[Evolution-hackers] detecting forgotten attachments (was Re: [Evolution-hackers] bounties)

[Lee Revell <rlrevell joe-job com>]

On Thu, 2005-04-07 at 00:45 +0100, Ray Lee wrote:
> On Mon, 2005-04-04 at 14:38 +0800, Not Zed wrote:
> > On Sat, 2005-04-02 at 00:33 -0500, Lee Revell wrote: 
> > > Another idea that Robert Love has mentioned several times on LKML is a
> > > mechanism to catch so-called -ENOPATCH user errors. [...]
> > 
> > I have no idea what "so-called -enopatch user errors" are.  It sounds
> > a bit specifically un-related to general evolution mail usage 
> 
> Actually, it has wider applicability than just forgetful code
> contributors. Ever sent a message that says "please see the attachment"
> and then forget to attach something? Or in his specific case, a message
> that has the text "[PATCH]" in the subject, but no patch inlined or
> attached.
> 
> The idea is that in those circumstances, Evo would pop up a dialog "Did
> you intend to include [a patch, an attachment] with this message?" much
> like the "No subject" alert that pops up when you try to send a message
> without a subject.
> 

The hard part is detecting when the user meant to attach something.
Most people don't craft their subject lines to satisfy people's mail
filters.

> (Running it through /usr/bin/patch seems overkill. A really good first
> pass would be checking the text attachments and body text for
> 
> 	^diff .*
> 	^--- .*
> 	^+++ .*
> 
> on three consecutive lines. [There's probably an extended regex for
> that.])
> 
> I've got no opinion on whether this is a useful idea or not.
> 

It's definitely no less useful than the "No Subject" dialog, and someone
bothered to implement that.  Sometimes you mean to send a message with
no subject.  You never mean to say "See the attachment" and not attach
anything.

Lee