[dev] Feature Request: Save Attachments with Copy in Sent Folder?

[Derek P. Moore]

One of my users had a feature request which seemed reasonable and quite useful. 
I plan on digging around and seeing if I can implement it, but I thought I'd
pass it on to the list, as it may prove to be over my head or take me too long,
and others may like the idea and run with it first, etc.

When attaching objects to messages, it would be nice for quota-concerned users
(and convenient for sysadmins that have to keep an eye on the size of
/var/spool/imap) to have the option of not saving attachments in the copy saved
to the sent folder.

I guess this functionality could actually be pretty thoroughly implemented:
lockable system-wide and user-specifiable preference settings, per-email
checkboxes (save all attachments, save no attachments), and per-attachment
checkboxes (save this attachment, don't save this one, etc.).

My user was surprised that Yahoo!, Hotmail, and every other mail client hadn't
thought of implementing such functionality yet.  My user used primary Yahoo!
email before working here, and he said he used to send out two emails for every
message that was to have attachments in order to emulate the feature -- one
without the attachments which he would archive in the Sent folder, then he'd
"forward" the archived copy in the Sent folder and add the attachments, and not
save this second email to the Sent folder.

It's amazing what lengths users will go through to emulate their favorite
missing feature.

Another thing, something I've noticed about using the trash icon that's next to
attachments:  Each time one clicks to trash an attachment, a new copy of the
message is created with one less attachment and the old message is marked as
deleted.  If the message had four attachments, that's five copies of the
message, four of them marked as deleted, and each copy is incrementally
smaller.  I suppose all this is good and well, especially if
$prefs['use_trash']['value'] is set to 0.  However, if $prefs['use_trash'] is
turned on, I think the process of deleting the old copies should respect that
functionality.  Users familiar with the 'use_trash' scheme are really confused
by messages marked as deleted (especially without a purge link and with
'use_trash' limiting the user's ability to "mark as undeleted" [or "unmark as
deleted" *grin*]).

So that's that,

Derek