertion of In_Reply-To is not required.  
> The parameter can be inserted when the body of the 
> message is composed with an editor.  An 
> optional In_Reply-To line should be able to 
> follow the Subject line in the reply text which I 
> compose up.
.. snip...

Similarly, after years of using Mail.Send , I had to
modify my setup when my ISP suddenly needed 
M$-type [of course] sender-authentication !

I can't look at the source code now but as I recall:
* Send.Mod was badly structured compared to the older
TextMail.Mod, which was easier to modify/extend.
So I changed over to using TextMail.Mod [which I
renamed - for some reason?].
*  but TextMail.Send omits several of the fields, either 
by design, or because I left them out to simplify my 
modifications - initially which becomes semi-permanent!
* so now when I want to email, I have to enter some of
the field manually - not the send-authorisation, which
needs to do some crypto-calculations.  And I make use 
of the EditKeys.* macro-facility, whereby I enter:e<insert>
which is replaced by :--------
To: oberon at lists.inf.ethz.ch
Cc: crglur at gmail.com
Date: Day Month 2007
From: Chris Glur <easlab at absamail.co.za>
Subject: 

System.Time 10.04.2008 12:15:29
----------
So then I have to manually paste in [overwrite 'Day Month 2007']
with the System.Time-generated <date>.

 Apparently TextMail.Send generates all other needed
fields. And now I'll manually entering 'your' field:
   Reply-To: crglur at gmail.com
which I note from a sample, follows the 'Date: ' field,
and I'll self post and see what I get ?!

Without having opened the sources, I'd first search *ail*.Obj 
for "Reply-To" 

Wow ! with N-O [now under linux too] it's easier to do
it than to tell:- using System.Directory ^ Find.Domain Find.All ^
========= finds:-
/home/oberon/obj/Mail.Obj	   text/plain  X-Sun-Charset   Reply-To    From    Date    S
/home/oberon/obj/Mail.Obj	on mail ---            Message Reply-To    From    Subject T
/home/oberon/obj/Mail.Obj	   Re (    ):  Re:     To:     Reply-To    From    Subject S

Which tells me that TextMail.* doesn't know about 
"Reply-To".


> As I can see, Mail.Send invokes SendIt which opens 
> the SMTP connection and invokes SendMail.  
> 
> SendMail works through the recipient list and 
> eventually invokes SendText with "head" containing 
> the header and "T" containing the message body.
> 
> I've failed to see where and how the subject is 
> inserted.  If anyone can explain, that will really 
> be appreciated.
> 
> [Why do this?  I read the Debian list archives and 
> occasionally want to reply.  Without In-Reply-To 
> the list manager can not connect the thread.]
> 
I'll try to find time to exercise my 'colour nested
constructs differently to aid analysis' utility on
Mail*.Mod soon, and perhaps fix my own code too.

> Apologies to anyone finding this too tedious.

Real life is comlex.

== Chris Glur.

PS. why do you write "In_Reply-To" ?
What's the "In_" ?
And you've got both 'dash' and 'underscore',
mixed.   This error on N-O's default font is unforgivable. 
It's OK on my [newer] linux version, but I don't know
 if it was fixed or if it's just because I [perhaps] installed 
the european-version instead of US-version.