pgg-encrypt is a pain in the neck

[Richard Stallman]

I started with the following text in my *mail* buffer:


====start====
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-15
From: Richard Stallman <address@hidden>
To: peterb
cc: rms
Subject: Testing
Reply-to: address@hidden
--text follows this line--
this is a test.
====end====


and I did M-x pgg-encrypt.
It prompted for the recipients with no default.
(mailcrypt-encrypt gets defaults from the To and CC fields.)

So I entered `peterb, rms' by hand, and it encrypted the whole buffer
including the header.  It left nothing in the buffer except for
the encrypted text.  I verified by running gpg manually
that the encrypted text contained the mail buffer headers.
(mailcrypt-encrypt would have encrypted only the message body.)

To test pgg-decrypt, I encrypted that message with mailcrypt-encrypt,
which gave me the headers above plus a GPG message in the body.
Then I used pgg-decrypt.  It decrypted the body ok, but discarded
the headers entirely.

This is not an adequate replacement for mailcrypt, not as it currently
works.  We need to fix it now.

One way to fix pgg-encrypt would be to give it heuristics like the
ones mailcrypt-encrypt uses.  Another would be to declare pgg-encrypt
to be a "low level" interface, reliable for programs with no DWIM, and
define a different command for users to encrypt their messages.

What do you think should be done?

As for pgg-decrypt, it has to preserve everything in the buffer
aside from the encrypted text which it decrypts.