Attachments debate

[Urban Ranger]

I think the only point of allowing an attachment type is to allow them to be rendered right on the spot in the browser. I completely hate rendering PDF documents in my browser, the plug-in takes years and it can crash Windows if I do it there.

There is no point of allowing some kind of attachment if it is to be downloaded first. Archiving the file first saves bandwidth, - bandwidth is what we don't have, not CPU cycles.

My suggestion is to only allow image files and archive files to be attached. A partial exception could be made for plain text files. Other extensions are simply not required.

[ixnay]

My only opinion is that I don't think it really matters and that mp3 should be allowed in place of wav.

[Nubclear]

Re: Attachments debate

Originally posted by Urban Ranger
Other extensions are simply not required.

That could hurt the demo games.........

Also, I think its all fine.

[DrSpike]

Can't you configure your browser not to automatically render filetypes you don't want it to?

[Dinner]

.wav files are out of date so we should replace them with mp3s.

[Inverse Icarus]

i never saw an attached PDF, does it automatically display?

[ixnay]

I dunno, lets see. I would assume not, since only picture files (not .txt) render in the browser:

Edit: There you go. Though it could still use the icon I provided in the other thread...

[DrSpike]

So I'm confused. Somebody explain UR's gripe.

[ixnay]

He thinks everyone should zip everything they attatch except pictures.

[Henrik]

Boo! hiss!
Burn the herretic!
I want my attachements to stay

[DrSpike]

Originally posted by ixnay
He thinks everyone should zip everything they attatch except pictures.

Aaahhh. I reread his post. His gripe is not that automatic rendering screws things up, but that the only reason to attach a non-archive is to make it renderable (?) in the browser.

I think I and others were confused on this point earlier.

[Chris 62]

UR does have a point about Pedia files, they do crash windows sometimes.

[Skanky Burns]

Leave it as a choice for the end-user. If UR doesn't want to render it in his browser, he has the option of downloading the file instead (or just to ignore the attachment). If Billybob Johnson wants to have the file rendered in his browser, then he can.

The point is there is nothing to gain by taking away options for others.