at least for IMAP folders !!

To check the attachment state for old messages would mean to load all messages
completely once which is not acceptable.

On Thursday 06 May 2004 00:13, Carsten Burghardt wrote:
> ------- You are receiving this mail because: -------
> You reported the bug, or are watching the reporter.
>
> http://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=80995
> burghardt kde org changed:
>
>            What    |Removed                     |Added
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
>- Status|NEW                         |RESOLVED
>          Resolution|                            |WONTFIX
>
>
>
> ------- Additional Comments From burghardt kde org  2004-05-06 00:13
> ------- To check the attachment state for old messages would mean to load
> all messages completely once which is not acceptable.
Hmm!
what's the alternative ?
having inconsistent data (IMHO not acceptable for business use)
or   
manually delete the local imap information to trigger a reload.

The data is not inconsistent. We just haven't interpreted it.
The attachment icon is only for information so I don't think that it is a problem that it is only updated when you once clicked on the message.
Even deleting the local cache doesn't help as we only load the headers and they don't tell you if the message has an attachment.

no user will understand this behaviour.

can we get a function - "click all headers" which is executed once the new 
release gets installed.

Ferdinand Gassauer wrote:
> no user will understand this behaviour.
> 
> can we get a function - "click all headers" which is executed once the new 
> release gets installed.

Perhaps it's worth a thought: We're (optionally) showing question marks 
if the signatur/encryption state is not yet known for a message. Perhaps 
we can use a special icon (somehow a question mark too) for not 
completely downloaded messages / downloaded headers?
This would indicate clearly the state to the user. However I don't know 
how difficult it is to implement that.

FWIW I agree with Carsten's statements.

So does it mean that one has to download the messages to know if there is an
attachment.
if so - this should also be stated near the "load attachement on demand"
option.

BTW are the messages + attachments cached locally - I have the impression that
not.

There are 2 things I am concerned off
1) not showing the user,that there is an attachment (because kmail does not
know/check it
2) useless traffic, because i do not need all attachments downloaded.

You always have to select the message once to analyse if it has attachments.
Without load-on-demand the message is loaded completely. With lod we only load the headers of the attachments to get this information.
As I already said: we only cache (=write to disk) the headers.
The alternative would be to show (as Andreas already stated) a question mark or similar as long as we don't know. This would be possible but I personally would not like this as there is already a lot of information shown and "yet another question mark" would clutter this even more.

Hmm! 
I can not follow you completely
We apparently have 3 possibilities
- load headers (check mail in folder/imap)
- load message-text (click on message-header) 
-- loads message-text with/without attachments (option load attachment on 
demand)

IMHO an option "preload message-text" would do it, eventually combined with a 
a limit of a maximal text size

If I understand it correctly also for deleting the message I have to click it 
and hence download it before actually deleting it

On Freitag, 7. Mai 2004 11:54, Carsten Burghardt wrote:
> The alternative would be to show (as Andreas already stated) a question
> mark or similar as long as we don't know. This would be possible but I
> personally would not like this as there is already a lot of information
> shown and "yet another question mark" would clutter this even more.

Yes, a question mark would not fit. I thought about it again. I think, it 
would be a usefull information for the user that only the header is 
downloaded and known. So the body is still on the server and information 
about attachments is not available.
What about a diagonal separation of the current message icon (left lower to 
right upper corner) where the upper part is colored as is while the lower 
part is showing less color (like alphablended). Well, I'm no artist, but 
this is what I would use as a first try.

Please don't assume that the user understands what happens here. 
IMHO an application has to privide a consitent easy to understand information. 
No user will understand why he/she has to click a header to see if there is an attachment, even this is necessary because of some Specs.
Other way round. If I have to click on a header to see if there is an attachemnt I want the computer to make the click for me.

*** Bug 155266 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

It is not acceptable that this is left as wontfix. E.g. if I want to find out
all my attachments in my mail account, I make a search that lists all mails and
then I sort by the attachment column. This will seem to work to the normal
user. The user will have no chance to see that some of the attachments he has
are missing.

i think the problem is somewhat resolved since you can find all messages with
attachments using the "edit -> find messages" function wich download all you
messages from server to look into them (wich can be really slow). Apparently
there's no other way to achieve this, only devs can know.
(bug triage day 09 november 2008) opensourcecat.

<quote>
tstaerk  2008-01-12 20:57:22
It is not acceptable that this is left as wontfix
</quote>

As much as I want a feature I realize that I have never submitted a patch nor
do I have the knowledge to do it - for that reason I find acceptable if the
developers decide that my request is not going to be fixed. Having such a good
environment for free should not be taken for granted. You can get the source
and patch the code if you really need that feature - then post the patch and
eventually it will make it into the mainstream. Alternatively, vote for the bug
and get others to do it.

FYI this is relevant for more than IMAP---it holds for POP too. The main
problem is that in the absence of an attachment icon, the implication is that
there _isn't_ an associated attachment; there is no way for the user to
distinguish between "not enough information" and "this message doesn't have an
attachment."

It seems that the old (KDE3) Kontact must have maintained some type of database
that stored information about the status of each message (attachment,
reply/forward, etc). Wouldn't it be possible to migrate that database when the
user upgrades to KDE4? Presumably it's too late for those of us who have
already upgraded?

I for one would appreciate a script that went through all the messages once and
fixed their status. I even helped write such a script for a different purpose
(migrating UTC->localized times in korganizer, see bug 165212), but in this
case I don't yet know enough about how this information is stored to help out.

It is a BIG usability issue !!!