Hi,
I'd like to see the option to have attachments of an email stored on a
unique folder per email basis. It should have a descriptive name for that
email (like the sender's name + a timestamp or similar). In it, please
file the attachments with exactly the names they were sent with.
Why? One thing that quite often hits me is that currently, all
attachments are saved in one plain folder. When you receive attachments
with the same name as some already there, they get automatically renamed
to "xxx <number>.ext" to indicate it's the 8th rendition of, say,
"test.rtf" you got sent over the last 3 years.
There are files where this is not important, but there are some where the
name IS important, especially Java source code files (it's the class
name!) or a set of interdependent test files (like one *.xml file + its
*.css file it references). When such files get renamed, the references
contained are no longer valid.
Ok, the sender should zip those files. But in product support, people
often don't do that. So in detail, I'm suggesting:
1) For every email received that has attachments, create a new folder in
the PM Attachments folder.
2) Allow the user to specify a generalized naming scheme for this folder
using variables like:
%N = sender name
%D = date sent, day
%M = date sent, month
%Y = date sent, year
%H = date sent, hour
%m = date sent, minute
%S = subject
%A = Account
... etc., so the user would be able to specify in the PM preferences:
Mail Attachment folder name: "%YY-%MM-%DD %HH-%mm %N, %S"
This e.g. creates a folder named "04-09-24 15-26 Christian Roth,
Attachment folders per email" and would contain all attachments to this email.
The advantage is that for attachment folder cleaning purposes, you could
sort the listing in the finder by name and you would be able to delete
attachments to emails you no longer need. Also, you will be able to track
down the email in the PM database using search features to which that
certain file had been attached to (you cannot do a search for "attachment
with name" currently).
Hmm... just thinking of it - would I actually be able to do that NOW with
the aid of filters and an AppleScript?
Regards, Christian.
