HTML Question -- Binary Downloads

[Janina Sajka]

Hi, David:

Thanks for your thoughts--and Happy New Year to you.

I have the following response to my question from the ma-linux list which 
sounds correct to me, and have already forwarded my request on to Kirk:

>From jamesjuran at alumni.psu.edu Tue Jan  1 12:26:57 2002
From: James Juran <jamesjuran at alumni.psu.edu>

You need to make sure the server generates the proper Content-type HTTP
header.  You need to make sure this gets set correctly by Apache to
something like application/octet-stream.  It's then up to the browser to
decide what to do with files of type application/octet-stream.  The
default configuration in most browsers will give you the standard
Download/Save/Cancel options.

For information on setting this up in Apache, see
http://httpd.apache.org/docs/mod/mod_mime.html .

--
James Juran
jamesjuran at alumni.psu.edu

On Tue, 1 Jan 2002, David Poehlman wrote:

> Hi there janina!
> I might be able to help, but first, have you found any pages that
> proffer this with the the extention you are trying to code for?  It
> seems that your lynx is seeing .iso as some sort of readable text.  This
> may be changeable on your end but I wouldn't begin to know how to do it.
> I know for instance, with ie, .pdf, .txt, .doc and many others act this
> way unless you jump through hoops to prevent it.  The most relyable way
> I have found to provide file transferrability is to make zip or exe the
> extention even if it is not really the extention and depending on how
> the server is configured, you may have to use ftp:// in the hreff.
> 
> I hope this helps.
> 
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Janina Sajka" <janina at afb.net>
> To: <speakup at braille.uwo.ca>; <ma-linux at tux.org>
> Sent: Tuesday, January 01, 2002 11:42 AM
> Subject: HTML Question -- Binary Downloads
> 
> 
> Can someone tell me what determines whether a hyperlinked file will be
> treated as a text page to be retrieved and rendered as opposed to a
> binary
> file to be downloaded and saved?
> 
> I'm writing a HOWTO and want to point to downloadable image files with
> hyperlinks, but my links aren't working correctly. I've tried both
> http://
> and ftp:// addressing, but always get the same result--my iso images are
> grabbed as though they were text. What I'm wanting is the lynx screen
> that
> says "Download or Cancel."
> 
> Is this a permissions issue? A server-side Apache configuration issue?
> I'm
> stumped.
> 
> 
> All help most gratefully appreciated.
> 
> 
> --
> 
> Janina Sajka, Director
> Technology Research and Development
> Governmental Relations Group
> American Foundation for the Blind (AFB)
> 
> Email: janina at afb.net Phone: (202) 408-8175
> 
> Chair, Accessibility SIG
> Open Electronic Book Forum (OEBF)
> http://www.openebook.org
> 
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> 
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> 
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-- 
	
				Janina Sajka, Director
				Technology Research and Development
				Governmental Relations Group
				American Foundation for the Blind (AFB)

Email: janina at afb.net		Phone: (202) 408-8175

Chair, Accessibility SIG
Open Electronic Book Forum (OEBF)
http://www.openebook.org