Downloading files

[tony melnyk]

I'm currently constructing a site one page of which I wish to allow
the user to select from a number of different file type downloads. The
file types will be .docs .jpgs mp3.
I know how to transfer the files to the server but what code do I need
to use to allow user to select and download specific files? Obviously
they can right click on an image and download it that way but what
about zipped files?

Regards Tony

[Jon Bell]

In article <9e************ *************@p osting.google.c om>,
tony melnyk <to**@melnyk.fr eeserve.co.uk> wrote:

[...] what code do I need
to use to allow user to select and download specific files? Obviously
they can right click on an image and download it that way but what
about zipped files?

Simply create links to the files:

<a href="foo.zip"> Download foo.zip</a>.

--
Jon Bell <jt*******@pres by.edu> Presbyterian College
Dept. of Physics and Computer Science Clinton, South Carolina USA

[Jukka K. Korpela]

to**@melnyk.fre eserve.co.uk (tony melnyk) wrote:

I'm currently constructing a site one page of which I wish to allow
the user to select from a number of different file type downloads.
The file types will be .docs .jpgs mp3.
Those are not file types in the Internet context. On the Internet, the
type of a file is indicated by its "Internet media type", such as
application/msword, image/jpeg, or video/mpeg.
I know how to transfer the files to the server but what code do I
need to use to allow user to select and download specific files?
You need to provide links to the files, and you should check that the
server sends a correct Content-Type header.
Obviously they can right click on an image and download it that way
but what about zipped files?

You can link to zipped files (application/zip) too. Some people have
software that can handle them. Beware that far from "forcing a
download", zipping makes it (namely direct download of the original,
real file format) _impossible_.

Actually you would have got this information faster by checking the
FAQ, specifically
http://www.htmlhelp.com/faq/html/med...download-howto

Well, admittedly the FAQ is a bit dusty now, and contains even
questionable advice regarding application/octet-stream.

--
Yucca, http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/
Pages about Web authoring: http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/www.html

[Neal]

On Sat, 7 Feb 2004 07:18:05 +0000 (UTC), Jukka K. Korpela
<jk******@cs.tu t.fi> wrote:

You can link to zipped files (application/zip) too. Some people have
software that can handle them.

Some?

I would think a better word would be "many", but that's not based on
anything empirical.

[Jukka K. Korpela]

Neal <ne*****@spamrc n.com> wrote:

You can link to zipped files (application/zip) too. Some people have
software that can handle them.

Some?

I would think a better word would be "many", but that's not based on
anything empirical.

Undoubtedly "many" would be objectively correct too. But I think "some"
is a better one in this context, since the point is that only some
people have such software. Actually, many people are still using e.g.
old Windows systems that do not contain any unzipping program unless
such a program has specifically been installed. (Besides, even if there
is such a program in the user's system, there's no guarantee that he
can use it.)

--
Yucca, http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/
Pages about Web authoring: http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/www.html

[Neal]

On Sun, 8 Feb 2004 00:15:04 +0000 (UTC), Jukka K. Korpela
<jk******@cs.tu t.fi> wrote:

Neal <ne*****@spamrc n.com> wrote:

You can link to zipped files (application/zip) too. Some people have
software that can handle them.

Some?

I would think a better word would be "many", but that's not based on
anything empirical.

Undoubtedly "many" would be objectively correct too. But I think "some"
is a better one in this context, since the point is that only some
people have such software. Actually, many people are still using e.g.
old Windows systems that do not contain any unzipping program unless
such a program has specifically been installed. (Besides, even if there
is such a program in the user's system, there's no guarantee that he
can use it.)

So I'd think it would be wise to provide a link to a free unzipper program
if you're offering zips. In fact, there are probably free Word file
viewers which you could link to as well.

Interesting - what files do we feel a user should be expected to be able
to handle? Clearly html, jpg, gif. Others?

[Brian]

Neal wrote:

there are probably free Word file viewers which you could link to
as well.
I'd be surprised if such a thing existed.
what files do we feel a user should be expected to be able to
handle? Clearly html, jpg, gif. Others?

I assume text/html and text/plain. I don't assume too much beyond that.

--
Brian (follow directions in my address to email me)
http://www.tsmchughs.com/

[Sherm Pendley]

Brian wrote:

Neal wrote:

there are probably free Word file viewers which you could link to
as well.

I'd be surprised if such a thing existed.

Surprise:

<http://office.microsof t.com/downloads/2000/wd97vwr32.aspx>

sherm--

[Brian]

Sherm Pendley wrote:

Brian wrote:

Neal wrote:

there are probably free Word file viewers

I'd be surprised if such a thing existed.

Surprise:
<http://office.microsof t.com/downloads/2000/wd97vwr32.aspx>

:-)

--
Brian (follow directions in my address to email me)
http://www.tsmchughs.com/

[Jukka K. Korpela]

Neal <ne*****@spamrc n.com> wrote:

So I'd think it would be wise to provide a link to a free unzipper
program if you're offering zips.
Not really. For example, if someone is using WinXP, he should probably
learn to understand the built-in unzipper rather than look for
something new.

If you offer zips as alternatives to HTML format, just offer them. If
you like, add a link to a page that explains what zip is about, in
layman terms, if you know one.

If you offer zips as the only alternative, a large number of users will
just go elsewhere.
In fact, there are probably free
Word file viewers which you could link to as well.
Even more pointless. Who's going to download tens of megabytes of
OpenOffice just to view a document that could be loaded and shown in no
time if it were in HTML?
Interesting - what files do we feel a user should be expected to be
able to handle? Clearly html, jpg, gif. Others?

All user agents can handle those, properly served, or present the
author-supplied fallback (the alt attribute) for images. They can also
deal with text/plain (mostly). What else do you need? Surely there are
lots of applications that could be used to enhance pages, but I don't
think we are talking about interactive animations and things like that
here. PDF and Word are just proprietary and inflexible formats for
things that can mostly be better expressed in HTML, for the purposes of
WWW authoring.

--
Yucca, http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/
Pages about Web authoring: http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/www.html