attachment counter, an idea for e-mail clients

[Daniel Bastos]

Sometimes we're composing an e-mail message and we suddenly think of
adding an attachment. Finding the file on local storage takes time and
interrupts us from composing. I always prefer to attach as a last
thing, but that increases the risk to forget it.

I've seen programs issuing warnings that an attachment /may be/ missing.
The ones I've seen try to look for clues in the composition itself.
This doesn't seem to work well: we don't always use the word attach in
the message. Sometimes we do, but do not want to attach anything.

Clients could implement a feature that commands an attachment counter.
The counter would be set 0 as soon as new message is composed. Pressing
C-a two times while composing the new message increments the counter
twice. This means I'm telling my client to remind me that there are two
files to be attached to that message. If in the end I attach only one,
the client will tell me that one attachment is missing. (I should be
able to ignore the warning and deliver the message anyway.)

Similarly, I could press C-d to decrease the counter. A little number
displayed on the message header should show how many attachments I have
declared. I might have planned to send three files, thus pressing C-a
three times, and after another paragraph I might have realized it would
be just a single one, so I'd press C-d twice. The counter displayed
somewhere would visually confirm my attachment accounting.

I believe this would reduce my missing attachments down to almost zero.