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sTunnel for modern email protocols in old email clients

Thomas S.
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Mathwiz

Mathwiz

Posted
Posted
2 hours ago, jumper said:

The "something to test" that still hasn't been tested is an image embedded as multipart MIME.

This is typically done using code that looks like this: 

 Content-Type: multipart/related;
 boundary="------------090303020209010600070908"

This is a multi-part message in MIME format.
--------------090303020209010600070908
Content-Type: text/html; charset=ISO-8859-15
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN">
<html>
  <head>
    <meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-15">
  </head>
  <body bgcolor="#ffffff" text="#000000">
    <img src="cid:part1.06090408.01060107" alt="">
  </body>
</html>

--------------090303020209010600070908
Content-Type: image/png;
 name="moz-screenshot.png"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: base64
Content-ID: <part1.06090408.01060107>
Content-Disposition: inline;
 filename="moz-screenshot.png"

[base64 image data here]

In this case, the src attribute of the image tag is a cid: (content ID) reference to the embedded MIME image. It doesn't look like a <base ...> tag would interfere with this method, so it should be safe to use with emails with embedded images, but the only way to be sure is to try it out. Unfortunately, I don't see how this method can be tested by opening the HTML portion in IE8. One would probably need to test the effect of a <base ...> tag on this method in Eudora itself.

Another possible problem I can foresee is that there could be a <base ...> tag already in the email. In that case I don't know if prepending another <base ...> tag would just be ignored (which would be OK), or if it would override the one in the email, causing problems.

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Dave-H

Dave-H

Posted
Posted (edited)

Thanks again guys!
I really appreciate you all sticking with this.
Here are the two images as I promised.
This is how a message from Sky looks in the "Microsoft Viewer" when it finally displays after a long delay -

MicrosoftViewer.thumb.jpg.81e8c57cb5e4c0e8c71c067ceb826d21.jpg

 

And this is how the same message looks in Eudora's own built-in viewer, which displays it instantly -

EudoraViewer.thumb.jpg.e4c248846d93d1320a4c95ab2b076410.jpg

As I said earlier, if any fix or workaround results in it still looking like the second image, I will not worry one bit, as it's still perfectly readable!
It's the delay that I really want to lose so I don't have to keep switching viewing modes on Eudora all the time.
The Marks and Spencer e-mails are a worse problem as they look an awful scrambled mess in the Eudora viewer, but I don't get that many of them.

Here too is the installation file for the Bugscreen Eudora plugin.
This is the actual file that I found and downloaded to install the plugin when I was collecting up as many legacy Eudora plugins as I could find a few years ago!
Cheers,
Dave.
:)
 

Eudora Bugscreen Plugin 1.05 & Plugin Options 1.00.zip

Edited by Dave-H
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Mathwiz

Mathwiz

Posted
Posted
On 2/20/2019 at 9:53 PM, Mathwiz said:

Another possible problem I can foresee is that there could be a <base ...> tag already in the email. In that case I don't know if prepending another <base ...> tag would just be ignored (which would be OK), or if it would override the one in the email, causing problems.

To test what would happen in this situation, I modified the start of @Dave-H's original HTML email to look like this: 

<BASE HREF=HTTP:><HTML><HEAD><STYLE>
BODY {font-family="Arial"}
TT {font-family="Courier New"}
BLOCKQUOTE.CITE {padding-left:0.5em; margin-left:0; margin-right:0; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0; border-left:"solid 2";}
</STYLE></HEAD>
<BODY>
<Span CLASS=EUDORAHEADER>
Date: Sat, 2 Feb 2019 05:07:12 +0100 (CET)<br>
</Span>
<Span CLASS=EUDORAHEADER>
From: Sky Community &lt;mailer@lithium.com&gt;<br>
</Span>
<Span CLASS=EUDORAHEADER>
To: dave_hawley@yahoo.co.uk<br>
</Span>
<Span CLASS=EUDORAHEADER>
Subject: Sky Community Community: Daily Digest<br>
</Span>
<br>
<div>
<br>

<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/loose.dtd"><html>
	<head><BASE HREF=HTTPS:>

Note two BASE tags: one specifying HTTP: at the very beginning, simulating a prepended tag, and one specifying HTTPS: after the email's <HEAD> tag, as it might be if the email had been sent with a BASE tag included. (Confusingly, Eudora wraps the entire HTML email with its own HTML so it can display the email's headers; thus the first HEAD and BODY tags in the file were added by Eudora and weren't part of the email that Sky sent.)

The results were mixed. The email still opened without delay, and the toolkit.css file was still downloaded twice, but this time it was downloaded once using HTTP: and once using HTTPS:. Since the LINK tag near the top of the email explicitly specifies HTTP: and was not redirected, the HTTPS: download was apparently triggered by the @import rule near the bottom of the email. So in this case, the second BASE tag seems to have been used, which is what we want.

However, the two @font-face rules near the bottom still triggered (buggy) HTTP: downloads as before. So in these cases, the first BASE tag seems to have been used!

Conclusion: prepending <BASE HREF=HTTP:> is probably fine for the vast majority of emails one might receive, but to be safe, one should first scan the email for a BASE tag, then only prepend <BASE HREF=HTTP:> if another BASE tag weren't found.

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  • 2 weeks later...
Dave-H

Dave-H

Posted
Posted

Hi guys.
Just wondering, is anyone still looking into this, or has everyone decided that it's actually unfixable?
:dubbio:
Just as an aside, there is a delay displaying those Sky e-mails with Eudora when running it on Windows 10, but it's a matter of a few seconds, not the 10 seconds or so that happens in XP.
Cheers, Dave.
:)

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Mathwiz

Mathwiz

Posted
Posted

If you have no need to access files from other PCs, NAS, etc. on your home network, I did think of a rather drastic possible solution: stop the LAN Manager "Workstation" service. That would prevent any implicit file: requests from going out, and presumably, then having to time out.

I have no idea if that would work, and it may not be practical anyhow. But it may be worth a try.

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jumper

jumper

Posted
Posted

The Lite versions don't seem to support the plugin features I need to test, so development is on hold.

If you are not on a LAN, I like the idea of disabling any LAN services. There also might be a registry setting to reduce the timeout for unresponsive LAN servers.
If you are on a LAN, perhaps you can add a server named www.sky.com as an alias to your local drive (via Network Neighborhood) or redirect it (maybe via LMHOSTS) to 127.0.0.1/localhost. Maybe:
127.0.0.1 helpforum.sky.com
127.0.0.1 www.sky.com


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Dave-H

Dave-H

Posted
Posted

Thanks @jumper 
I assume you mean the lite version of Eudora?
:dubbio:
If so, did you download my full Eudora installation here?
That should be the whole program folder, which should work, including all the plugins.
I have of course removed all my mailboxes and account information.
Cheers, Dave.
:)

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jumper

jumper

Posted
Posted

> the lite version of Eudora
Yes, Eudora 3.0 Light is what I resurrected from a 2001 backup of my '90s software. I've just downloaded 4.3.2 and 5.2.1 and will give them a try.

> my full Eudora
Unfortunately, still way too "full" for me. What version is it?

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Dave-H

Dave-H

Posted
Posted

It's version 7.1.0.9, which was the very last version released by Qualcomm.
If you put the Eudora folder from the zip file into your Program Files folder, does it not run?
:dubbio:

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Dave-H

Dave-H

Posted
Posted

Thanks @jumper.
If you look in the plugins folder in the zipped version of my Eudora 7.1, you will find all the plugins I have installed in my copy of Eudora, which is basically all the plugins I could find online!
Cheers, Dave.
:)

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Dave-H

Dave-H

Posted
Posted

I take it there's no more progress on this?
I notice that Eudora on Windows 98SE, presumably using the IE6 engine, also has a delay displaying the e-mails from Sky, but it's nowhere near as long as it is on XP. The difference seems to be that when the e-mails display on Windows 98 they don't include the header image, which is what appears to be causing the long delay.
Frankly if just that could be suppressed to make them display faster on XP I would be very happy!
:)

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