Creating a Hyperlink to a Download

[hellocme]

First of all, I know very little about JavaScript. I hardly use it, so I never bothered to learn it. Currently I'm working on a page that requires a link the leads to a file to be downloaded. This script is what I thought would work, but it isn't...
javascript:Download()

Please help!

Thank you!

[valeria_vi]

why don't you just put the link to the file in an <a> tag? teh browser should recognize the file type and begin teh download on its own. for example:
<a href="blah.doc"> should automatically open teh document in ms word.
<a href="blah.zip"> should automatically download teh ip file to your computer

[krycek]

oh dear! :D

you don't need javascript, just put the url of the file you want to download inside a link tag.

<a href="myfiletodownload.mp3">Download myfile</a>

There are other ways, of course, but that one is very simple :)

::] krycek [::

[beetle]

Previous topic (http://www.codingforums.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=5085&highlight=force+save+as+dialog) regarding using JS to do this.

[hellocme]

Thanks for the quick responses. :thumbsup:

When I use a regular hyplerlink, since it's a .txt file, it just opens in the window.

Any other suggestions?

[glenngv]

<a href="view-source:http://mydomain/somefile.txt">View Text File</a>

replace appropriate absolute path of the text file

That will open the file in Notepad. Is this what you want?
If not and you want the download prompt displayed, you need a server-side language to do it. If you don't want, just zip the file and use a regular link.

[hellocme]

I don't mean to sound totally dumb - but what is server side language?

Thanks! :thumbsup:

[glenngv]

server-side language like ASP, JSP, PHP, etc
here is an article that tackles each of these languages.
http://www.webmasterbase.com/article/546