Re: proposed patch to enable MH-E usage of GNU + EPG

[timotheus]

Bill Wohler <address@hidden> writes:

> Thanks very much timotheus. I haven't yet heard of EPG and will make a
> note to read up on it. I am extremely pleased that we'll be able to
> provide S/MIME support in the future. In the meantime, would you be
> kind enough to report your request and code to SourceForge so that we
> can track it?

You're welcome. Added to sourceforge. FYI, MH-E of the Emacs CVS head
already supports S/MIME through the `smime.el' library that uses
openssl. Remember that MH-E uses Gnus MML to provide the security. You
just change the default MML method to "smime" instead of
"pgpmime". However, multiple identity support is lacking, and `smime.el'
has some security, feature, and ease-of-use concerns too.

This is not the only feature I've added to MH-E / MM locally for my own
personal use. Some of these include:
   - proper LDAP email lookup and expansion via EUDC
   - scale-down of large inline images to fit current buffer window
     size; works with Unicode and HTML buffers too!
   - key strokes to switch between smime/pgpmime
   - identity handler for auto signing, different method for each
   - inherit lpr command from `lpr.el'
   - auto-view of PDF, DOC, etc. inline

If you or users want to poke around:
  http://tstotts.net/pubvc.co/elisp-snippets/
  http://tstotts.net/pubvc.co/elisp-snippets/set-mh-e.el


> Richard Stallman <address@hidden> writes:
>
>> Please do not make MH-E use EPG until EPG is _actually installed_ in
>> Emacs. 
>
> There is certainly no harm in making it aware of EPG, if it is
> available. MH-E has quite a bit of precedent of being able to handle
> packages if they are installed, but otherwise ignore them. I'm
> assuming furthermore that EPG is free and there won't be any problem
> referring to it in MH-E. Yes? However, I agree that MH-E should not
> use send EPG by default until it is installed in Emacs.
>
>> "There's many a slip twixt the cup and the lip."
>
> ;-). Playing your gamelan tonight, Richard?

I concur with Stallman's concern. The Gnus I referred to is Gnus 5.11
(cvs), which now appears to be named No Gnus, current snapshot is
version 0.6. (My code requires the head CVS - 0.7.) Perhaps you can call
this alpha software. You'll note the comments in my example work around
a No Gnus "bug" present in this functionality.

Earlier I read a thread between some combination of EasyPG, Gnus devs,
and/or Stallman -- I don't recall. The general impression was that `epg'
just might replace `pgg' altogether in the future;
code/decisions/interfaces are in flux... etc.

Mostly I hope that MH-E will add this feature soon after No Gnus
reaches a beta/merge/release state :-). Before-hand could be premature,
IMHO.

Regards,
-timotheus

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