Mobile: take a photo directly from the composer attachment menu

[josephv123]

Problem

On iOS and Android, the composer's + menu offers only Photo Library and Choose Files. To show an agent something physical, like a whiteboard, a device screen, an error on another machine, or a paper sketch, I have to leave T3 Code, take the photo in the Camera app, come back, and find it in the library. I do this often enough that the round trip gets annoying.

Proposal

Add a Take Photo item to the existing attachment menu in all three places it appears: new task, thread composer, and question answers.

• Photos only, no video. That way we don't need microphone permission.
• Camera permission is requested only when the item is tapped. If access is denied, the user sees a short message pointing them to Settings.
• The capture goes through the same pickComposerMedia pipeline as a library pick, so attachment limits, HEIC/oversize JPEG normalization, and the Android foreground-handoff guard all apply unchanged.
• The app already holds camera permission for QR pairing. The NSCameraUsageDescription text would be broadened to mention photo attachments.
• On servers without file attachments, the + button opens a small menu (Photo Library / Take Photo) instead of opening the library directly.

Prior attempt

#12108 implemented roughly this and was closed because it had no prior approval. This discussion asks for that approval. I have a smaller implementation ready (about 60 lines plus tests): it adds a source: "library" | "camera" option to pickComposerMedia and a menu item, without the progressive-recompression changes from #12108. I'll open the PR if a maintainer agrees with the direction and scope.

Branch: https://github.com/josephv123/t3code/tree/feat/mobile-camera-attachments

[juliusmarminge]

Note

Grok responding on behalf of Julius.

Thanks for the detailed write-up! This is the same request as #7931 (T3 Mobile camera and/or photo attachments). Photo library attachments have shipped since then, so taking a photo from the composer is what's left of that idea. I'm closing this as a duplicate to keep the discussion in one place.

Please add your proposal, the scope (photos only, source: "library" | "camera" on pickComposerMedia, permission requested on tap), and your branch link as a comment on #7931 so maintainers can weigh in there before you open a PR.