[amykhar]

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.