Expose which posts/messages a file has been attached to/embedded in

[peteburtis]

I realize this may be a tall order…

Right now, if a user goes into an app like FileBase intending to free up file storage space, there's very little feedback I can give as far as what the consequences of deleting a particular file will be.

When a file is public, I can warn that deleting the file will destroy any public links the user may have created. But not so when a (private) file is embedded in a post.

If the user deletes a file embedded in a post without realizing it, this will irreparably destroy a little piece of their timeline history. It really deserves a warning.

Also, often in my file storage I have two or three of the same file in a row, resulting from a false start or two before I'm finally ready to post. Right now there's no great way to know which file is the one that took and which one isn't.

What would be awesome would be an array of post and message ids, returned as part of the file object, pointing to the posts and messages that reference the file.

What would be better than nothing would be an is_referenced_somewhere: 1 flag.

I could envision adding a little paper clip icon next to the public globe icon in FileBase when a file is being referenced by another ADN object, and also popping up a warning dialog when the user deletes such a file.

[kosso]

I use a file annotation to provide the details of the OP a file is attached to.