Attachments Anywhere
 

Right now, attachments are attached to posts. I suggest that this be modified to not attach them to anything.

The attachment interface should be an independent thing - accessible from posts, private messages and external scripts.

When you create an attachment, it would be linked - as it is now- in your profile. You could delete and add attachments from your profile if you so choose. Each user would have a quota.

Attachments could be referenced in a post, private message or external script. If the user deletes the entity that has an attachment referenced in it, the user would be prompted asking if they want to delete the attachment.

Attachments could be cross-referenced. Users could reference other people's attachments by id.

If an attachment is deleted but other references remain to it, they would simply show a message or image stating that the attachment has been deleted.

There wouldn't be any need to ensure that all references are gone before an attachment is deleted.

The user who creates this mod will have effectively created file uploads for every script out there that needs user-owned file uploads. And, it will give users a single interface to control their files - gallery pictures, documents, userpage pictures, whatever.

isn't that what the [attach] bbcode is for?

Is there an interface to upload attachments aside from in posts? Have you tried using the attach bbcode in other places besides posts?
Amy

I agree with you Amy.

One of the most important things for me was to be able to see attachments when a post was quoted. Imagine you want to compliment a user on a picture and when you quote their post the picture is not shown, this was a problem.

So I modified the template to require my members to use the [attach ] bbcode in order to see any image. In addition I modified the php code to allow displaying [attach ] bbcodes in any post even when the attachment was not originally attached to that particular post.

This has worked very well and has made quoting posts that have pictures very useful.

I was working on an upload system a week or 2 ago, and I also noticed this. After realizing I couldn't do this without major file edits (and tons of plugin code), I just ditched the idea alltogether and used the filesystem.

So yeah, I second this.

I've been thinking about this some.

What if we had something called a node with an associated nodeid. An attachment could attach to a node instead of a post.

So, pms could be nodes, posts could be nodes, quiz questions could be nodes, journal entries could be nodes, etc.

When we add an object to the database, we would first add a new node and then put the nodeid on the post, pm, whatever.

Then, if we delete the pm, post, whatever, we also go zap the node and any associated attachments.

Amy

I have a blog system which uses vb's attachment system flawlessly.*
The same technique could be used for anything.

The only thing I did was to modify the attachment table (I added a 'blogentryid' field) and 1 plugin. (Ahh, now that I think of it, I believe the plugin was for thumbnail display for all users--not sure--or it could be both--damn, can't remember.)

CLUE: The trick is to fetch the permissions for attachments (from a pre-defined forum).

*no vb files edits necessary

So, there is hope. It might not be that difficult at all to work out an attachment system we could all hook into.

the only difficult part is modifying the attachment table ... and we know how hard that is ;)

horribly difficult. Will take me all of 10 seconds :D