Auto-Download tags/function?
George Phillips <phillips@cs.ubc.ca>
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Date: Wed, 18 May 1994 20:52:27 +0200
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From: George Phillips <phillips@cs.ubc.ca>
To: Multiple recipients of list <www-talk@www0.cern.ch>
Subject: Auto-Download tags/function?
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John Lewis writes:
>I'm interested in some sort of tag or code which alerts the browser that a
>particular file is for downloading to the local machine only, such as .zip
>or .hqx files, so when the link is clicked, it automatically activates the
>"load to disk" or similar function and prompts for destination on the local
>drive(s).
Yes, this feature have been available for some time. It existed in
Mosaic 1.x for X in hack form: URLs ending in ".saveme" or ".dump"
automatically activated its "save file" dialog box. It is in there
(and in lynx and probably others) in a more reasonable form. The
MIME type "application/octet-stream" causes a save-file dialog.
I use it quite a bit; see http://www.cs.ubc.ca/ftp for one example.
So it all boils down to convincing your server to send the right
MIME type. You can add a new suffix, say ".dump" for application/octet-stream
and do things like:
ln -s file.gif file.dump
However, that raises a small issue in what the browser gives as a default
name for the file. You'd rather have "file.gif" than "file.dump".
One possibility I explored that if "_download_" appears in the local
file name, it triggers the app../oct.. MIME type. So you can do stuff
like:
mkdir _download_; cd _download_
ln -s ../*.gif .
In the best of all worlds, the browsers would understand
Content-Type: application/octet-stream; name="foo.gif"
and life would be easier.