Email attachment limits

Why is this not a done deed?

How many of you out there know someone who simply wants to send pictures by email but has no clue about how big the darn things are? Attach, attach, clickety-click and then off goes a 10mb email... Man this is crazytown. Why is there no thought given to this for email clients like kmail and evolution?

This is a cry-out to the boffins to please (pretty, pretty please) create some kind of layer between the images attached and the email sent that will:

1. Compress them in scale and size to a target size (see Phatch if you think this can't be done!)
2. Limit the total Kb size of all the attachments so that it tells Aunt Sue, "Please remove a few pictures because this email is too big to send."

This kind of solution should involve both routes of the attachment-equation: Sending-to-email from a file browser, and attaching from a new mail message.

I have crafted two (horrible) solutions to the second route, one for kmail and another for evolution. I can't get my brain around how to do this from the first route -- the answer for evolution is some kind of plugin, but that's a step too far for me right now.

My solutions for kmail and evolution can be a subject for another blog if anyone is interested...

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