undefined smime-verify-buffer

That is one issue that I hadn't figured out the best way to handle. Since it uses the gnus smime.el package which is external from VM, I don't think it should load the package automatically. But gnus is pretty standard with emacs...

Whats missing is probably a feature check when trying envoke that function and simply emitting a message referring the user to the manual (which should say one must add (require 'smime) in their .vm.preferences file). If the package is not loaded, ignoring the error would simply make the signature a button, which is okay along with the message.

The 'No CA configured' error is related to either of 'smime-CA-file' or 'smime-CA-directory' (from the smime.el package), the vm docs should point the user to this in the signature verification part of the section "Reading S/MIME messages". I can add this in.

Hi Arik, yes, please make the changes. If you put it in a branch, I can
merge it in.

(I didn't know there was documentation of S/MIME inside the Gnus manual!)

Cheers,
Uday

Thanks, Arik.

Just to add context... I was trying to use the shiny new vm/smime feature to verify a random email off a mailing list which was signed using an attached smime.p7s file. I was trying to see if I could walk through the vm docs and perform that task based on the info provided. It's pretty close.

Oh, and I suppose the smime addition means we can close https://bugs.launchpad.net/vm/+bug/758273?

I uploaded a branch related to this bug. Some documentation has been added to the info manual with a few more details about how to use the smime capabilities. John, any comments on whether or not those fill in the missing pieces??

I also added a feature check to make sure the smime package is loaded when verifying signatures, but the warning message gets burried below other cruft. On that same note, if you get it to work, you will notice the notifications of verification success or failure are in a strange place (mostly just to make sure things were working)... Anybody have comments on where is the best place to put such a message??

Arik, those changes to the docs are helpful.

I don't have any great ideas about where to put the success/failure messages. At the top where you have them seems okay. I've also seen them next to the signature. Making a new subwindow visible with the status is an option, too (kind of how thunderbird + enigmail does it) - similar to the bbdb subwindow. Coloring them green / red to highlight the status might help certainly.

By the way, another cause of the 'undefined smime-verify-buffer' problem I originally reported is that there could be a version of smime.el that doesn't have smime-verify-buffer. The emacs package semi has a smime.el but no smime-verify-buffer as of version 1.14.6). This isn't a huge issue - it looks like semi's smime.el is a subset of gnus/smime.el. But I thought I'd get it in writing since I just hit that problem.

In trying this out again, I did see some problems, but I'll open separate bugs for those.

[ aside: would be great to support pgp/mime, too - presumably using EasyPG Assistant - epa.el - for both signing/sig verification and content encryption/decryption. This is a note to self mostly - I did some investigation, but I won't be able to work on it right away ]

I mentioned some separate bugs. See bug 1231525