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

[Ray Lee <ray madrabbit org>]

On Fri, 2005-04-08 at 19:23 -0400, Lee Revell wrote:
> The hard part is detecting when the user meant to attach something.

As with anything in the domain of automatic double-checking of humans, a
90% solution is nearly always better than a zero, as a 100% solution is
unobtainable.

> Most people don't craft their subject lines to satisfy people's mail
> filters.

True. Most messages with a patch do include [PATCH] in the subject,
however. As for an attachment, checking for "see" and "attachment"
within three words of each other in the body would probably be good
enough, and give few false positives.

> > 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.

A point. I contrived a counter-example, but it was really contrived.

~r.