NYCPHP Meetup

[Marc Antony Vose]

I may be wrong, but I think the only reason you're seeing the save 
as... dialog in Netscape is because the Adobe Acrobat web browser 
plugin doesn't run in Netscape anymore.  AFAIK (and according to the 
system requirements), Acrobat seems to be implemented in ActiveX now, 
which will only work (on Windows) in IE.

http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/acrrsystemreqs.html#60win

So what I'm saying is that your script isn't what's controlling this; 
if the plugin was functioning in Netscape, NS would display it 
inline, too.

To illustrate this, forget about PDF for a second, and pretend it's a 
JPEG.  Try forcing a download of a JPEG.  I don't believe you can do 
it, because the client-side browser controls how it will handle JPEGs 
(i.e., whether it will display inline or send to another viewer).

Of course, as I said, I may be wrong.  :)

Marc Antony Vose
http://www.suzerain.com/

The cost of liberty is less than the price of repression.
-- W.E.B. Du Bois




>My question:
>Anyone got a working runaround suggestion to force file downloads on IE?
>
>My issue(s):
>I am using PHP to write HTTP headers to force pdf file download to user
>roughly as follows:
>
>blah, authenticate user, blah, select $file, blah... then push with...
>
>header ("Content-Type: application/octet-stream");
>header("Content-Transfer-Encoding: Binary");
>header("Content-Length: $iFileSize");
>header ("Content-Disposition: attachment; filename=$iFileName");
>readfile("$file");
>
>Netscape conforms and opens the Save As... dialog as expected. IE6 messes up
>the content-disposition header and opens the download inline in the browser
>without prompting user to Save As...
>
>Seems regardless, of content-type header specified:
>application/octet-stream
>application/force-download
>application/pdf
>
>IE will mess it up. This is a known issue. Best run around I've seen so far
>is to .Zip the files, in which case IE offers the Save As... on the
>download. Don't want to zip em.
>
>Thoughts?
>
>Warmest regards,
>
>Peter Sawczynec, Technology Director
>PSWebcode -- Web Development and
>Site Architecture
>psaw at pswebcode.com
>www.pswebcode.com
>718.543.3240
>
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