Re: User proposal: File attachments to Orders and AR/AP/GL transactions in 1.3

[Chris Travers <..hidden..>]

On Sat, Jul 2, 2011 at 3:12 PM, Erik Huelsmann <..hidden..> wrote:
> Hi Chris,
>

>
> Regardless of which parts of the database we end up allowing file
> attachments to: I'd like to be able to have "unattached" attachments. I.e.
> "pre-uploaded" ones: many MFPs (multifunctionals) allow e-mailing of
> documents directly from the scanner. It'd be too easy to be able to mail a
> PDF document from an MFP to the accounting software!
>
> This would call for an option to attach pre-uploaded documents, either upon
> transaction entry or after initial creation. Does your proposal account for
> this option?

That is not included in the proposal currently, but such could be
added without too much difficulty I think.

> One question: would a document be attached to at most 1 transaction?

The current proposal assumes this.  However, the way the db is
structured (we can talk about this more on the -devel thread) would
allow in the future for secondary links to be implemented later with
some difficulty but not too much (you'd end up with a star-partitioned
attach_to table).   I would personally like to keep it as a
primary/secondary link system because I think that it is more useful
to track a file name and original link than it is insisting on
globally unique filenames when the number of files on the system might
get fairly large.

Best Wishes,
Chris Travers