[MrNoSox]

Erica Utilities, while a great set of tools, is cumbersome to use for the average user. Take sendFileByMail. For someone who needs to send attachments to clients on the go, it's not easy to type out a file path in terminal while sitting at a red light, or in the middle of a meeting and you need to send that file right at that moment (if you're like me, by the time you get to your computer and deal with the hundreds of other things, you have forgotten to send the file).

I'm talking, of course, about files that you email to people on a regular basis, ie sales sheets, logos (eps), authorization forms. You know, business crap.

How hard would it be to develop sendFileByMail into an actual app where you can just navigate to a certain folder, or just have a default folder where you keep files you send regularly,0 and subfolders and select file(s) to attach to an email?

SendSong is a great app that does this with music. Would it be possible to combine the two apps?

I'd certainly DONATE to have this created.

[custom2005altima]

Great idea! Hopefully one of these genius programers can come up with something.

[suleiman]

We already have a sendsong application on the iphone.

Of course the differences between doing that and this are substantial:

1) There is no "My Documents/Documents" folder on the Mac. While there is an iTunes song library folder.

2) Sending songs is super cool. Sending documents on the other hand...not so cool.

I see 2 as being a real obstacle. Perhaps someone can finagle their way around 1.

[MrNoSox]

Originally Posted by suleiman

We already have a sendsong application on the iphone.

Of course the differences between doing that and this are substantial:

1) There is no "My Documents/Documents" folder on the Mac. While there is an iTunes song library folder.

2) Sending songs is super cool. Sending documents on the other hand...not so cool.

I see 2 as being a real obstacle. Perhaps someone can finagle their way around 1.

I know there is a SendSong app. I'm saying that, especially since it was written by the same people (Erica Sadun?) that do sendFileByMail, that maybe it wouldn't be as hard to implement this type of application because most of the work is already done. Of course, I'm not a programmer so I have no idea.

1. This already has a solution. You can point an application to a default folder. We've seen this with both NES.app and EBook reader. Granted you have to create the folders yourself, but once you create them in var/root/Media that is where those apps read from.

And there is a default folder "on the Mac" to store documents and surprisingly enough it's called "Documents". This folder is not, however, on the iPhone by default.

2. Sending documents may not be "cool" but it is something that is necessary for those of us that use our "smart" phone for business as well as pleasure and believe me, there are A LOT of us out there

thanks for your reply.

[moof]

I'll make the same offer as on the ToDo list with the understanding that I have *very* limited time. If you want to organize yourselves to contribute money to a particular Guatemalan Relief organization I support[1], I can probably make this happen.

[1] Faith in Practice. It's a bunch of Dentists and Surgeons who fly down to Guatemala and deliver free medical care. It's not my faith but they do an awesome job.

[suleiman]

MrNoSox, I apologize if my response seemed curt, I was only messing around

To get straight to the point, I do see where you're coming from but I think you failed to see my point.

There is not, as you pointed out in your reply, and I attempted to point out in my initial post, a "Documents" folder on your iPhone.

Now, is it possible to create that folder via MobileFinder, iFuntastic, or via SFTP? Of course. The problem is that the iPhone was not designed to interface with any such folder.

As a professional web consultant I deal with correspondence that often requires me to send images, pdfs, invoices, you name it. But whenever I need to send those documents I have to pull them out of their respective folder and send them.

If what you're telling me is that we could create a "Documents" folder on the iPhone, then put our files to send into that folder so that we could send them later on, I would ask you why you're spending time putting files from your laptop onto your iPhone when you could just send them from your laptop instead.

Of course there are limited uses of what you are describing. If I were to really make use of an application like this it would need to sport a "synching" feature, whereby it synced the contents of a Documents folder on my laptop with a corresponding folder on the iPhone.

[MrNoSox]

Sorry, suleiman I didn't mean to sound like a jerk. After I re-read my post it did seem jerk-ish.

moof, I'll try to organize it. Faith in Practice sounds very cool. How could we provide proof to you once the donation was made?

suleiman, I don't think it would be neccesary to sync with a documents folder. Nice, yes but not neccesary. Example: the sales people I work with are ALWAYS on duty no matter where they are. Let's say they're at lunch or they've taken a day out of the office. They get a call and it's a potential client and said client wants to see some info ASAP. Well, that sales person can drive back home or, if he has a laptop with him/her, he can find a hot spot. OR, he can email a sales sheet or brochure PDF right there in about 2 minutes.

And I ALWAYS get calls about emailing logos when I'm not at my computer and I don't take my laptop with me when I go out. I don't know why people can't just store the files on their computer, no, they delete them and ask me to send them again 2 weeks later!

So, I see this being very useful.

Okay Folks! moof has said he could probably build this app for us if we can raise a nice donation to Faith in Practice. Here is the guide so we know what kind of donation we need to raise to make a difference...

Giving Guide
Sponsor a Mission Team $25,000
Sponsor a Nurse $1,000
Orthopedic Surgery $600
Cleft-Lip Surgery $400
X-rays for 10 patients $250
Trunk of Supplies $200
Team Transportation/Day $150
Dental Care-10 extractions $75
Antibiotics for 5 patients $25

Here is a link...
http://www.faithinpractice.org/

I sure think this is a worthy cause and VERY noble of moof to donate time to a project so these guys can keep giving medical care to people who really need it. I say let's see how many $25 donations we can get together. Maybe we can hit $200 or MORE!

I'll have to wait a few days on mine because my wife cleaned out my account today but I'll absolutely give my $25.

[moof]

Organize it and just drop me a note at erica@tuaw.com. By the way, moof is the sound made by Clarus the dog-cow, also female.

Here's what's on offer: A UI version of sendFileByMail that looks in /var/root/Documents, lists what is there and allows you to pick an item to send by mail. Agreed?

[suleiman]

MrNoSox, the example that you described perfectly illustrates the problem with this model. It only works for standard static documents you show to potential clients. Past that it's got very limited use.

1) Your client calls you, tells you that they need a copy of the logo.

2) If you had a copy of the logo in your var/root/media/Documents folder perhaps you could send that via moof's application, but how do you know beforehand whether you would need to keep that logo on your iPhone or not?

Before the call you have no idea. And that's the problem I'm targeting here. Unless you kept a repository of all your recent files, or "files that may need to be e-mailed at any point" then there's really limited use to this application.

Now, if the built-in Apple apps, such as Mail.app for example, could be interfaced so that you could actually save files sent to your e-mail accounts instead of only viewing them, then that would slightly impact this situation. Even then, only slightly.

I can picture a scenario where I get a request for a file from a client and I'm on my iPhone. In that case I'm either fortunate enough to have kept a copy of the necessary file(s) in my var/root/media/Documents folder, or I'm out of luck. If Mail.app could save files then maybe somewhere it's been mailed to me in the past and I can save the file then send it along, but then why wouldn't you just forward the relevant email with the attachment(s) on to the client?

I don't mean to trample on the idea, I just want to make sure it gets fully fleshed out before we pay out 50+ dollars for an application only to later realize its limited uses. Keeping 3-4 documents on your iPhone that you always send out may be useful in limited cases. Being able to interface with a Smart Documents folder would put a whole new spin on it.

Originally Posted by MrNoSox

suleiman, I don't think it would be neccesary to sync with a documents folder. Nice, yes but not neccesary. Example: the sales people I work with are ALWAYS on duty no matter where they are. Let's say they're at lunch or they've taken a day out of the office. They get a call and it's a potential client and said client wants to see some info ASAP. Well, that sales person can drive back home or, if he has a laptop with him/her, he can find a hot spot. OR, he can email a sales sheet or brochure PDF right there in about 2 minutes.

And I ALWAYS get calls about emailing logos when I'm not at my computer and I don't take my laptop with me when I go out. I don't know why people can't just store the files on their computer, no, they delete them and ask me to send them again 2 weeks later!

So, I see this being very useful.

Okay Folks! moof has said he could probably build this app for us if we can raise a nice donation to Faith in Practice. Here is the guide so we know what kind of donation we need to raise to make a difference...

Giving Guide
Sponsor a Mission Team $25,000
Sponsor a Nurse $1,000
Orthopedic Surgery $600
Cleft-Lip Surgery $400
X-rays for 10 patients $250
Trunk of Supplies $200
Team Transportation/Day $150
Dental Care-10 extractions $75
Antibiotics for 5 patients $25

Here is a link...
http://www.faithinpractice.org/

I sure think this is a worthy cause and VERY noble of moof to donate time to a project so these guys can keep giving medical care to people who really need it. I say let's see how many $25 donations we can get together. Maybe we can hit $200 or MORE!

I'll have to wait a few days on mine because my wife cleaned out my account today but I'll absolutely give my $25.

[asfrank16]

Originally Posted by suleiman

MrNoSox, the example that you described perfectly illustrates the problem with this model. It only works for standard static documents you show to potential clients. Past that it's got very limited use.

1) Your client calls you, tells you that they need a copy of the logo.

2) If you had a copy of the logo in your var/root/media/Documents folder perhaps you could send that via moof's application, but how do you know beforehand whether you would need to keep that logo on your iPhone or not?

Before the call you have no idea. And that's the problem I'm targeting here. Unless you kept a repository of all your recent files, or "files that may need to be e-mailed at any point" then there's really limited use to this application.

Now, if the built-in Apple apps, such as Mail.app for example, could be interfaced so that you could actually save files sent to your e-mail accounts instead of only viewing them, then that would slightly impact this situation. Even then, only slightly.

I can picture a scenario where I get a request for a file from a client and I'm on my iPhone. In that case I'm either fortunate enough to have kept a copy of the necessary file(s) in my var/root/media/Documents folder, or I'm out of luck. If Mail.app could save files then maybe somewhere it's been mailed to me in the past and I can save the file then send it along, but then why wouldn't you just forward the relevant email with the attachment(s) on to the client?

I don't mean to trample on the idea, I just want to make sure it gets fully fleshed out before we pay out 50+ dollars for an application only to later realize its limited uses. Keeping 3-4 documents on your iPhone that you always send out may be useful in limited cases. Being able to interface with a Smart Documents folder would put a whole new spin on it.

I actually think that the ability to acess documents emailed to you would expand the use of this program greatly. Then you could edit the filed in textedit and send them back to people edited. That is what I would pay for. Although even with this program I could put the files on my iPhone, edit them and then send them back to the client. Yes, I could do it on my computer, but if I need to leave the office (go home, trip, etc.) then I could at least send the files that need to be edited to my iPhone and edit them, and then use this program to mail the files out. So I think it has more uses than just emailing someone a particular document when they ask. It opens up the whole possiblity of editing files on the iPhone. Yes, I could do it online now, but I, for one, prefer doing this directly on my phone. And, as far as I know, none of the online apps can email the document once you are done.

So, if it could access email docs, great. But even if it cannot, still very good.

[win1fight2]

I'm in. Where do I make the donation to make this happen.

[MrNoSox]

Originally Posted by win1fight2

I'm in. Where do I make the donation to make this happen.

Thank you win1flight2!!

Here is the donation page for everyone interested. I'll be donating $25 as soon as I get authorization from my Manager (wife).

https://www.faithinpractice.org/donate.php

Originally Posted by moof

Organize it and just drop me a note at erica@tuaw.com. By the way, moof is the sound made by Clarus the dog-cow, also female.

Here's what's on offer: A UI version of sendFileByMail that looks in /var/root/Documents, lists what is there and allows you to pick an item to send by mail. Agreed?

Sounds great! Perhaps this will be really popular! What kind of goal do we need to set on overall donations for this to be worthwhile?

Are you Erica Sadun? I didn't get that right away. You, madam, do one hell of a job! I don't think anyone can disagree that you have certainly made the iPhone experience even more enjoyable.

[suleiman]

Is there a folder where Mail.app attachments are temporarily downloaded?

If there is, then it would make sense to have this application's default folder be that one.

[MrNoSox]

Originally Posted by suleiman

Is there a folder where Mail.app attachments are temporarily downloaded?

If there is, then it would make sense to have this application's default folder be that one.

Great idea. That does make sense since if this folder exists then surely we could access if through a file browser as well. Any thoughts on this, moof?

[DoocesWild]

I totally like the idea of all of this, but I offer a simple solution.

Why not just simply make sure to set up an IMAP email address, and email yourself all of your logos, and put them into specific folders on your server.

Then all you have to do is open up mail.app, forward the email, and you're done.

Another alternative would be to use something like box.net and store your files online, so all you have to do is give them access to, or can email from your online site. There are lots of sites like box.net that can do what you're looking for.

I'd personally choose either of these two options over paying for something I didn't NEED to pay for. I do love the idea of this program, I truly do. However, I think programmers could develop something else more important to the iPhone (No ideas present)