Attachment of links to documents to bills, invoices, credit notes in addition to attachment to transactions

[DaveC49]

Bug 780112 requested attachment of a link to a document to an invoice rather
than the current link attachment
(http://gnucash.1415818.n4.nabble.com/Bug-336843-Attach-files-to-Transactions-td4665357.html)
which is to the transaction created by the invoice. However that transaction
doesn't exist before the invoice is posted so the link cannot be attached.
Once the invoice is posted, the file link cannot be attached as the
transaction cannot be edited while the invoice is posted and if it is
unposted the associated transaction disappears again. This is not very
useful for transactions from invoices (and presumably bills).

My own use case is one in which I would normally want to associate an
external (image or pdf) of an invoice ( sent to a customer) or bill (invoice
received from a vendor) with the invoice or bill record internally in
Gnucash.  It makes more sense to me to associate the external file with an
invoice or bill or credit note rather than with the transaction, at least
for business users. 

For non business users where bills or invoices are not or may be rarely
used, the current attachment to a transaction works fine ( at least under
ubuntu16.04/Linux Mint).

I would propose also including a link in the invoice/bill/credit note using
the same KVP mechanism that John Ralls suggested to Patrick in the above
thread  and including a process for setting the link in the invoice dialog
and displaying it on the View Invoice tab. I am not sure how the field
locking works at present however the customer details appear to be editable
and changes persist if a posted invoice is closed and then reopened. I am
guessing from this that it should be possible to make non accounting fields 
which are not directly associated with the transaction editable in an
invoice/bill/credit note and able to follow the link if it is clicked.

I am interested in attempting to code this as a means of getting my feet wet
in Gnucash's code. I would appreciate any feedback about whether this is
desirable/redundant or whatever before spending too much time on it.
Cheers

David Cousens



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