forcing a download with no pop-ups

andrewpasetti

I'm using a form, which when submitted pops up a window to prompt the user with a "save as" dialog box. The additional pop up page is needed so that I can change the header to match that of the content-type and disposition.

The trouble with using this method is that when the document is saved by the user, a blank widow is left in the foreground -- blocking the view of the main page. Has anyone found a better method of doing this? My client is very specific about having the "save as" window popup, no matter what I say to try and talk them out of it.

Your advice will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

Andrew Pasetti

Drakla

Might be completely understanding you wrong, but are you making the content disposition inline, like:

header("Content-Type: $type");
header("Content-Disposition: inline;filename=$name");
header("Content-Length: ".strlen($data));

I've done similar things, submitting the form to a _blank target which causes a new php script to open, but then because the content is inline appears just like a file download, if you see what I mean.

andrewpasetti

Setting the content disposition to 'inline' instead of 'attachment' causes the document to be loaded in the _blank window. The documents being downloaded from this form can run quite large. Loading them in the window could take a while, with no significant feedback being sent to the user.

This is why the client is asking for the "save as" dialog box to appear when the form is submitted. I used to have a link set up so that the user can simply right-click and save the target. Instructions were even posted on how to do this. But it seems their users cannot figure this out, so they asked for the "save as" box to come up programmatically.

Which leaves me back to my original problem of a open, unused window blocking the focus of the parent window....

Thanks,

Andrew Pasetti