[AvvY]

On my site I am offering some guides which at .htm/l based with screen shots and all that other fancy mumbo jumbo, but I also have written versions of the guides as .txt format - these versions I want people to be able to save to their HDD for future use.

I have set it up so that you click an image and it links to the .txt files, but all it does is display the .txt file like you would a web page- same formatting of course.

how is it that I make it so when you click the image a little "save as" box pops up and lets you save it to your HDD like it would with an .exe file from sourceforge.net - for example?

Late,

[BillC]

This might give you some ideas that are useful. http://www.ossweb.com/article-16.html

[AvvY]

So basically I will need to zip the .txt files? - I thought that would probably be an easy solution. Thanx,

Late,

[Elvandil]

The easiest thing to do without reconfiguring anything would be to simply post an advisory to use the right-click "Save Target As..." for those who wanted to download the file rather than just view it.

[AvvY]

- Not a bad idea actually too! I will see which will work best in my setup. Thanx for the suggestions!

PS. Elvandil - congrats on becoming a mod, you deserve it, you have helped me a fair bit since I have been a member .

Late,

[brendandonhu]

If your webhost supports PHP, you can use a simple script to tell the browser to download instead of open it.

[AvvY]

Really? my webhost does support PHP - what kind of scirpt do I need? Do you know anywhere I can get one from?

Late,

[brendandonhu]

Mostly from php.net:

PHP Code:


<?php
ini_set('open_basedir','.');
$file = 'download-this.txt';
header('Content-Description: File Transfer');
header('Content-Type: application/force-download');
header('Content-Length: ' . filesize($filename));
header('Content-Disposition: attachment; filename=' . basename($file));
readfile($file);
?>

For security reasons, its set to only open files in the same directory in the script, but that can be changed.

[Elvandil]

Originally Posted by bigavvystyle

- Not a bad idea actually too! I will see which will work best in my setup. Thanx for the suggestions!

PS. Elvandil - congrats on becoming a mod, you deserve it, you have helped me a fair bit since I have been a member .

Late,

Thanks. Came as something of a surprize to me. You'd be amazed at how much goes on in the background .

I'm not sure what the equivalent to "Save Target As..." is in Mozilla/Firefox, but you may want to post that, too, if you go that route.

Most browsers are configured to load text files rather than download them and you don't need everybody changing their browsers around. And though the zip idea will work, it still surprizes me how many people mention in here that they don't have an unzipper or don't know what to do with it.

The simpler, the better.

[brendandonhu]

The Firefox menu reads "Save Link As" instead of "Save Target As"

[AvvY]

The simpler, the better.

Yeah, very true.

brendan - Thanx so much for the script, but now I am going to be very stupid but ask, what do I do with it? I don't know anything of PHP really. Do I copy that into notepad and save it as a php file? If so what extension? Then how do I incorporate that into the website? I use DreamweaverMX04 mainly - and do hand coding for some parts.

Late,

[brendandonhu]

Notice in the script where I wrote 'download-this-file.txt'
Change the filename to the file you want to download. Save it as a .php file, and upload it to the folder with the txt file in it. Make sure you leave all the quotation marks, etc exactly as I wrote them.

[AvvY]

Ok I did that, but how do I get that .php file to interact with the .htm page that the link is on?

Late,