Q4.3.2: What is TM and where do I get it?

TM stands for Tools for MIME and not Tiny MIME. TM integrates with all major (S)XEmacs packages like Gnus (all flavours), VM, MH-E, and mailcrypt. It provides totally transparent and trouble-free MIME support. When appropriate a message will be decoded in place in an SXEmacs buffer.

TM was written by MORIOKA Tomohiko and KOBAYASHI Shuhei.

It is based on the work of UMEDA Masanobu, the original writer of GNUS.

The following information is from the README:

tm is a MIME package for GNU Emacs. tm has following functions:

• MIME style multilingual header.
• MIME message viewer (mime/viewer-mode).
• MIME message composer (mime/editor-mode).
• MIME extenders for mh-e, GNUS, RMAIL and VM.

tm is available from following anonymous ftp sites:

• ftp://ftp.unicamp.br/pub/mail/mime/tm/ (Brasil).
• ftp://ftp.th-darmstadt.de/pub/editors/GNU-Emacs/lisp/mime/ (Germany).
• ftp://ftp.tnt.uni-hannover.de/pub/editors/xemacs/contrib/ (Germany).

Don’t let the installation procedure & instructions stop you from trying this package out—it’s much simpler than it looks, and once installed, trivial to use.

Steve Youngs writes:

All the major Emacs Lisp based MUAs (Gnus, MH-E, and VM) all do their own thing when it comes to MIME so you won’t need TM to get MIME support in these packages.