[@charliestout Member 16 years ago]

Hey Sam, all the buzz about BuddyPress got me back on the forums here. Everyone seems to say “that’s a good idea for like, three years from now” when I suggest something. I’m either flattered to be thinking ahead or embarrassed to be so disconnected from present reality.

In any event, thanks for the great down-to-earth response to my pipe-dream post from 8 months ago!

It would appear that ease of integration has greatly improved since then!

[@charliestout Member 16 years, 8 months ago]

I started a conversation about this very topic here: https://bbpress.org/forums/topic/proposed-method-for-file-attachments-and-uploads

I believe in both sides of this argument:

1. Keep bbPress clean. Don’t bloat.

2. Make bbPress extendible. Do create plugins for everything.

That said, I’m all in favor of an image/attachment plugin. Definitely.

To argue that there is not great desire for this simply because it has not been written is like trying to say “living on the moon sucks” just because we haven’t figured out a way to do it yet. I’m sure living on the moon would totally rule ass.

[@charliestout Member 16 years, 10 months ago]

Sam, this is great news. I’m not a coder but I’m fairly good with CSS. I could help with writing classes for some of the more popular themes.

[@charliestout Member 16 years, 10 months ago]

Fel64, you are totally right. That wasn’t so much an appeal to inferiority as it was an appeal to the bandwagon: I simply think people tend to judge a product based on what’s included, moreso than what’s excluded. I could have worded that better.

I could try to make a better case for an attachments plugin, but I run the risk of becoming “that crazy dude who’s always whining about attachments.” Besides, I don’t feel like I should try to argue the point, because I don’t really hear anyone arguing *against* it.

The best case I can see for any plugin is a chorus of users singing the same tune, asking for such an extension and offering what resources they have to contribute to it. I appreciate the input from everyone on this discussion, and hope we can continue it to the eventual development of this feature. As I mentioned before, I will look at the code, and do what I can (hack around) but then I’ll run the risk of being “that crazy dude who thought he could write a file attachment plugin.”

Which might be slightly better than being the dude who was just whining about not having one. But still.

[@charliestout Member 16 years, 10 months ago]

I can’t speak for the world at large, but I think that many people might be passing up a great product (bbpress) because they are looking for forum software with a few more “essential” features. A great number of other forum packages on the ForumMatrix offer multiple file attachments, and while I agree with the developer’s dream of keeping this thing nice and lite and agile, I think anytime a red X on the ForumMatrix is eliminated, it increases the overall appeal of bbpress to the forum dev community.

HowToGeek, I don’t know how much use I’d be to you as a coder, but I’m willing to do whatever I can to help you start a plugin like this.

[@charliestout Member 16 years, 10 months ago]

*crickets*

[@charliestout Member 16 years, 11 months ago]

Does anyone know how other forum software handles file attachments and uploads safely?