HTML5 introduced a nice feature for marking <a> links as download endpoints, by simply adding download attribute to the <a> tag (see description).
Is it possible to do the same for HTML forms?
Here is a simple use case for example: I have a form that requests the user for some details, and after the user submits the form the server should return a file according to these details.
This is not possible.
According to the specification is the "download" attribute only specified for a and area.
http://www.w3.org/html/wg/drafts/html/master/links.html#downloading-resources
No, form doesn't have a download attribute, so it is not possible to have that exact behavior with a form.
You can set the output file name through a post though, by setting the Content-Disposition HTTP header:
Content-Disposition: attachment; filename="yourPicture.png"
Yes after submitting data you can return file in form of pdf or else.
By using header function
<?php
//create pdf with details
.....
.
.
// We'll be outputting a PDF
header('Content-type: application/pdf');
// It will be called downloaded.pdf
header('Content-Disposition: attachment; filename="downloaded.pdf"');
?>
But this is not possible using download attribute
Related
I am offering a pdf document in the form of a download from my website via a landing page.
I want to hide the URL/link that displays in the address bar and when i hover over the download button on the web page so that the link cant be shared.
What is the best way to do this? Please explain carefully.
Thanks
Ok, you cannot do that with plain HTML. You can use all kind of tricks but they can be a problem to the user experience, you are to use a server side language.
What you can do is create a php page, name it the way you want (let's say download.php), and link to that one. The page should be something like this:
// Path to the file
$path = '/home/folder/yourfile.pdf';
// This is based on file type of $path, but not always needed
$mm_type = "application/octet-stream";
//Set headers
header("Pragma: public");
header("Expires: 0");
header("Cache-Control: must-revalidate, post-check=0, pre-check=0");
header("Cache-Control: public");
header("Content-Description: File Transfer");
header("Content-Type: " . $mm_type);
header("Content-Length: " .(string)(filesize($path)) );
header('Content-Disposition: attachment; filename="'.basename($path).'"');
header("Content-Transfer-Encoding: binary\n");
// Outputs the content of the file
readfile($path);
exit();
This way you just link to your download.php page and it downloads/opens the PDF, like so:
Download
Edited based on BenjaminC suggestions
The other chance you have is to connect this to a database. The database has a table named downloads_table and inside you have 2 fields:
secret: char(32)
downloaded: int(1) dafault 0
Then you create an md5 string
$secret = md5(rand(1000, 9999999));
Place it inside the secret field, create the link:
Download
The user receives/sees a link, when pressed you are to edit the first line of the above code to check in the db if downloaded field = to 0 than procede to download, otherwise the person sees an error page.
This is so that it can be downloaded only once.
(Edit)
If in the future, this gets useful for anyone, the functionality can be seen in this fiddle: https://jsfiddle.net/aznjr87g/
It downloads 2.1.3 jquery.min.js from google.
(Edit end)
This can be achieved using Html5 's Download attribute.
Download PDF
If you hover your mouse over that, it simply shows yoursite.com/#
Place this somewhere in the body of the webpage:
And place this somewhere in the webpage:
<script>
function download() {
document.getElementById("download").src = "/path/to/download";
}
<script>
Then, on the element of the button (In the example of a div) do this in the tag:
<div onclick="download()"> </div>
However if it's a link you will want to do:
An element needs a href to work properly.
I have a page (specifically, a Chrome developer extension) used for debugging client installations of some software. If clients need more help for a specific problem that they are observing, we want them to be able to email us with documentation of the problem.
Is there a way for a mailto to add (as an attachment or a frame within the email body) a file of the current html page the mailto is on? The page is dynamically generated locally, so it would be preferable if the page didn't have to be uploaded anywhere but the email.
Look at this w3schools example: http://www.w3schools.com/html/tryit.asp?filename=tryhtml_links_mailto_subject
(formatted excerpt, you will want the href="" to be all on one line)
<a href="
mailto:someone#example.com?cc=someoneelse#example.com
&bcc=andsomeoneelse#example.com&subject=Summer%20Party
&body=You%20are%20invited%20to%20a%20big%20summer%20party!" target="_top">
Send mail!
</a>
You can use javaScript to insert into the link the page as you need.
EDIT:
Just noticed that you might want to be careful with 'larger' pages, as there is a limit to how long a GET request (which this is) can be: maximum length of HTTP GET request?
tl:dr:
You might want to narrow the scope of what code is included if you use this method
Short answer: No.
The mailto in an a tag is only used to specify a link to an email, not the contents of said email. You would need to use some sort of server-side AJAX call. I would recommending using PHP's mail() function if you can.
Example
You would need to set the email header to be HTML compliant.
So, if you're using the PHP mail() function:
$headers = "From: " . strip_tags($_POST['req-email']) . "\r\n";
$headers .= "Reply-To: ". strip_tags($_POST['req-email']) . "\r\n";
$headers .= "CC: susan#example.com\r\n";
$headers .= "MIME-Version: 1.0\r\n";
$headers .= "Content-Type: text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1\r\n";
mail("target#something.com", "subject", "PLACE HTML HERE", $headers);
Then you could theoretically just pass off in the AJAX request all of the data from the page:
$.ajax({
url: "http://my.url.com/endpoint/",
method: "POST",
data: {
page: $("html").html()
}
});
Which you would then just embed somewhere in the email, or straight into the body. You could even add extra data for the GET and POST parameters present.
Note
While I can see this being used for some debugging, a lot of errors are caused via Javascript failing in some way or your PHP/server-side code failing. I'd recommend that whatever path you choose, including one I haven't covered, you should also include data from the console, POST, and GET variables if you have access to those (although be careful not to expose the POST and GET variables unnecessarily).
There are also a lot of tools like Chrome Remote Desktop that can help you view specific errors and problems that users are experiencing.
Alternately, to get around the mail() function, you could have embedded debugging Javascript which can dynamically send debugging information from their browser (via an AJAX request) to a server, that intercepts it for you to analyze and debug.
its not possible to include attachments using mailto:
one way to do this is to use mailto: to create a text message with two links:
the page url
the url of a png capture of the page.
there are chrome apis to capture the screen, and you can use your server or something like imgur to save the capture. probably better to use your own server that receives the images as imgur could be a privacy concern for your users.
It seems like a full answer is impossible, but I thought I'd share the route I took.
I have a button with id='save-log'. In the page where I add all the necessary events, I have
document.getElementById('save-log').addEventListener('click',
function(e){
chrome.runtime.sendMessage({
log: document.body.innerHTML
});
}
);
Then in a background page I have
chrome.runtime.onMessage.addListener(
function(message, sender, sendResponse) {
chrome.tabs.create({
url: "save-log.html?" + message.log
});
}
);
And finally, in save-log.html I have the necessary styling information, with an empty body, and run the script:
document.write(decodeURIComponent(location.search.substring(1)));
Now there's a new tab with a full copy of the developer extension panel, and the user can save the html page and send it to whoever they want.
In my website I stream users mp4 content. I also allow users to download.
However in Chrome it seems to automatically play the file in an internal player instead of downloading the file.
How do I force the browser to download the file instead.
Regards and thanks
Craig
You have to use the HTTP header "Content-Disposition" and 'Content-Type: application/force-download' which will force browser to download the content instead of displaying it there.
Depending upon the server side language you are having the implementation differs. In case of
PHP:
header('Content-Disposition: attachment; filename="'.$nameOfFile.'"');
will do the job for you.
Ofcourse to simplify and generalize this for all your files, you may need to write a method which will route a link to downloadable content.
The link you can show in the html will be like:
Click here to Download Hello.mp4
And in the server side, you need a script which is being called on /downloadFile (depending on your routing), get the file by id and send it to user as an attachment.
<?php
$fileId = $_POST['id'];
// so for url http://yoursite.com/downloadFile?id=1234 will download file
// /pathToVideoFolder/1234.mp4
$filePath = "/pathToVideoFolder/".$fileId."mp4";
$fileName = $fileId."mp4"; //or a name from database like getFilenameForID($id)
//Assume that $filename and $filePath are correclty set.
header('Content-Description: File Transfer');
header('Content-Disposition: attachment; filename="'.$filename.'"');
header('Content-Type: application/force-download');
readfile($filePath);
Here 'Content-Type: application/force-download' will force the browser to show the download option no matter what's the default setting is for a mime-type.
No matter what your server side technology is, the headers to look out for are:
'Content-Description: File Transfer'
'Content-Type: application/force-download'
'Content-Disposition: attachment; filename="myfile.mp4"
Sounds like you are using a direct href to the mp4. If you are using any server side languages (i.e.asp.net, php, etc) language on your website you can force a download. In asp or .net you can use HttpHandlers with "content-disposition","attachment; filename=fname.ext"
or return File() ActionResult in MVC. Let me know if you can use any server side code and I can provide some code.
Alternatively you can try the html5 download attribute: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTML/Element/a?redirectlocale=en-US&redirectslug=HTML%2FElement%2Fa#attr-download
i.e. <a href="http://www.w3schools.com/images/myw3schoolsimage.jpg" download="downloadfilename">
Or, try javascript/jQuery. Here is a plugin: http://johnculviner.com/jquery-file-download-plugin-for-ajax-like-feature-rich-file-downloads/
Setting the Content-Disposition header should fix it.
Content-Disposition: attachment; filename=whatever.mp4;
Either in the server settings or in the preprocessing of the page.
if you want a cross browser solution
you need a server-side code to download the file
example:
I am working on jsp technology, if you can use jsp in your website you can try the following code in the file download.jsp:
<%# page import="java.io.*, java.lang.*, java.util.*" %>
<%
String filename=request.getParameter("filename");
response.setContentType("application/octet-stream");
response.setHeader("Content-Disposition",
"attachment;filename="+filename);
%>
<%
/*
File file = new File(filepath+filename );*/
String path = getServletContext().getRealPath("/mp4/"+filename);
File file = new File(path);
FileInputStream fileIn = new FileInputStream(file);
ServletOutputStream out1 = response.getOutputStream();
byte[] outputByte = new byte[4096];
//copy binary contect to output stream
while(fileIn.read(outputByte, 0, 4096) != -1)
{
out1.write(outputByte, 0, 4096);
}
fileIn.close();
out1.flush();
out1.close();
%>
you can put the code above in a file: download.jsp
then in your page links you will use it like:
song1
with my best wishes to you
You can get it done in a couple of ways. I'm not sure you use IIS or apache and which server side language you are using, but the techniques are similar for all.
You can add the MIME type application/octect-stream to the extension .mp4 in your IIS or apache, sothat all files with extension .mp4 will be shown with a download prompt. This is the most easy and sure fire way of showing the "download" prompt.
Plz see the example below.
http://www.codingstaff.com/learning-center/other/how-to-add-mime-types-to-your-server
In the above example, instead of setting video/mp4 fpr .mp4 extensions, change it to application/octect-stream
Also, the same can be done via server side code as well, (PHP code). The code will be similar with ASP.NET also,please google for "force file download"
$file_url = 'http://www.myremoteserver.com/file.mp4';
header('Content-Type: application/octet-stream');
header("Content-Transfer-Encoding: Binary");
header("Content-disposition: attachment; filename=\"" . basename($file_url) . "\"");
readfile($file_url);
Why not simply use download attribute? Today is the simplest way.
<a href="/images/myw3schoolsimage.jpg" download>
See more here.
My application generates a dynamic link to any PDF files that are associated with a product. The link is presented like this:
Brochure
If the user right-clicks and selects "Download Linked File As" (or its equivalent), the file is presented with a ".pdf.png" extension in Google Chrome and Safari. Firefox works appropriately, not sure about Internet Explorer.
I want Firefox and Chrome to know that it is a PDF. Because obviously users are going to try to download these, they are going to save it with the wrong extension, and they won't be able to open the file.
Assuming you are using "send_data" from within a rails controller to serve the file might I suggest:
send_data(
data,
:filename => "filename.pdf",
:disposition => "attachment",
:type => 'application/pdf'
)
Where "data" is the contents of the PDF.
For more information checkout the following link:
http://api.rubyonrails.org/classes/ActionController/DataStreaming.html#method-i-send_data
send proper headers in some scripting lang like php or user .htaccess
<Files *.pdf>
ForceType application/pdf
Header set Content-Disposition attachment
</Files>
Have you heard of the content-disposition header? It allows you to tell the browser to ask the user what to do with the file, rather than try and handle it by itself. I don't think it is part of the HTTP spec, but it is documented by the IETF under RFC 2183.
You should be able to use whatever language you are using to alter the HTTP headers before they go to the client. The header you add will look something like this:
Content-Disposition: attachment; filename=filename.pdf
You might also need a Content-Type header:
Content-Type: application/pdf
How do you actually download a picture when you click on it? Is there some kind of a javascript code to do just that? Here is how i show the image with pure HTML.
<img src="myPic.png" border="0">
Assuming by "download" you mean "Cause the user's browser to throw up the 'save or open' dialogue" — you can't.
You could link to another URL offering the same file but with the Content-Disposition header set to attachment. The specifics of how you would provide such a resource at that URL would depend on the server side capabilities on offer to you.
Most people right-click on the image and choose "Save image as..."
The alternate is to link to use a server-side script that sets a "Content-type" and "Content-disposition" header. In PHP, that would be something like this example from the docs:
header('Content-Type: image/png'); // or 'image/jpg' or 'image/gif'
header('Content-Disposition: attachment; filename="filename.png"');
readfile('original.png');
UPDATE: Since you say the image is generated by a PHP script in the first place, there are a few options:
Put the URL (sig.php?...) as the parameter to readfile. This will mean double processing for anyone who clicks to download.
Cache the output from your image generation script to the filesystem, then pass that file to readfile.
Edit the image generation script to accept an extra parameter like mode=download and then where you are about to output the image, if the parameter is present, set those two headers above.
I trick this out a bit - I zip the picture and put it somewhere. Then, instead of using a fancy script or server-side stuff, I make the picture's link the location of the .zip file. The user get's warned/asked if they want to download this zip and voila...
But this is usually in an area where the user is someone who would want the image...
Do you want to open the picture in a new window/tab? Or do you want to download it to the users computer? If you want the user to save the image, then you need to set the content-type of the file they receive:
<?php
$file = $_GET['file'];
header("Content-Type: application/octet-stream; ");
header("Content-Transfer-Encoding: binary");
header('Content-Disposition: attachment; filename="'.basename($file).'"');
readfile($file);
?>
Remember to check the input so people can't download source files.